Memories of the Swinging Sixties

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 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.

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 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.

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...

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!

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.

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.

Ashcombe,

Though I was born in the later 1960´s, I well remember the extraordinary song "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harem" and had seen them in the 1980s in Denmark.

Awesome .. I even cried when I read that the lead singer had passed on.

All my children brought up on sixties music, and was lovely to hear my Grandaughter singing Summer Holiday to my great granddaughter yesterday. They live on, Boom Radio is a favourite of mine.

Mini moon I always thought ‘young girl’ was creepy. Even then.

joannapiano

In 1965 I was 16 and had a holiday job in a record shop. We sold so many copies of “Go Now” by the Moody Blues that we just kept them in a big box under the counter so they were ready to sell to all the teens who came in. I played it over the loudspeaker that was outside the shop.

We used to be able to go into the local music shop and listen to the latest releases in little booths made out of plywood!

Adam Faith - What do you Want?

The tracks seemed so much shorter in the 1960s.

In 1965 I was 16 and had a holiday job in a record shop. We sold so many copies of “Go Now” by the Moody Blues that we just kept them in a big box under the counter so they were ready to sell to all the teens who came in. I played it over the loudspeaker that was outside the shop.

I remember seeing Manfred Mann walking across Trafalgar Square with his girlfriend or wife and thinking how pale and thin he was. I preferred the lovely Paul Jones!

Saw The Hollies, The Tremeloes and also The Swinging Blue Jeans (had to 'caretake' them at a Rag Ball).

Saw Peter and Gordon live but they just couldn't sing live, they were completely out of tune, I could have done better 😁

1969. I was in the 4th form and was allowed to go to a disco at a church hall. My crush, whom I'd been mad about since the first form was there but we were both too shy to talk to each other. We never did get together, which I regret to this day. The song I remember playing was Norman Greenbaum "Spirit in the Sky".

And then there was the carefree summer of 1972 after we had taken our A levels. Rod Stewart and Maggie Mae.

I do remember all the words from those 60s songs by Hermann's Hermits, the Tremeloes, Dave Dee etc etc, Manfred Mann, the Beatles, et al.

Most nights where spent in The Caven in Matthew Street listening to all the up & coming groups including Liverpool's best export (The Beatles) When the Searchers where playing I used to get a lift home from Mike Pinder who lived by my parents or one of The Pacemakers who went out with my friend,I just loved the 60's nothing since has compared to that time.

Simon & Garfunkel

Going to my first concert with a school friend - The Small Faces, at Newcastle City Hall. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were the support act.

San Francisco does bring back such memories - I’m having that and Time in a Bottle at my funeral,

The song I remember from that Summer was Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. I worked on the sweets counter at Woolworths on a Saturday and the girl who sold the records played it incessantly. I still know all the words!

The summer of '68', my family were on holiday with our cousins in Scarborough. My cousin and I were both 16. We got all dolled up, best mini dresses, hair and make-up and presented ourselves at the door of the best nightclub in town. We thought we looked every inch 21. The doorman wasn't fooled, he wouldn't let us in. Oh the disappointment.

The song which reminds me of the 60s is "Runaway". I used to follow Del Shannon around the country whenever he came over from the USA. I met him several times. I also met Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney and all the Liverpool groups. I was a very keen concert goer.

1963 and going to see Chris Montez and Tommy Roe in concert.

One of the support groups consisted of four young men from Liverpool who later became one of the most famous groups ever.

Love Me Do - yes, we did back then!

So many but if I had to choose one which evokes a special memory it would probably be My Girl by Otis Redding.

Though just a couple of years too young to be a hippie, I find the California sound of Scott McKenzie (San Francisco), and Mamas & Papas evoke my youth.

Oh I liked David Whitfield too, probably because my mum did. He was one of the last of the 50s crooners.
Then came rock and roll and music changed It was so exciting.
Hard to choose but Pretty Woman is a song which brings back happy memories.
There are many others. I might forget what I did yesterday but can still sing along )badly) with them all.