by Feeney, Paul
A poster advertising The Bachelors’ Summer Spectacular at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London, c. 1969.
Simon Dee. The previously little known actor and disc jockey’s earliest claim to fame was being the first voice to be heard on the now famous offshore pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, when it started broadcasting on 29 March 1964. In 1965 he left Radio Caroline to join the BBC Light Programme and to work on Radio Luxembourg. He moved to BBC Radio 1 when it opened in 1967, and also became one of the presenters of BBC’s Top of the Pops. He went on to become one of the biggest radio and television stars of the 1960s when, in the same year, he was given his own early evening live chat show on BBC television, Dee Time. He also hosted the Miss World contest at the Lyceum Theatre in London, in November 1967. He was already flamboyant in the way he behaved and dressed, but the huge television viewing figures for his show went to his head and he began to act the part of a superstar, quarrelling with production staff and bosses, and cruising up and down London’s Kings Road in his Aston Martin DB5 with beautiful young women companions. In 1970 he switched to ITV’s London Weekend Television to host the late-night Sunday show, The Simon Dee Show, but the show was dropped after only a few months. Having fallen out with both the BBC and ITV, he found work hard to get and soon disappeared from the airwaves altogether. His sudden fall from grace was one of the fastest in broadcasting history. By late 1970 he was signing on the dole at the Fulham Road Labour Exchange. He then took a job as a trainee bus driver, but that didn’t last long. In 1974, he served a brief term in prison for nonpayment of rates on his former Chelsea home. Later in the 1970s he made brief comebacks as a DJ on local radio. By the early 1980s he was being described in the newspapers as a recluse. In 1988 he briefly hosted Sounds of the Sixties on BBC Radio 2, but it didn’t last and further sporadic attempts at a comeback to TV or radio failed. Simon Dee died of bone cancer at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester on 30 August 2009. He was 74.
Valerie Singleton. Best known as the 1960s co-presenter of BBC’s Blue Peter, having, in September 1962, taken over from Anita West who had bridged the gap as standin host after Leila Williams left the show in January that year. Valerie presented the first Blue Peter charity appeal (1962), introduced Blue Peter’s first pet, a brown and white mongrel dog named Petra (1962), wore the first Blue Peter badge (1963), appeared in the first Blue Peter book (1964) and took part in the first filming trip abroad (Norway in 1965). In 1972 she stopped being a main presenter of Blue Peter (replaced by Leslie Judd), but continued to appear regularly as a roving reporter. From 1972–81 she presented a spinoff series, Blue Peter Special Assignment, which was initially filmed in various European cities, but later ventured much further afield to such places as Singapore and Canada. She also presented Val Meets … The VIPs for BBC1 television from 1973–74, with famous guests including Morecambe and Wise, and Margaret Thatcher (then Secretary of State for Education and Science in Prime Minister Edward Heath’s Conservative government). From 1974–78 she also worked for the BBC news and current affairs television series, Nationwide, as a ‘consumer unit’ presenter. In 1978 she presented the BBC’s late-night news programme, Tonight, replacing Sue Lawley. In the 1980s and ’90s, she presented several radio and television programmes, including BBC2’s The Money Programme, and Radio 4’s PM programme. Having also presented a travel programme for ITV, she is now a travel writer for several publications. In 2005, at the age of 68, she moved from her long-time home in London to live in Dorset. She still appears regularly in all forms of the media, including occasional guest appearances on Blue Peter.
Copyright
Front cover image: Whit Walks Manchester: A group of young lads seen here in their neighbourhood before taking part in the Manchester Whit Walk parade © Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy
First published 2010
Reprinted 2010
The History Press
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This ebook edition first published in 2010
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© Paul Feeney, 2010
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ISBN 978 0 7524 6098 7
