Timeslip moment again...
Our trusty TARDIS has deposited us into a weird world of Nylon clothing, Safari Suits, platforms and flares, to 1975 - the year of the final end of the Vietnam War,
The Naked Civil Servant, two assassination attempts on President Gerald Ford,
Jaws, Lord Lucan,
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Moorgate tube crash,
Jim'll Fix It, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, the Sex Discrimination Act,
"George Davis is Innocent", Patty Hearst,
Poldark,
Ding-a-dong, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, the kidnap and murder of heiress Lesley Whittle, Idi Amin, Isabel Perón, the Spaghetti House siege,
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, David Essex, Margaret Thatcher becoming leader of the Tory party, football hooliganism, war in Angola, Muhammad Ali,
Tommy, the assassination of Ross McWhirter by the IRA, "Davros" in
Doctor Who, the first referendum on membership of the EEC,
The Good Life, the "Birmingham Six",
Bohemian Rhapsody and the "Crossman Diaries", and we had
snow in June; this year David Beckham, Michael Bublé, Kate Winslet, Enrique Iglesias, Mark Ronson, Tiger Woods, Drew Barrymore, Mel B, Joe McFadden,
The Sweeney, Charlize Theron, Tobey Maguire, Ant (Anthony McPartlin) and Dec (Declan Donnelly), Microsoft, Natalie Imbruglia,
Paddington, Angelina Jolie, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Lauryn Hill, Papua New Guinea, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Oliver and
Fawlty Towers were all born; and Josephine Baker, Susan Hayward, William Hartnell, P.G. Wodehouse, Louis Jordan, Graham Hill, Haile Selassie, Bernard Herrmann, Aristotle Onassis, Chiang Kai-shek, Dmitri Shostakovich, Lee Wiley, Michael Flanders, Barbara Hepworth and James Robertson Justice all died.
In the headlines in July
forty-five years ago: Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win Wimbledon, Foreign Minister Jim Callaghan flew to Uganda to personally request Idi Amin release British prisoner Denis Hills, an American Apollo spacecraft made a symbolic docking with the Soviet Soyuz craft, Harold Wilson's government agreed a one-year cash limit on pay rises with the TUC, and the first phase of the extension of the Piccadilly line to Heathrow Airport was completed with the opening of Hatton Cross tube station. In our cinemas:
Young Frankenstein;
Paper Tiger;
Doc Savage - Man of Bronze. On telly?
Celebrity Squares,
Seaside Special and
That's Life; and Ray Langton married Deirdre Hunt in
Coronation Street.
And in our charts this week in 1975? Typically Tropical, Johnny Nash, Ray Stevens, the Bee Gees, Smokie, Linda Lewis, Van McCoy, Judge Dread and - for some reason - a reissue of a Brian Hyland's teenybopper number
Sealed With A Kiss from 1962 were all present and correct...
...but, of course, above all else here in the UK - 1975 was the year when tartan became a "uniform" for teenage girls, as a group of lads from Edinburgh had emerged from practically nowhere to rule the world (or so it seemed).
It's all about the trousers...
As
this article observes:
Wherever the Bay City Rollers appeared in public they caused mass hysteria - with fans screaming, crying, fainting, stretching their hands out to touch the group and oftentimes at concerts rushing the stage in an effort to get to the group. In the presence of the Rollers, many fans would become completely hysterical and as such, totally uncontrollable. For the uninitiated, scenes like this were bewildering, quite worrying, even a little frightening. The group completely took over the lives of their fans, who were predominantly young girls. Most were probably teenagers but many were pre-teens. And this pop group was their first love, their heartthrobs, in fact their whole world. The effect The Bay City Rollers had on their fans was such a phenomenon that it was given a name by the press - 'Rollermania'.
Their success was indeed phenomenal. They'd already chalked up a string of hits the previous year, and in March
Bye, Bye, Baby went to #1 for six weeks
[which back then meant selling a million physical copies of a single, from a shop such as Woolworths, rather than these days when a track only needs to sell about 36 CDs and get a few thousand views on YouTube to reach the top]. This week in 1975, this was their second (and final) chart-topper. Grab your tartan hankies, girls!
It's a teenage dream to be seventeen
And to find you're all wrapped up in love
And I found that you made a dream come true
Now I do believe in what I say
You've got to give a little love, take a little love
Be prepared to forsake a little love
And when the sun comes shining through
We'll know what to do
Give a little love, take a little love
Be prepared to forsake a little love
And when the sun comes shining through
We'll know what to do
When I walk with you there is just we two
And the world goes by but I just don't care
And I know one day that I'll find the way
To be safe and sound within your heart
So until I do I'm gonna give a little love, take a little love...
That's poetry, that is.
Bay City Rollers on Wikipedia
