Top of the popsters
QUESTION What became of the Ready Steady Go! presenters?
Ready Steady Go! was a seminal British rock/pop music TV programme broadcast on ITV every Friday evening from august 9, 1963, until december 23, 1966. It was conceived by elkan allan, head of light entertainment at associated-Rediffusion TV.
The show mirrored the cultural upheaval and spirit of youthful optimism that gripped Britain in the mid-1960s.
Stars such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes and Otis Redding appeared. It also gave then unknown performers such as donovan, david Bowie and Jimi Hendrix their first exposure on the small screen.
The best-known presenters were Cathy McGowan and Michael aldred — who had answered an advertisement placed by allan for teenage interviewers — and Keith Fordyce, a well-known dJ and TV host of the talent show Thank your Lucky Stars.
after the show ended, Keith continued to host variety shows and quizzes on radio and TV. He was best known for Late Night extra, Sounds Of The 60s and Beat The Record on BBC Radio 2.
after 14 years of presenting Treasure Hunt for Plymouth-based ITV Westward, he hosted a three-hour show on BBC South West Radio on Saturday nights. He also founded and ran the Torbay aircraft Museum. Keith died in 2011, aged 82.
Cathy McGowan became a style icon. She wrote fashion and pop articles, and established Cathy McGowan enterprises, a cosmetics company and mail order boutique for shoes, dresses and coats.
There was even a Cathy McGowan doll, Silentnight bed for teenage girls and Cathy’s dozen, a budget compilation album of CBS artists sold at BP petrol stations. In 1970, she married actor Hywel Bennett and had a daughter.
McGowan was involved in the launch of Capital Radio in 1973 as its only woman adviser and board member.
In 1987, she became a style adviser on BBC Pebble Mill’s daytime Live and was then a presenter for BBC1’s prime-time magazine programme Newsroom South east. In 1990, Cathy hosted the Brits, the British pop music awards.
Today, she is an elegant grandmother, living a quiet life in South London with her partner, singer Michael Ball.
Andy Neill, author Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here, St Albans, Herts. aFTeR my brother, Michael aldred, cohosted Ready Steady Go!, he presented the spin-off Ready Steady Win!
I met so many 1960s pop idols, several of whom visited our family home. Imagine finding Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones in your sitting room. I even got a kiss from Mick Jagger! Michael produced records and wrote for pop magazines in the U.S. and a column in the daily Sketch newspaper. He was singer Roberta Flack’s manager on her world tour and later worked with Kiki dee.
She was a good friend to him and helped me enormously when Michael became ill and was in a hospice in St John’s Wood, North London.
My talented brother had a wide knowledge of music and was wellrespected in the industry. He died in 1995, aged only 49.
Della Creasy, Worthing, W. Sussex.
QUESTION Are Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale as popular abroad as Australian soaps are here?
CORONaTION Street is Britain’s most popular daytime soap export. It is broadcast in australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South africa.
It is particularly popular in Canada, where it has been broadcast since the 1960s on CBC and attracts 800,000 viewers per episode.
In 2010, CBC aired Corrie Crazy: Canada Loves Coronation Street to celebrate the show’s 50th season.
emmerdale is broadcast in australia, Finland, Ireland and New Zealand. In Sweden, it has been broadcast as Hem Till Garden (Home To The Farm) since the 1970s.
Swedish pop band The Cardigans named their 1994 album emmerdale in the show’s honour. eastenders is too gritty for many foreign networks. The format was sold to dutch production company IdTV, which broadcast the soap as Het Oude Noorden (Old North) and relocated the action to Rotterdam.
Karen Curtis, London N12.
QUESTION Did Henry I have the first zoo?
HeNRy I established a menagerie in 1110, but it wasn’t open to the public.
From the 12th century, international travel expanded with the Crusades, pilgrimages, international diplomacy and trade. adventurers brought home exotic animals and ambassadors presented them as gifts.
animal exhibits were displays of wealth and power to show off to foreign dignitaries or the aristocracy. There were medieval royal menageries in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and england.
Henry I’s menagerie was at the Royal Park of Woodstock in Oxfordshire. Behind a seven-mile wall were lions, leopards, lynx and camels.
The most famous exhibit was a porcupine. The historian William of Malmesbury asserted it was ‘covered with sharp-pointed quills, which it naturally shot at the dogs that hunted it’.
Vienna’s Tiergarten Schönbrunn is the oldest zoo in the world. It was established as the royal menagerie for emperor Franz I in 1752 and opened to the public in 1779. London Zoo, Britain’s oldest public zoo, dates back to 1828.
Ruth Jenner, Oxford.
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