21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) Read online

  The sleeves of singles often didn’t list tracks as A-side or B-side, instead leading with the main track and tagging the support song as b/w or c/w (backed with and comes with). The A or B would appear on the label of the record itself.

  The vast majority of B-sides would grace the flipside of a 7” single, never to appear anywhere else ever again, but some canny record executives realised the money-making potential of these rare tracks and many big acts have released B-side and rarity compilations over the years as a result.

  One of the perverse things about the B-side, of course, was that many of them never got played at all. You had to physically flip the single over to play it on your turntable, and if you were obsessed with playing Olivia Newton John’s ‘Physical’ over and over again while bouncing around in a leotard, you may never have got round to listening to ‘The Promise (The Dolphin Song)’.

  When consumers moved to favour the CD single during the ’90s, the B-side still hung around, in theory, but with no need to turn over the disc, it just became an extra track or track two, and a lot of the mystique and magic was gone. Of course, with many bands still insisting on issuing vinyl singles, the B-side is still technically around, but no longer holds an important place in the musical firmament.

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  Interludes

  In the early days of television, much of the programming was live, so the schedule was not always as accurate as today. The BBC would often find itself with a bit of time to fill, and fill it they did, with a range of interludes – short films to keep viewers entertained until the next scheduled programme was ready to air.

  The most famous of these is probably The Potter’s Wheel, a five-and-a-half-minute black and while film of a potter (who only had his arms in shot) throwing a pot on a wheel. A quick YouTube search will find the clip today, and very soothing it is, too, accompanied as it is by ‘The Young Ballerina’ composed by Charles Williams, and played by the Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra.

  Other interludes included a spinning wheel, a windmill (the BBC clearly liked things that went round and round) and, by the magic of trick photography, the London to Brighton train run in four minutes. There was also a tropical beach, complete with crashing waves and pleasant breeze, and footage of a kitten playing with some wool and a wastebasket.

  My personal favourites were the drawings and paintings done from scratch. You would see a blank sheet of paper and the artist’s hands, and as the five minutes elapsed an owl or lion would be created in front of your eyes.

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  Green Cross Code Man

  Ask anyone born in the 1960s or 1970s to recite the Green Cross Code and they will almost certainly reply with:

  STOP! LOOK! and LISTEN!

  During the days of public information films, road safety was a message that was constantly being sent out, whether it was by Tufty the squirrel, Alvin Stardust, or Kevin Keegan. But by far the most memorable individual was the green and white superhero, the Green Cross Code Man.

  Across a series of TV commercials he would materialise out of thin air whenever some long-haired urchin tried to cross a stereotypical British street, often into the path of an oncoming Austin Allegro. Saving said oik from certain death, he would remind him of the safe way to cross, using the maxim:

  ‘Always use the Green Cross Code, because I won’t be there when you cross the road.’

  Originally, I am led to believe, he would just say ‘Always use the Green Cross Code’, but that resulted in scores of children (idiots, clearly) running out into roads in the fervent expectation that the Green Cross Code Man would leap out to save them. At least, that’s what the ones who survived claimed. As a result of which they added the second part of the sentence, which conveniently rhymed.

  The films ran from the mid-’70s to 1990, and the Green Cross Code Man was played in each of them by Darth Vader himself, Dave Prowse. Dave, as many of you will know, is from the West Country and has quite a strong regional accent. He was famously dubbed by James Earl Jones in the Star Wars films. Sad to say, he was also dubbed in many of the Green Cross Code clips as well, but that didn’t stop him from undoubtedly saving the lives of thousands of kids.

  Now that’s a real superhero!

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  Television Stations

  When I started researching this entry for the book, I was originally thinking about the regional independent stations of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s that didn’t quite make it to the 21st century, stations such as Thames Television and TVS. But then I realised that we have lost dozens upon dozens of cable and satellite stations since the dawn of such technology.

  Regional ITV franchises were weird things. Every ten years or so, ITV would renew its franchises by getting the existing holders to bid to keep their broadcast licence, while allowing other companies to bid as well. The deal was simple, the company that offered the most money, assuming they passed certain criteria, would get the franchise. These were sealed bids, so no one knew what the other companies were bidding.

  Sounds fair enough, but it did lead to some anomalies. For example, no one ever tried to bid against Granada Television, presumably because they made Coronation Street, the nation’s favourite soap opera at the time, and held the country to ransom over it. Or something like that. Basically, they didn’t pay as much as other stations, and didn’t have to worry about being outbid.

  Other regions, such as London and the South East, were hotbeds of competition, and this meant that from time to time the TV channel you were used to watching vanished completely. I remember when Thames changed to Carlton but you may have lived in a region covered by TVS, Tyne Tees, or HTV; each of which is no more.

  It may seem like a small thing but when your childhood of TV watching is punctuated by the same TV ident every day – such as Thames Television’s London skyline emerging from the River Thames – then their passing is worthy of note.

  But like I said, there have been loads more casualties in recent years. Do you remember any of these?

  Auction World TV, Bravo, Carlton Food Network, Comedy Channel, ITV News, L!ve TV, Lifestyle, Men & Motors, Open Access, Teachers TV, UK Horizons.

  And what about Landscape? It was around in the early days of satellite television. New age music played along to moody videos of birds in flight or paradise beaches.

  There are plenty more, but time to move on.

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  The Watershed

  Yes, I know it still technically exists and, don’t worry, I am not about to come over all Mary Whitehouse on you, but I am sure many of you remember the days when the watershed actually used to mean something.

  No swearing, no tits, no arses, no willies, and definitely no female private parts before 9pm. TV stations would also avoid any themes of a remotely adult nature and films would often be edited and censored to remove any ‘questionable’ content. There simply was nothing salacious to see before the watershed.

  Clearly any really explicit content is still kept till after the watershed, but adult themes and storylines pervade most TV dramas that air in the early evening – just think about the plots of Eastenders or Coronation Street, for example. It also seems that, over time, some former after-9pm shows have come to be considered suitable for earlier viewing, especially on digital and satellite channels. Blackadder is fairly easy to find on one of the comedy stations at any time of the day, but was originally shown at 9pm on BBC2. Friends is rated 12 on DVD, but is often shown on Channel 4 in the early morning at the weekend. And there are many more examples.

  Obviously our standards and morals change over the years – imagine The Young Ones being broadcast in the ’50s or ’60s! – and I am sure they will continue do so, but something of the frisson has been lost in the last decade or so. The excitement of discovering something forbidden – be it sex, violence, adult themes, or just some ribald comedy – has pretty much evaporated. And I am talking about teenagers here, young adults on a voyage of discovery. I don’t even wa
nt to get into what younger kids have access to these days.

  I shudder to think.

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  Analogue Television

  By the end of 2012, any remaining analogue television signals will be switched off in favour of digital. In order to roll out digital broadcasts, the powers that be need to free up space, and can only complete the project by getting rid of analogue altogether.

  So gone once and for all are the days of twiddling with the portable aerial on front of the telly, Dad being forced to stand in the corner of the room with his arm aloft so that Mum can see the end of the film she is watching, and that fuzzy bit of snow on screen when a plane flies past.

  So no great loss, then?

  Well, probably not, for most people. Digital television delivers a better-quality picture, better sound, more channels, more choice, and, in many cases, lots of fancy extras.

  But the digital signal will only reach 98.5% of the country; 1.5% of the population will, presumably, have no TV signal at all. That’s almost 1 million people. What will they do? Where do they live? I presume they are at the top of mountains, in deep valleys, or remote islands, but nearly a million of the blighters? Blimey.

  So progress may be great, but it is only of use if it can actually reach you.

  I love the idea, stupid and fanciful though it is, of some residual analogue signal floating around that these people can pick up on their old TV sets. They would end up living in a time bubble of old episodes of Porridge, Play School, and Terry & June. Sounds quite nice to me. I’d be tempted to pay them a visit.

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  Teletext

  When that final analogue signal is switched off, it will mark the death of Ceefax, the only remaining teletext service in the UK. Hopefully this won’t happen halfway through a football match, with fans waiting for an update on the score as the screen refreshes, a popular pastime in the days before Sky Sports.

  The BBC launched its teletext service, called Ceefax because it allowed you to ‘see’ the ‘facts’, in 1974. It was born out of technology used to create subtitles for the deaf, and started out with a few dozen pages of information that could be accessed by punching in a page number on your remote control.

  ITV launched its own service, Oracle, in the same year, and each of the five terrestrial channels had their own service at one time or another. As teletext grew, it added a huge array of content and became an essential source of up-to-the-minute information for most households. Don’t forget, this was before the days of the internet and 24-hour rolling news; if you wanted the most up to date information, teletext was the place to look.

  It led, understandably, with news and sport (live football scores during match day being a particularly popular feature) but widened its brief to include more niche interests and magazine content. Channel 4 had excellent music review and news pages, there was an interactive quiz called Bamboozle in which you answered the questions by punching in numbers, and horse racing analysis and cards worked brilliantly on the format, with the BBC’s Ceefax pundit being a particularly successful tipster.

  There were gardening pages, knitting pages with full patterns, computer pages with programs to input, kids’ pages, advent calendars at Christmas, and joke pages (you pressed the REVEAL button of the remote to show the punchlines).

  But even if you never pressed the TEXT button on your remote control, you would get to see Ceefax, and listen to some muzak, when Pages from Ceefax was broadcast late at night or early in the morning. Used as a bit of a filler when there were no actual programmes to air, the viewer would be treated to a rolling loop of the most popular pages with an easy listening soundtrack. It may not sound particularly inspirational, but most of us would have spent a few minutes in front of it at some point in our lives, often while eating a bowl of cornflakes.

  ITV stopped its teletext service in 2009, and Ceefax is only available nowadays via your analogue signal (although Pages from Ceefax is still occasionally broadcast on BBC2), which, as mentioned, is soon to vanish. It has been replaced with the flashy graphics and interactivity of modern digital systems, which do look to come from another century entirely (perhaps because they do) but somehow lack the warm, friendly feel of teletext of old. Thankfully, you can find examples of pretty much every page there ever was at one of several online resources; well worth a visit for all you nostalgia junkies.

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  IN THE CINEMA

  Where we sat in the dark, snogged, and ate popcorn …

  National Anthem

  Right up until the late 1970s, the national anthem was played at every screening in cinemas up and down the land. Patrons were expected, but not actually forced, to observe the anthem by standing throughout. Originally, it would have been played at the end of the film, but that tended to lead to a frantic rush for the exits while the credits were rolling (if you’ve ever seen that Dad’s Army episode, then you’ll know what I mean). It was later moved to the beginning so that unpatriotic scallywags would be immediately identifiable by their insistence on staying seated. Cue lots of tutting from older cinema-goers.

  I am guessing that the tradition came to an end when the number of people sitting through the anthem far outnumbered those standing to attention. Or perhaps when multiplexes started popping up in out-of-town shopping centres. Or when most people stopped giving a tinker’s toss about royalty and the fine heritage of this great nation. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t happen any more.

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  Commissionaires

  There was none of this milling round the foyer, buying pic ’n’ mix, or playing on arcade games you get nowadays when you visit the cinema, not during the era of black and white films. No back then, if you wanted to see a film, you would queue up outside until just before showtime, when you would be allowed in to buy your ticket and popcorn.

  Looking after these queues were commissionaires, often ex-military chaps in peaked caps and uniforms, not unlike a posh hotel doorman. They would keep an eye out for any troublemakers (watch out for those mods and rockers), ensure the queue remained orderly, and field any questions from excited cinema-goers (‘When are you going to bloody well let us in?’).

  The commissionaire was also in charge of the HOUSE FULL sign that would be plonked in front of some unlucky bugger who had arrived late and was too far down the queue to stand a chance of getting in.

  Once the show had started, the commissionaire might be called upon to eject some troublesome oiks and he would appear again as the audience left, to ensure that they made their way home in time for him to nip down the pub for a swift pint.

  As cinemas changed and owners realised there was more money to be made by getting people inside the foyer as early as possible, the role of the commissionaire became defunct and went the way of lighthouse-keepers.

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  Usherettes

  Most cinemas would have a number of usherettes (sometimes ushers, but they were usually female) who wore smart uniforms and would look after patrons once they had made it inside.

  She would take your ticket, rip it in half, and often thread the portion she kept onto a string (presumably to keep tabs on how many people were inside). She (or one of her fellow usherettes) would show you to your seat with the aid of her trusty torch.

  Bear in mind that in the heyday of usherettes most cinema screenings included a newsreel, a supporting feature, and then the main film, so loads of people would roll up once the house lights had gone down, making the usherette’s role vital. It always paid to be polite and friendly to your appointed usherette, as she was more likely to place you in good seats. Dare to be rude, or make the wrong remark, and you’d be stuck right up the back in the corner with a restricted view.

  During the interval (more on these in a moment), the usherettes would take up position at the end of the aisles in front of the screen, or at the edge of the balcony if you were in the upper tier, sporting a tray that hung from their necks, containing ice cream and
other delights. These would be sold to patrons whose shambolic queue would snake up the aisles.

  As with many of the other cinema jobs mentioned in this book, the role of the usherette fell foul of the multiplex cinemas, allocated seating, and computer ticketing systems. As films got shorter in length and stopped having intervals, their ice cream selling skills were no longer required, and the role has pretty much died out today, except possibly in a few arthouse cinemas.

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  Newsreels

  The origin of the name was simple: a newsreel was one reel of film containing news. They originally lasted for about five minutes, and were screened before the main feature at cinemas. The first newsreel in the UK was shown in 1910; it was silent and captions introduced each item. Before the days of television, and indeed mass radio broadcasts, they were the only alternative to newspapers for updates on national and world events, and they proved to be very popular. So much so that some screens, and sometimes whole theatres, were given over to rolling newsreel coverage.

  As technology developed, so did the newsreels, adding sound and, eventually, colour. There were a number of different studios providing newsreel coverage, the most famous of which were Pathé, Gaumont, and Movietone. They came into their own when reporting from the First World War, but the height of their popularity was during the 1930s, when they were a staple of every screening at the local picture house, and the classic format – a magazine of news, sport, and popular culture narrated by a pitch-perfect posh bloke – took hold.

  The Second World War was a watershed moment for newsreels. They were still seen as a vital source of information from the front, and they did their best to avoid government propaganda, but as a result they were often the bearers of bad news. The newsreel images of the liberation of those in the Nazi concentration camps shocked a nation, and many thought the studios had gone too far, although history considers them as performing a vital service during a time of great turmoil.

  Even after television entered most homes, audiences still sat through and enjoyed newsreels, but the writing was on the wall when the BBC introduced live daily news in the mid-’50s, and the cinema version, which only changed twice a week, was seen as dated and out of step.