Memories of the Swinging Sixties

My best friend and I were posting machine operators in a bank. We were supposed to rotate duties, post, foreign, counter etc but no one likes the dismal room at the back where the posting machine were so we volunteered to do long spells in there provided we could have a transistor radio. We loved it!!

The one song that reminds me of that time is 24 Hours From Tulsa by Gene Pitney.

I was another Paul Jones fan. I have mentioned before that I climbed a drain pipe to get to their dressing room. I nearly made it but a very young policeman came and hauled me off. I went out with the pc for a while.

And, DH's eldest brother is a very talented trumpet player who played with Manfred Mann (the person and the group!) Until his parents told him that he ought to get a proper job related to his degree.

So many evocative tracks....
The other day I turned on the radio and Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days" was playing. It was like being in a TARDIS. Suddenly, I was a student again, hanging out with my friends, drinking lager and lime (ugh!) in The Prince of Teck, madly in love with my romantic Italian waiter boyfriend and convinced those days would last forever. The boyfriend didn't last, thank goodness but I'm still friends with many of the others. Naturally, we're all pillars of the community now!

Whiter Shade of Pale for me too, or All you Need is Love by the Beatles. One or other of them always came on the radio ar around 10.30 at night, when I was driving the 10 minutes back from my boyfriend's house to the house where I was working as a Mother's Help, using one of the the family's cars. It was an ancient Austin Cambridge, and I was so short I had to peer through the steering wheel instead of above it, because the seat wouldn't adjust! My route used to take me past Cliff Richard's house in Totteridge, never any sign of him though...

I remember going to see Helen Shapiro at Sheffield City Hall with friends from college in January 1962 just before I left home. I also remember the release of the Beatles first single “Love Me Do” and thinking then that they were destined for big things. I also remember working in London in the early to mid sixties and window shopping in Carnaby Street - the epicentre of sixties cool - with friends on days off. I wasn’t cool, but it gave me bragging rights back home! Lots of iconic places in London then.

Going to visit a friend from art school in the holidays. Went with my boyfriend ( now my DH). Every time we visited said friend would put ‘The girl of my best friend’ on his record player and just look at me. I was so embarrassed. We, all three, were seventeen.

I hear Andy Fairweather Low and If paradise was half as nice, as heaven that you take me to, who needs paradise, when I've got you... and I'm 16 again.

B9exchange I was stationed in Mill Hill and friends and I (and later, future DH) used to walk from our barracks to Totteridge on some Summer evenings, have a drink, and then have another in the Adam and Eve (where Roger Moore and Pat McGoohan were regulars) when we got back. It was a lovely walk back then - very rural. I don’t suppose it is now.

I went to see many groups perform at Mountford Hall Liverpool Andy Fairweather low was one of my favourites.

Christmas 1964 at the age of 9 I got my first (second hand) Dansette record player from my parents and a £1 note from my Nanny, which set me off on a lifelong love of music 🎶 and gigs.
Singles were 6s 8d, three for a £1, and I bought Little Children, Down Town and The Three Bells which I still have.

I am astonished B9 Exchange, I did not know Cliff Richards lived in Totteridge. I lived there until I married so was there in the sixties. There were lots of celebrities living up on the Common.
had a boyfriend who played base guitar in a band whose lead singer was Cliff’s cousin I believe. I met Cliff at a concert where they were all playing. He seemed very nice and quite reserved but what a change when he sang I think it was ‘ Move It’ couldn’t hear a word above the girlish screams!
. The song I remember was on my first holiday abroad with my best friend. We went by train to Italy on the riviera and everywhere was playing ‘Volare’. Fabulous holiday!

What a unique decade the 60s were for most of us who were teens then. Great music and fashion, no social media. Every thing ahead of us. Simple stuff...Woolworths sweet counter, Honey magazine, record booths, Etam and Dorothy Perkins, cheap makeup, Biba fashion and shop if you were lucky, Carnaby Street, transistor radios and Dansette record players, Twiggy. All the bands starting out. Just such an exciting time.

We had a very young female PE teacher and whenever I hear Whiter shade of Pale I am back in our school gym on a very hot, summer day laying on the floor listening to that. Prior to her arrival we just did work on the horse, ropes and wall bars but she decided to teach us relaxation which was very new to us all. she played that a lot and it was just lovely to listen in silence.

Playing truant to see The Beatles, George ❤️ chatting to us, sitting behind them on stage at a TV recording. Seeing The Stones and many more. The clothes, the music.
So many songs bring back memories of those days. Good Vibrations, Sorrow by The Merseybeats, San Francisco - too many to list. I have a particular memory of Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks Black and white fashion, psychedelic fashion, mini skirts, white boots, Dusty Springfield eyes, halter neck evening dresses. Sigh.

Being collected by coach and taken to the church in Didsbury where they filmed Top of the Pops. They thought because we were art students we would be trendy dressers, but we were a scruffy bunch with very little money. We were pushed into a studio and had to dance to Billy,J. Kramer and "Trains and Boats and Planes". Most of us were Stones and Dylan fans. To make matters worse the Hollies were in the next studio rehearsing. Guess where we wanted to be.

I was in Halls of Residence near Didsbury, but could never get tickets for TOTP. I am jealous. I saw the Hollies as the warm up band to the Stones back in London. Stones were wonderful, Hollies not so much.

Waterloo Sunset always takes me back to the 60s. The song was originally written about Waterloo in Liverpool and the dirty old river was the Mersey.
I went to see Cliff Richard with Lulu as supporting act. Can't stand either of them now.

Can you remember Millie and ‘my boy lollipop’ loved Labie Sifre and ‘something so strong’ Then there was the ‘Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini’ I was an Adam Faith fan couldn’t stand Cliff much too clean cut Elvis for me
What was the song about the girl killed on a motorbike can’t remember the name ?

Was it 'Terry'?

By Twinkle!

‘Terry’ by Twinkle? BB

Crossed posts.

‘Terry’ was banned by both BBC and ITV as it was deemed to be in ‘bad taste’.

That was similar to Tell Laura I love her.

Yep that’s it thanks Just looked up the words was it really deemed bad enough to ban !!!