Book Description

Following the success of my previous book, which dealt with the pop show Thank Your Lucky Stars, I have now decided to look at the music shows that appeared on A.B.C. Weekend Television. A.B.C. Weekend Television catered for viewers in the Midland and the North for thirteen glorious years from 1956 to 1968. The format will be similar to my previous work. I shall take a chronological view with mini biographies where appropriate, trivia, interesting facts, pictures and opinions (both my own and from the contemporary public.) I shall not be looking at the previous company that was called A.B.C. that morphed into A.T.V. Television. Nor will I be looking at music shows shown on A.B.C. but not directly produced by them. Therefore shows such as Sunday Night At The London Palladium and The Jack Jackson Show will not be featured, as they merit a book in their own right. If a weekend is absent from the diary, it probably means A.B.C. was concentrating on sports that particular weekend. In the 60’s sports such as tennis, rugby league and motor racing had a high profile. Sadly most of the shows mentioned here are not preserved in the archives. Television was considered an ephemeral pleasure back then. Preserving a show was in many cases impossible or too expensive. The powerful music unions discouraged repeat showings and many shows went out live and there was no need to record them. Tapes were reused on a regular basis, with shows being wiped forever within a few weeks of transmission. Mercifully a handful of Oh Boys! survive, along with a snippet of Cliff in the anniversary show The ABC of ABC. A George Formby section from a 1957 Top Of The Bill has popped up on YouTube. A Chas McDevitt clip, featuring a very young Jean Marsh opening a door, may very well come from the same show. British Pathe News have lovely features on Ship Canal Showboat, showing the likes of Thora Hird rehearsing in Manchester in 1956, as well as a feature on Holiday Town Parade. A few Sunday Breaks exist. Sadly I could find nothing from programmes such as Bid For Fame, Top Numbers, After Hours and many more great shows. Writing this book really struck me how viewing habits have changed over the decades. Television was on just two channels. Daytime shows were rare and television ended before midnight. Televisions were expensive. Shows tended to be on at exactly the same time each week to build up audience figures. But some things never change. Even back then some people moaned at the quality of the shows and were fed up of seeing the same stars week in week out. Hopefully you will gain more pleasure reading the book than those killjoys.