LOSE YOURSELF IN 1959

A RACE WITHOUT CHAMPIONS

A couple of weeks earlier, the 1959 season’s opening Grand Prix had taken place with no World Champion on the grid for the first time ever. The great Juan Manuel Fangio had retired from racing and the 1958 champion, Mike Hawthorn, had reluctantly been forced to follow his example, as his sole functioning kidney threatened to shut down. For someone who had repeatedly cheated death during one of the most dangerous eras of motor sport, it was ironic Hawthorn’s career should be cut short by health worries. He died not on the track, but on a tricky bend on the A3 in January 1959 at the wheel of his Jaguar MkI.

‘THEY’RE A SHOWER. ABSOLUTE SHOWER’

‘He’s a shocker, an absolute shower! The sort of chap who sleeps in his vest!’ So says TerryThomas’ furious Major Hitchcock when trying to describe shop steward Fred Kite, played by Peter Sellars at his most lugubrious. I’m All Right Jack was one of the British comedy hits of the year, alongside Too Many Crooks, Carry on Nurse and Carlton-Browne of the F.O.

It seems to have been frownedupon to make a comedy without casting Terry-Thomas, which is fair enough really!

DOUBLE WHAMMY

Cliff Richard’s contribution to the soundtrack of the 1959 film Serious Charge – in which he also made a small appearance with Anthony Quayle – has actually topped the UK singles chart twice. Living Doll, which Sir Cliff claims to have written in just 10 minutes, stayed at number one for six weeks and sold more than a million copies when it was released in July that year. But it became a chart-topper again when it was re-recorded with the cast of The Young Ones for Comic Relief in 1986.