Baker Street, Blockbusters, and a Birthday

The house is full of music at the minute – Bob has been re-arranging things in the lounge, and we have been enjoying all sorts of forgotten tracks. Meanwhile Ken Bruce played this piece from the archives this morning - and it is so good, I had to blog about it

Ken said that sadly, Gerry Rafferty is very unwell in hospital at the moment. This track takes me back to 1978 – it was constantly on the radio as I was busy with wedding preparations!

The great Urban Myth was that the saxophone solo was played by Bob Holness [host of Blockbusters, among other things] IT WASN’T! [it was actually a guy called Raphael Ravenscroft – but Stuart Maconie started the Holness-myth in NME magazine and it is still trotted out now and then]

Blockbusters was a programme I really enjoyed in the early years of motherhood – it ran on ITV from 1983-1993. What is utterly amazing now is the complexity of the set involved, in the days before all the computerized gizmos they have now. The gameboard required thirty eight separate slide projectors! and it ran the whole length of the studio.

And then there was the amazing hand jive at the end of the programme.

[If you want to join in, it goes like this

Knee-clap, Hand-clap , Hand-over-hand (x2), Potato-hands (x2)
Elbow-point-twirl (x2), Repeat x3
Knee-clap , Hand-clap , Clap in the air.]

Look at these terrifying 1980’s fashions! These are all sixth formers, about to go off and become students [back in the days when fewer young people went to University – but there was more financial support for those who did]

 

Bob Holness is 82 today. Happy Birthday!