Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 11 - 1977

This is one of those landmark moments. A time when a whole bunch of important things came together. I can categorically say that what I read, watched, and listened to in this year changed my life forever. So although officially there is one 'memory', there are actually lots of things to talk about. Science Fiction and Fantasy was about to fill my world...

1977:

The trivia:

• On 15th August 1977 in Delaware, Ohio, a State University radio telescope known as "Big Ear" detected a 72 second long narrowband radio transmission from deep space - originating near the constellation Sagittarius. It was on a frequency that many scientists believed intelligent aliens might use. Named the "Wow!" signal (due to the word astronomer Jerry Ehman wrote while reviewing the data), it was never repeated. Despite decades of investigation and speculation, it remains unexplained - but continues to inspire new generations of enthusiasts and those involved in SETI (the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence).

• At 5.10 pm on 26th November, the audio signal for the ITV Southern Television news broadcast was hijacked for six minutes by a distorted voice. It claimed to be  from an extra-terrestrial entity named "Vrillon" ("Gillon" or "Asteron" in some transcripts)  - a representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command". The message urged humanity to abandon our "weapons of evil", embrace peace and spiritual evolution, and prepare for a 'great awakening'. Despite local alarm, most investigations concluded that it was a technically sophisticated hoax, especially as "Ashtar" is a name associated with UFO and New Age lore dating back to the 1950s.

• A Filipino couple accidently received the equivalent of one million dollars into their account in Manila due to a clerical error by a Mellon Bank employee in the US. They promptly withdrew the whole sum and spent it on property, medical expenses and gifts to friends and family - then disappeared. Mellon Bank tried to recover the funds via legal means, and while the Philippine court initially ruled in the couples favour, that judgement was eventually overturned. But by then, the money was all gone and the couple were nowhere to be found...

The memory:

"Hang on a minute" you might think. "Surely 2000 AD should be an obvious choice for 1977 ? This is where 'Thrill Power' began isn't it?". Well, you'd be right - the writers and artists and stories within its pages shaped my love for comics in a huge way. The fact that it's the only thing from forty plus years ago that I still read today, *and* still have every single issue, is testament to its undeniable influence on my life. The spirit of 2000 AD is embedded deep in the DNA of the person I am today -  and in the subjects I enjoy writing about on this blog.

The thing is, I could never do justice to the everlasting energy of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic in just one post of a few hundred words, or limit myself to the stories of one year (as good as those from 1977 are). 2000 AD is too big and too important. I wrote about my love for the early Dan Dare stories many years ago, and M.A.C.H.1 got a hefty mention in the post for 1973, but there is much, much more to talk about - and I'll get to it all, in time. But for now, in recognition of 2000 AD's debut, here's a montage of some of the covers that came out in that first amazing year (with credit to the excellent retrosmack blog for pulling these together).

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

So after those stunning examples of Thrill-Power, it's time to move on to the main event - and Steven Spielberg takes another slot in my favourite films of all time. Sure, "Jaws" may have wowed me with its scares and excitement, but this - this is on a whole other level. I guess it's not surprising really when you consider how, even from an early age, I was fascinated by science and space exploration and the idea of aliens from other worlds. 

Interest in UFOs was at its absolute peak in the late 70s, but much like me, Spielberg had been intrigued by them since he was a young boy. He wanted to create a film where the extra-terrestrials were benevolent, not creatures to be feared - and had begun to develop the idea years earlier under the title ’Watch The Skies’. But it was after the huge success of “Jaws” gave him more clout with the Hollywood studios, that he finally found himself with the freedom to pursue it fully. 

After securing a deal with Columbia Pictures, Spielberg assembled a team that could match his vision. He brought in special effects expert Douglas Trumbull - fresh off  “2001: A Space Odyssey” - to lead the visual effects and John Williams was on board for the score, continuing their creative partnership. By 1976, the pieces were falling into place. Filming took place in Wyoming and at a massive hanger in Alabama, while Trumbull and his effects team had to invent new techniques on the fly - combining miniatures, matte paintings and practical lighting. As the scope expanded, studio executives grew nervous and Spielberg had to fight to maintain the tone he wanted. It was a deeply personal project.

And for me, even before I saw a single frame, I knew there was a kind of buzz in the air. Posters, trailers, magazine write-ups - all hinted at something vast and mysterious. The haunting image of a lonely road leading to a glowing horizon - and the tag line of “We Are Not Alone” - was everywhere. British TV aired documentaries on alien encounters. Queen Elizabeth went to a Royal Premiere. This was a big event.

But the odd thing is, "Close Encounters" is *so* ingrained in my memories, that I'm honestly struggling to remember when I first got to watch it. Did I get taken to the cinema by my late grandfather in early 1978? (the timeline just about fits and there are memory flashes about sitting in a darkened room watching something about UFO's - and no, it wasn't that *other* famous SF film) Did I get that first feeling of astonishment when I saw it on BBC1 around age 12 or 13? Who knows for sure - I guess the exact moment doesn't matter. What does is that "CE3K" sits there in my personal history like an enormous black hole making a gravitational dent in space-time.

For those that have yet to experience it, the film is really the story of everyman Roy Neary and single mum Jillian Guiller as they have differing encounters with something not of this world. Both are deeply affected by the experiences. Gillian's three year old son vanishes. Roy gets third degree burns on his face and finds his stable family life torn apart by forces which he can't understand. The result is that both become obsessed with a mysterious mountain in Wyoming. 

Travelling to the site and avoiding the military courdon, they arrive in time to see dozens of UFOs. As government specialists communicate with the ships via colours and tonal frequencies, a gigantic mothership lands and strange aliens emerge, along with many people thought lost decades earlier -  and they haven’t aged in the intervening years. Roy is selected to join a group who are to visit the mothership and after a final conversation using simple hand gestures, the aliens ascend to the stars with their new friends.

A paltry few words can't begin to explain the sheer mesmerising power of this film. It's full of iconic moments - images I can picture immediately when I just close my eyes. The lost ship stranded in the Gobi desert. The screws unwinding in the golden light of Jillian's apartment. Roy sculpting a replica of Devil's Tower out of rubbish in his living room. The five notes played to the alien spacecraft are as recognisable now as the theme to James Bond's adventures or "Raider of the Lost Ark" (they were also the first thing I could ever copy on an electronic keyboard). All these things pale behind one of the most astounding, awe-inspiring sequences in science fiction - the mothership appearing above the mountain and then slowly turning over. I’m sure I sat there with my mouth open. Cinema doesn't get much better than this.

The film is  not without some minor faults and unanswered questions. Why did the aliens take the people in the first place? Did they lure little Barry away just to get his mother to Devil's Tower? That seems particularly cruel. Doesn't Roy Neary give up on his family and kids to go off in a spaceship just a little too easily? Yet at the time of viewing, you don't even think of these things. You are swept up in the story and visuals. 

It’s well known that Spielberg was pressurised by the studio to release the film quickly, which meant he was unable to refine things quite the way he wanted.  It was a huge success anyway, but Columbia offered him the chance to re-edit the film for a 1980 “Special Edition” re-release. It’s…okay, and the scenes inside the alien mothership are impressive, but they really weren’t needed and remove some of the wonder. The director regretted it too, so in 1988 he released a final “Director’s Cut”. While that version may be the closest to his vision, the original is still my favourite.

I think we all really want our first meeting with intelligent beings from another planet to be as peaceful and magical as that pictured in this film  - both sides putting their efforts into communicating and making friends rather than immediate aggressive actions. Sadly the current reality is probably going to be more antagonistic. As a species we are just not ready for a close encounter...

Looking back, it’s hard to overstate what “Close Encounters” meant to ten-year-old me. It wasn’t the spectacle - though the FX, music and sheer scale were unforgettable. It was more that it opened my mind to the possibilities of science fiction. That it wasn’t all heroes with ray guns. It could say something about the who were are as humans. From that moment on I was hooked. Books, films, TV shows, comics - you name it - I wanted to experience it. It was life changing.

Watch the skies...

Honourable mentions:

• The Fantastic Journey - Although it only lasted a brief ten episodes, this show is remembered, by me at least, for the Bermuda Triangle / time-travel / Mysterious Island concept and for the cast of interesting actors - including Roddy "Planet of the Apes" McDowall and Ike "Witch Mountain" Eisenmann. My favourite was Jared Martin as Varian, a "more evolved" man from the 23rd Century with his multi-purpose tuning-fork-like 'Sonic Energiser' - which looked much cooler than the Doctor's screwdriver. Sure, the things the group encountered as they travelled through the various zones were overly familiar SF plots - a giant pulsating brain controlling the population, Joan Collins as the leader of a group of female revolutionaries who overthrow their male oppressors, a society of androids fighting green-skinned aliens - but it was still thoroughly enjoyable. For some reason it's always stuck in my mind. It was only in later years that I learned of the production troubles, abandoned characters and curtailed episodes. Within a few months of its cancellation, many of the the production crew had moved on to a new show - namely:

• Logan's Run - Not the classic Michael York film (which I adore) but the 14-episode TV spin off. The premise was basically the same: in a post-apocalyptic future, survivors live in a domed city where life is a disco-tinged party - until you turn 30, when you undergo “Carousel,” a rebirth ritual that actually kills you. Logan 5 is a Sandman, hunting down “runners” trying to escape their fate, but he starts to question the system and along with rebel Jessica 6, flees the city in search of the mythical “Sanctuary”. It’s a modestly budgeted show (lots of reused sets) and the plots are again your standard hoary 70s SF fare - but my own over-riding memory is of dry-witted android companion REM (played by Donald Moffat) and the cool silver cars than the Runners and Sandmen travelled around in. Despite its brief run, the series tackled some big ideas: freedom vs. control, aging, identity, and the search for truth - but it arrived just months after the debut of that tale from a ‘galaxy far, far away’ and audiences suddenly wanted space battles and cinematic spectacle on their TV screens, not philosophical thoughtfulness…

• A Spell For Chameleon by Piers Anthony - Not the first fantasy novel I ever read (I guess that honour goes to Enid Blyton's "The Magic Faraway Tree") - nor my favourite published in this year (that's getting a mention in a later post in this strand for a different reason) - but the one that made me realise that fantasy could be charming and funny. The first in Anthony's "Xanth" series (which currently runs to an astonishing forty+ volumes) it concerns the adventures of "Bink", who is exiled from his homeland because he *doesn't* have a magical talent. It's full of strange creatures, people with amazing abilities and groan worthy puns - perfect for younger readers. I collected, read and re-read the Xanth books for several years, but eventually I grew out of them, as my tastes changed and the plots became rather repetitive - plus some of the portrayals, especially of female characters, have not aged well. The first eight or so are probably the best and at the time were a good introduction to fantasy. Terry Pratchett is far, far better though, as I was to discover in just a few short years...

• Space : Magic Fly - I still remember the first time I heard this sublime piece of French electronica. It just didn’t sound like anything else on the radio - not rock, not disco - it was something…alien. No lyrics, no vocals - just a hypnotic funky instrumental track that pulsed and shimmered like a satellite signal from another galaxy. “Space” were producer Jean-Philippe Iliesco, composer Didier Marouani and keyboardist Roland Romanelli - and they predated Daft Punk by wearing cosmonaut helmets in all their performances, adding to the mystique. Released in May 1977, “Magic Fly” became a massive hit, reaching #2 on the UK Singles Chart, predating the synthpop boom and solidifying my love for electronic music, even though it took me *years* to find the LP.  But enough talk, it’s time to get groovy…

• The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction  - The first SF reference book I ever bought, from a much loved bookshop in Sudbury, Suffolk. The smell of the pages as I opened it, the glossy sheen of the illustrations, and the feeling that I was holding something important. At £3.95 it was a hefty purchase (standard paperbacks were only £1 back then) - but I had to have it. A fascinating visual and thematic history of SF, it opened with a chronology that tracked the evolution of sci-fi across books, magazines, films, TV, and fandom from 1805 to 1976 - before moving into deep-dives on things like space travel, time machines, alien contact, robots and other dimensions. All of this was accompanied by illustrations galore - cover art, comic panels, pulp magazine spreads, and film stills filled every page. I poured over this book for days, reading it cover to cover multiple times. It’s definitely nowhere near as exhaustive (or text heavy) as the later "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction", but as a time capsule from an era when the genre was exploding into the mainstream, it’s amazing. And yes, I still have the same copy on my bookshelf.

• The Man From Atlantis - Included in this list because -  incredibly - it was the series that made me stop watching Doctor Who (see here for some more details). Heresy, I know. Sure it had a suitable muscled and attractive star in Patrick Duffy as the last survivor of the lost city of Atlantis - discovered washed ashore with webbed hands, gill-like lungs, and no memory of his past. Okay, it was glossy and sun-drenched and had a weekly parade of  covert missions, government scientists, sea monsters and camp madmen. And yes, the way “Mark Harris” swam was strangely mesmerising. But honestly - what was I thinking? 

• Children Of The Stones - Seven of the scariest half hours of children's television ever transmitted. Astrophysicist Adam Brake and his son Matthew arrive in Milbury, a seemingly idyllic village surrounded by Neolithic standing stones. But something’s off. The villagers are too happy and they all seem to be under some kind of psychic influence. As Adam and Matthew investigate, they uncover a web of time loops, cosmic forces and ancient rituals. The stones aren’t just relics of history - they’re part of a sinister supernatural event. The show is notable of course for the spine-chilling music full of wailing voices, the brain-twisting existential plot and the appearance of a pre-"Blakes' 7" Gareth Thomas - not to mention Ian Cuthbertson as the terrifying Hendrick.  It also features actor Freddie Jokes and around this time I had a thing of being *very* scared of him. He seemed to be everywhere during the 1970s, and I kept coming across him in a variety of forceful roles. I think it was those extraordinary eyebrows..

• Star Wars - Nah, it'll never take off...

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 10 - 1976

I didn't get where I am today without knowing a thing or two about British situation comedies...

1976:

The trivia:

• In May 1976, Los Angeles County physicians staged a month-long strike as part of a protest over medical malpractice insurance premiums. During the strike, researchers observed that the mortality rate appeared to decline by about 18%, compared to the same period in previous years. This statistic quickly had some critics implying that modern medicine might be doing more harm than good. The truth was that around 11,000 fewer non urgent operations were performed during the strike. The drop in mortality likely reflected the avoidance of surgical complications in older patients. It didn’t stop the conspiracy theorists though. 

• On 1 April 1976, the beloved British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore appeared on BBC Radio 2 and announced a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event. At exactly 9:47 a.m., the planets Jupiter and Pluto would align in such a way that their combined gravitational pull would temporarily counteract Earth’s gravity. He told listeners that if they jumped in the air at that precise moment, they would experience a “floating sensation”. Hundreds of listeners called in to say they had felt lighter, floated around the room, or even bumped their heads on the ceiling. One woman claimed she and eleven friends had been “wafted from their chairs and orbited gently around the room”. Of course, it was all a hoax.

• There were no red M&Ms between 1976 and 1986 due to a controversy involving a synthetic food dye. However that dye was never used in the colouring of M&M's at all. Mars just decided to withdraw the colour  to avoid "public confusion", replacing them with orange ones. A series of protest groups were set up including the ‘Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&Ms’ and thousands wrote letters to Mars demanding their return. In 1987, Mars quietly reintroduced red M&M’s after the panic subsided.

• Ronald Wayne is often referred to as the “forgotten founder” of Apple. He co-founded the company alongside Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and held a 10% stake in the newly formed Apple Computer Company. But just 12 days later, he sold his shares back for $800, concerned about financial liability. Had Wayne held onto his 10%, his stake would be worth over $95 billion today. It would have made him one of the richest people on Earth. Surprisingly, Wayne has said he doesn’t regret the decision. 

The memory:

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

Reginald Iolanthe Perrin lives in suburban Climthorpe with his wife Elisabeth. Every day he walks the same route to the same railway station, to sit in the same carriage, across from the same faces on the same train (which is invariably late) to the same office at pudding and ice cream manufacturers "Sunshine Deserts" to do the same sales executive job he has done for the past goodness knows how many years.

Every aspect of Reggie's working life is grating on his already fragile nerves. His boss C.J. is a pompous oaf, who talks in mis-quoted cliches and how he "didn't get where I am today without...". His two subordinates Tony and David are next to useless yes-men who just parrot everything C.J. Says and insist that everything is "Super" and "Great". The new sales campaign for Exotic Ices seems utterly pointless. It's all so boring. It's enough to make him want to scream...

So Reggie begins to imagine having a passionate embrace with his secretary Joan across her desk and pictures his mother-in-law as a waddling hippopotamus. He starts to act very oddly - writing rude letters to the train company, arguing wildly with the tea lady about pieces of cake and experiencing more and more outlandish daydreams. As time goes on his eccentricities get crazier and his friends and family begin to worry. Reaching crisis point, Reggie ends up giving a drunken rambling speech at a conference and vows to end it all. Walking to the beach he leaves his clothes there and... well a story of apparent death and rebirth is just getting started...

Across three increasingly absurd series, Reggie keeps trying to leave his past behind and live a life of anonymity, individuality and peace, but finds himself drawn back to his family - firstly in disguise and then under a false name. Incredibly, no matter how bizarre the schemes he comes up with, Reggie keeps succeeding. "Grot", a shop that sells only useless things (square footballs, tins of melted snow, empty cardboard boxes, etc, etc) becomes a commercial phenomenon. His commune, where people can retreat from modern life, is embraced by the very people he’s trying to escape from. It's exactly what he doesn't want.

It's perhaps hard to imagine a show about the apparent utter pointlessness of modern 1970s life and a desire to escape it all being funny, but it is - enormously so. This is partly down to the subtle, clever and satirical writing from creator David Nobbs, and partly to the ensemble cast of oddball characters - each with their own catchphrase - that surround Reggie Perrin. Sunshine Desserts boss C.J. is my favourite, but there is also wonderful humour to be had from politically correct son-in-law Tom ("I'm not a ---- person..."), company quack Doc Morrisey and especially Elisabeth's brother Jimmy, played with typical world weary laconic charm by the always reliable Geoffrey Palmer ("Bit of a cock-up on the catering front I'm afraid...").

Of course the glue that holds all this together is the wonderful central performance from Leonard Rossiter as Reggie. Already a household name for his turn as grubby landlord Rigsby in ITV's "Rising Damp", this series sees him take his particular form of frenzied acting to new heights. It also helps that he is able to reel off the writers occasionally stream of consciousness dialogue at an incredible pace, adding to the manic nature of Reggie's character.

It's an almost note perfect display of a man going through a mid-life crisis - questioning the meaning of existence and needing to break out of the confines of everyday life and go off and do something - anything - more adventurous. Rossiter manages to play this with just the right mix of madness and pathos so that you genuinely feel for the man and the stresses he is going through, even when he is acting in the strangest ways. His physicality, his timing, his ability to shift from deadpan to manic within a single sentence. It veers close to the cliff-edge of over-acting,but never quite goes that step too far.

It's a performance and a programme that always makes me laugh, no matter how many times I have seen the episodes. While it's true that series one and two are the best, there are glorious absurdist moments throughout all three. Those character catchphrases have entered into everyday use (each time my wife tells me to have a good day at work, I respond just like Reggie with "I won't!"). But it's also the little things that delight -

• The letters gradually falling off the Sunshine Desserts sign. 
• The fact that the computer picks the best flavours to start the Exotic Ices brand with as "bookends, pumice stone and West Germany"
• The ever more bizarre reasons why the trains are late ("Twenty-two minutes late, escaped puma, Chessington North").
• The fact that Doc Morrissey always has the same symptoms as the patient he is diagnosing and his prescription is *always* two aspirin.
• Son-in -law Tom's odd choices for home-made wine, including sprout, turnip and banana gin.
• No matter how bad Reggie’s disguises are, no one recognises him. 
• The Sunshine Desserts meetings are filled with meaningless buzzwords - and whoopee cushions.

The belated 1996 fourth series, "The Legacy of Reginald Perrin" features many of the original cast but is sorely missing it's late star. It raises a few smiles, but it feels a bit like a corporate TV decision with a lack of originality, rather than having something worthwhile to say about '90s Britain. The Martin Clunes "Reggie Perrin" remake from 2009-2010 is just awful. Avoid it like the plague.

As I get older, I have more and more appreciation for Reggie and his frustrations. At times I am sure we can all feel trapped by the confines of the roles we have defined for ourselves - whether that be exhausted parent in the middle of the night, middle-manager dealing with a difficult employee or high-powered executive with the responsibility of a huge company. Some days we all just want to escape. I know I have. I don’t imagine my mother-in-law is a hippopotamus though…

Honourable mentions:

• Action comic (UK) - Let’s be honest, this should have been my number one choice. The huge impact this title had on the UK comics industry and on me as a reader cannot be emphasised enough. So why isn’t it? Well, partly because I’ve written about it once before, many years ago here. The other reason is that it seemed too obvious. It probably would top many peoples lists for 1976 - the comic is still spoken about fondly nearly fifty years later -  but I like to mix things up a little bit. So anyway, here it is, deservedly at the top of the 'honourable mentions'. A comic that had no silly jokes or cheerful sports stars - just an unstoppable shark lunging out of the water and ripping people to pieces. And it was the star of the strip! Then there was 'Death Game 1999', a dystopian future sports nightmare with manic cyborgs and violent deaths a regular occurrence. It both scared and thrilled me. Buying "Action" felt different, naughty even. I continued to read it even after the five-week ban. Sure, it was a shadow of its former self, but I still loved all the iterations of "Spinball". The merger with "Battle" was a step too far though - at the time I wasn't interested in a comic mainly about war and anyway, I'd discovered this new publication called 2000 AD...

• Imperial Stars - The first in the ten volume "Family d'Alembert" sequence written by Stephen Goldin is based on a novella by space opera grand master E.E. 'Doc' Smith. The titular family hail from DesPlains, a high-gravity planet that has endowed them with extraordinary strength, agility, and coordination. They perform in the Circus of the Galaxy, but in reality it is a front for intelligence operations for the Empire of Earth. Brother and sister Jules and Yvette travel the galaxy to investigate corruption, invasions and a conspiracy that threatens the Emperor himself. I adore this series. It’s pulpy serialised space opera at its best, full of twists, turns and a great dynamic between the lead characters. I may have come for 'Doc' Smith's name (given that he wrote another absolute favourite, the epic "Lensmen" saga), but stayed for Goldins ever-escalating plot. He’s the first author I ever corresponded with, when he sold me copies of two of the novels that were unavailable in the UK (this being the days before eBay). It also resulted in my first ever author dedication and autograph.

• The Big Bus - A spoof of the disaster movie genre which follows "Cyclops", the world's first double-decker, 32-wheeled, nuclear powered bus (yes really) on it's non- stop maiden voyage. No Leslie Nielsen (it beat “Airplane” to the big screen by four years), but it does have Stockard Channing, René Auberjonois, Larry Hagman and Lynn Redgrave, all playing it dead straight - plus lots of very silly jokes. The bus is a character in its own right - over-equipped (it has a swimming pool, bowling alley and a piano bar) and constantly on the verge of exploding. The film bombed at the box office, but for me it really is a guilty pleasure, up there with the best of the genre. An overlooked gem. 

• The Eternals - After a period at DC creating (amongst other things) the grand opus of the “Fourth World” saga, Jack “King” Kirby returned to Marvel and launched into a similar tale of gods, monsters and aliens. This time he took his inspiration from the many “ancient astronaut” theories popular at the time and the cosmic mythology of the Celestials, Eternals and Deviants was born. At a young age, I knew nothing of the legendary writer / artist and his vast impact on the comics industry.  What I did know - finding an issue of “The Eternals” in a seaside newsagent - was that I was hooked from the first panel. The tale of genetically enhanced humanoids living in secret and the arrival of the “Fourth Host” to judge humanity, is full of Kirby’s brand of bombast and mythic storytelling. Weird characters like the red-skinned Karkas or Brother Tode, plus the cosmic power of the Uni-Mind. To someone like me just starting a journey into US superheroes, it was like catnip. I couldn’t get enough, scouring every shop and spinner rack to find more issues. It would begin a life-long fascination with the great man’s work - and what a journey that would become. 

•  Oxygène  - I didn't really get addicted to the sublime electronica of Jean Michel Jarre until 1981’s "Magnetic Fields", but I can clearly remember hearing "Oxygène Part IV" on the radio and being very, very interested. What struck me most was how unlike anything else it was at the time. It wasn’t pop, or lift muzak or a TV theme - it felt like something…special. Both looking to the future and yet blending the influence of melodic themes of the past - and linking to my burgeoning interests in technology. Truly a piece of music that got stuck in my head. When I discovered the whole album a few years later it was more that just a new sound - it helped solidify my love for electronic music as a whole. From that point on I have continued exploring what the genre offers, always willing to look for something new - but “Oxygene” and it’s soundscape remains one of the benchmarks which I measure other music against.

We're All Stories In The End 14 - Cat's Cradle 3 : Witch Mark

 Time for a little fantasy to creep into the Doctor Who world....

Cat's Cradle : Witch Mark by Andrew Hunt

Seventh Doctor Adventures number: 7

Originally published: June 1992

Companions: Ace

"Spare no sympathy for those creatures. They were witches, they deserved to die."

A coach crashes on the M40. All the passengers are killed. The bodies carry no identification; they are wearing similar new clothes. And each has a suitcase full of banknotes.

A country vet delivers a foal. The mare has a deep wound in her forehead. In the straw, the vet finds a tapered horn.

In the darkening and doomed world known to its inhabitants as Tír na n-Óg, the besieged humans defend the walls of their citadel Dinorben against mythical beasts and demons.

The TARDIS's link with the Eye of Harmony is becoming ever more tenuous and is in urgent need of repair. But the time machine takes the Doctor and Ace to a village in rural Wales, and a gateway to another world.

                                             

So apologies for the pun, but I'm going to let the cat out of the bag straight away.

"Cats Cradle - Witch Mark" is not the rousing climax to a trilogy of interconnected adventures. To be honest, it’s probably an offence under the trades descriptions act to even call it a trilogy at all. No wonder Virgin did away with the umbrella titles after this.

While there *is* a conclusion to the flimsy "the TARDIS is seriously damaged" through-line stemming from "Time's Crucible", that feels utterly tacked on at the end in a "dictated by the editors, oh if I really must" way, so I'll not mention it... ever again.

Instead what we do get is mainly a "Doctor Who meets the fantasy quest genre" novel.

Touchstones are probably the "Narnia Chronicles" and definitely "Lord of the Rings" - with the latter providing some of the chapter titles for the book, not to mention some blindingly obvious call outs. But there are also elements of Gaelic, Welsh and other mythologies woven into the backstory 

I'll get to my thoughts on the actual plot in a bit, but it's perhaps telling that it was the origin, adaptation and use of these medieval names and stories that intrigued me the most.

I've come across many of the Irish names and concepts elsewhere - primarily in the "Sláine" comic strip in 2000 AD, written by Pat Mills. And here in "Witch Mark", some are used pretty straight.

The supernatural otherworld of  Tír na n-Óg is often described as being accessed via ancient sites, so a stone circle fits well. And while the Tuatha Dé Danann were not generally shown as the ruling council of the land, they *were* depicted as kings, queens and warrior heroes and had shapeshifting powers. The leader was known as Nuada though  - and in the most famous tales lost his arm in battle, eventually replacing it with one made from silver. Maybe he was an early Cyberman ?

Other names have been appropriated to fill Andrew Hunt's world. The Firbolg of myth were men, not centaurs.  The Fomoir were hideous sea creatures, not trolls.  And the Sidhe were often the fairy folk - definitely not Hobbits with fox like characteristics. Actually, see the novel "Autumn Mist" for an alternative take on those creatures. 

Meanwhile, distrusting warrior chieftain Chulainn is far removed from his Gaelic namesake - who served as the inspiration for the afore mentioned Sláine - warp-spasm and all. But Dagda and Arawn seem appropriate names for the twin suns of Tír na n-Óg - given that one is associated with fertility and the other with death.

Most interesting of all though, is the name given to the "magician" at the heart of this quest - Goibhnie.

In Irish mythology he was one of a trio of divine craftsmen, a metalsmith, provider of a sacred otherworld feast - and brewed ale that could convey immortality on those who drank it. The "Craftsman" side totally fits with the idea of the alien Troifran scientist that created the world.

Not all the creatures stem from Gaelic pre-history. The unicorns are known as Ceffyl, which as any Welsh speaker (of which I am NOT one) knows means horse. Pretty on the nose there. And the Dinorben fortress did once exist in Wales, although its long since been destroyed.

All that and an appearance from Herne (from English folklore) who lives backwards in time (like Merlin of Arthurian legend).

Anyway, enough with Andrew Hunt's melting pot framework  - what about the actual novel?

Well it's absolutely the most traditional Doctor Who story in this loose trilogy. It's a a non-manipulative Seventh Doctor and an immature Ace who still uses phrases like "bog breath" - so clearly *not* the gun-toting hero from "Warhead". 

Plus it all starts off in a '90s "X-Files" kind of a way - a remote Welsh village where strange things are happening, a grizzled local who seems to know more than he is letting on, locals disappearing without warning, a bus crash full people with no identification except for a strange birthmark. We even have a Mulder stand with Inspector Stevens of the Yard.

Though once the Timelord and his companion stumble into Tír na n-Óg - more quickly than I expected - the fantasy influences are worn loud and proud. And Frodo and Sam - sorry the Doctor and Ace  - are sent on an impossible mission to defeat the evil dark lord and restore things to normal, although no one really thinks they will succeed. 

Hunt also throws in some demonic monsters, a Welsh cult burning people at the stake, not to mention centaurs, Ace forming a telepathic bond with a unicorn - *and* a description of pregnant women having their stomach's cut open and the babies being strangled with their own umbilical cords !

It's a heady mix.

I kind of like the premise - basically "the world is ending so the fellowship of fantasy creatures and men breaks because the humans are selfish and want to become refugees in our world". And I can't remember Doctor Who doing a pure fantasy of this type before.

But here lies my problem. 

I wish it had stayed as a fantasy setting. It would have been something different.

Not everything in Doctor Who has to have a scientific explanation - and to be honest, once it was revealed that the world was all the work of genetic engineering by an alien, I kind of lost interest a little. Not to mention that once that came to light, the whole thing seemed to rush headlong to a conclusion, with numerous plot threads just left hanging - 

Where did all the money founds on the people in the crashed coach come from?

The same goes for the replicas of the Doctor and Ace. I assume they were "demons" but what purpose did their disguise serve? If it was just to kill Janet and Hugh - then what? The whole element seemed to peter out.

Was David really Bathsheba's missing brother ? If so, what happened to send him to Earth ?

It feels like it could have done with quite a few more pages and a different resolution - one that didn’t have to tie into that trilogy ending that shall not be named.

How much of this was down to it being Andrew Hunts' first novel is difficult to say.

But the ideas were solid, even if I personally would have preferred a different (and more fulfilling) execution.

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 9 - 1975

Bear with me. It's going to be quite a time-twisting, decades-hopping path before we get to the memory in question this time...

1975:

The trivia:

• On the 18th July of 1975, seventeen year-old Erskine Ebbin from Hamilton, Bermuda was hit by a taxi and killed whilst riding his moped. It was almost exactly one year after his brother Neville was also killed - riding the same moped, on the same road, by the same taxi driver, Willard Manders. Astonishingly, according to the boys’ father, even the passenger carried in the taxi was the same in both instances. It sounds almost too co-incidental to be true…

• The classic BBC TV show “The Goodies” featuring Grahame Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor was known for its episodes of surreal comedy. During an episode called "Kung Fu Kapers", transmitted on 24th March 1975, Bill reveals he is a master of the secret Lancastrian martial art known as “Ecky Thump” - which usually entails wearing a giant flat cap and braces and wielding a black pudding as a weapon. Viewer Alex Mitchell of King’s Lynn, Norfolk laughed so much that he fainted, started to breathe unusually and then died of what was suspected as a heart attack. The story made news around the world. It wasn’t until 2012 when his grand-daughter had a similar near fatal cardiac arrest, that doctors realised that it was actually a rare condition known as Long QT Syndrome.

• On the 6th August 1975 the New York Times featured a front-page obituary for renowned fictional detective Hercule Poirot. The story gave a brief history of his career and detailed how Poirot had died at Styles Court, his Essex nursing home - along with fact that he had taken to wearing a wig and false moustache “to disguise the signs of age that offended his vanity”. It also carried a notice from Agatha Christie’s publisher that the final Poirot novel, "Curtain", was to be published on 15th October.

The memory:

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze

Legendary pulp hero Doc Savage first appeared in his own magazine in March 1933, following on from the success of "The Shadow".  Although often classed as the world's first superhero, he actually had no powers. Instead Clark Savage Jnr had been trained almost from birth by a team of scientists assembled by his father. This punishing regime honed his mind and body, giving him huge strength, agility and fighting skills, a photographic memory and a vast knowledge of science. Main writer Lester Dent envisioned him as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan, coupled with an innate sense of goodness.

Headquartered on the 86th floor of Manhattan's tallest skyscraper (implied to be the Empire State Building), Doc also possessed a large array of vehicles, futuristic gadgets and weaponry, including the "mercy bullet" which only put its victim to sleep. His fortune came from a hidden South American gold mine that was bequeathed to him after his very first adventure. Lastly he had a secret retreat in the Arctic wastelands known as the 'Fortress of Solitude' (Superman stole that idea) where he could carry out experiments, meditate and get away from the stresses of everyday life.

Possessed of distinctive bronze skin and hair and golden eyes (traits shared by his cousin Patricia) and accompanied by his five friends - Ham, Monk, Renny, Long Tom and Johnny - who were all experts in their chosen fields, Doc punished evildoers and solved mysteries across 181 'super-sagas'  - all the way thorough to 1949. Controversially, Doc also sometimes operated on the brains of the criminals he subdued, curing them of their evil ways.

I first came across Doc and his friends in my mid-teens via some very battered Bantam paperbacks that my friend Matt showed me at a London comic-mart. Bantam had been reprinting the stories since the 1960s, many featuring the now classic James Bama image of a titan of a man with a sharp widows peak hairline and a tattered shirt, showing off his huge muscles. The artwork on the front was certainly intriguing enough but at the time I was more interested in comics and modern science fiction and fantasy novels than pulp stories from the 1930s, so I dismissed them as a relic of the a bygone era...

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Back in the days before it was a countrywide chain of hugely successful multi media pop culture stores, there were two shops called "Forbidden Planet", both in London. In St Giles High Street you had "FP2", which was the film and television hub. This was less than two minutes walk from the flagship store in Denmark Street - and in the 1980s that was the absolute mecca for fans of science fiction, fantasy and comic books.

(From the comics in the window this picture was taken in mid-1987...)

I absolutely *loved* Forbidden Planet. Even now, decades after they have moved premises, I just have to walk past the old shop front and the memories come flooding back from the myriad times I visited over the years, from around 1980 onward. I even went weekly when I started working in the big city. There was no CCTV back then, so after spending five minutes gawping at the current weeks comics displayed in the window, any bags you had were handed in to the guy sat on the stairs as you walked in through the narrow doorway off the street. In return he would hand you half a playing card and clip the other half to your possessions with a clothes peg. Thus crudely identified and secure, you were then allowed through the door on the left into the shop itself.

It was a long narrow space with dozens of  low shelves of novels at the front and racks of comics at the back - with everything else crammed in between. Back issues, posters, artwork, models - it was an absolute cornucopia of stuff, suffused with that old comic book smell which you just don't get in today's pristine mega-stores.  I still have a T-shirt with one of the Brian Bolland promotional images on it (although I'm far too large to fit into it now). I attended signings, made new friends and purchased hundreds of new comics and novels - all thanks to this magical place.

This is all very interesting you might think, but how does this relate to the "Man of Bronze"? Well, Forbidden Planet was where I rediscovered this classic Golden Age character...

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On one of my regular visits to the shop in the summer of 1988, I was doing my usual trawl through the bookshelves in search of something new to read when I came across a deep blue cover showing the figure of a burly man in a ripped shirt in front of a bolt of lightning. "Doc Savage Omnibus  #5" it proclaimed "Five Doc adventure classics in one giant volume!". Vaguely remembering a similar image from many years before, I took a look at the back cover and inside blurb. Hmmm... these stories sounding quite interesting.

You see, in the intervening years I'd learned a new appreciation for the characters from prior decades and those that had been the antecedents of the superheroes that I loved. There was a vast wealth of history out there, both prose and pictorial and now being in my early twenties  - and only very recently having read the bombastic update of "The Shadow" by Howard Chaykin, I was just in the right frame of mind to explore the world of the pulp heroes of the past. Forgoing my usual insistence to only buy a new book series from the first volume (#1-4 not being present on the shelves at the time), I took the omnibus to the friendly guy behind the counter and paid my £5.99.

It's worth mentioning here that it wasn't until much, much later that I discovered that not only was this not the first omnibus in the series, but the stories collected in each book were not even necessarily in chronological order. As I mentioned earlier, Bantam had been reprinting Doc Savage since 1964, but as the tales got shorter they combined them first into double novels and then these multi-story omnibuses. Volume five reprinted "super-saga's" 170-174, but such a sequence was unusual and other books had adventures seemingly at random from across the decades.

At the time though I didn't known any of this, so as I worked my way through "No Light To Die By" and the subsequent stories, I lost myself in a world of 1930s mystery and intrigue with ex-Nazi's, a rented gorilla suit, a female poisoner and a sunken ship. Sure the plots were a bit creaky and obviously of their time, but I found them very enjoyable. This first quintet only featured, Doc, Ham, Monk and a guest appearance from cousin Pat, but mentioned other characters that were "off on their own adventures" or "busy". I wanted to know more, so a few weeks later I went back to Forbidden Planet and found Omnibus # 6. That was it - I was hooked...

Over the coming months and years I would buy all of the Omnibuses and through second hand book-shops and similar places also purchase quite a few of the older Bantam reprints. I never did amass a complete collection of all 181 stories in paperback (I have since through the wonders of e-books), but that was okay. 

Then in 1991 Bantam began printing *new* Doc Savage novels, beginning with "Escape From Loki" by long-time Savage aficionado Philip Jose Farmer (remember him from back in 1971?) and I got all those too, right through until 1993 when the series was first cancelled.

A couple of asides at this point (in a post full of asides). Farmer also wrote a 1973 biography of  Doc Savage from the viewpoint that he was a real person and that "Kenneth Robeson" was just recording fictionalised versions of the Savage memoirs. He also linked Savage to dozens of other fictional characters in his "Wold Newton Universe". I mentioned this briefly before, in my 1969 piece when I wrote about "A Feast Unknown". It's a fascinating idea that blurs the line between fiction and reality. Alan Moore has commented that this concept was a significant influence on his work on the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" comic book and its various sequels. 

So, we have established that I developed a love of the Doc Savage stories from the 1930s, which I rediscovered in the 1980s and that I read the books well into the 1990s - so how does all this fit into a memory of something released in 1975 ? The answer involves Farmer's other favourite character, Tarzan...

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When I was much younger I loved the "Tarzan" TV series. Although it was originally transmitted between 1966 and 1968, the British TV channel "ITV" showed the series on what seemed like a continuous loop on Saturday mornings in the 1970s. Like the Adam West "Batman" show, it became imprinted on the memories of most children of that decade. I was already familiar with the character from the black and white Johnny Weissmuller movies that my dad liked to watch, but this was a more educated ape-man, returning to the jungle after becoming tired of living amongst "civilised" men. With high production values, action packed storylines and filming in real jungles (admittedly Brazil rather than deepest Africa) it was a technicolour feast for the eyes. Accompanies by local boy Jai and ever-present chimpanzee Cheetah, Tarzan was one of my favourite TV heroes.

The real reason for the show's success was of course the amazing Ron Ely in the title role. An impressive well-built figure who could act, swim, fight and interact with animals - and do all his own stunts - he had a real screen presence and embodied the the role of the Lord of The Apes for a generation.  I've never forgotten him.

Which brings us, at last, to the point of this long rambling piece. One Saturday somewhere around 1989, I was flicking through the TV channels and paused to watch the end of a TV show (the name of which I can't remember). After the credits rolled, there was an announcement of the following programme, something along the lines of "Up next it's the afternoon film. Ron Ely is Doc Savage - The Man Of Bronze".

What !?  WHAT !? There was a Doc Savage movie? How had I missed this? Somehow in the year since I'd started reading the books I'd not come across this fact. Quickly I took a look on the "Teletext" pages for the channel (this is pre-internet remember. Oh and if you don't know when Teletext is, I recommend you look at the pages here. Hours of fun.) Ah, this film was made in 1975 -  that might explain why I had missed it. That plus it probably wasn't shown that often. Or when it was shown the name didn't ring any bells. Who knows. The point was it was on now! This was too good an opportunity to miss. Quickly I grabbed a blank videocassette, put it in my machine and pressed record just as the sonorous voice over and the patriotic strains of John Philip Sousa's "The Thunderer" march began...

Adapting the basic plot of the first novel, "Doc Savage: Man Of Bronze" sees our fearless hero investigating the death of his father. Vowing to solve the murder, Doc and the "Fabulous Five" attempt to travel to the republic of Hidalgo, but are opposed at every turn by a stream of tribal natives, relentless assassins and supernatural creatures - plus the ruthless and maniacal Captain Seas - who wants the riches of Hidalgo for himself.

Many of the core elements of the character are present - the 1930s setting, the 86th floor headquarters, Doc's daily exercise regime, the Fortress of Solitude, the strange "trilling noise" that Doc makes during times of mental stress or excitement and the various eccentricities or habits exhibited by his faithful companions. Even Monk's pet pig Habeus Corpus gets a look in. There are also plenty of bronze coloured retro gadgets and vehicles.

 But if you are expecting a straight-laced action / adventure story in the mold of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", which faithfully adapts the usual serious tone of the novels, well this is not the film for you. If however you enjoy the tongue in cheek, camp, self-aware, winking at the audience kind of thing that the "Batman" TV series did so well, and can go with the flow then you will "get" it. It's very, very silly in places  - for example the cartoonish villain's henchman sleeps in a giant baby crib - and the final fight sequence (with subtitles) has to be seen to be believed, The production values are great but there is some cheap looking animation and the acting is sometimes so far over the top, it comes back down the other side. But the truth is that all of that can be forgiven because it's just so much damn fun and outrageously entertaining - I adored the film that first time I watched it and I still do. This is the kind of film that the words "cult classic" were invented for.

Ron Ely was perfectly cast as Doc. Benevolent, intelligent, always three steps ahead of the bad guys, he exuded charisma and inhabits the role as if it was made for him. Like Adam West before him, Ely plays it absolutely straight even in the oddest of situations. Likewise the look of Johnny, Long Tom, Ham, Monk and Renny may not be exactly true to the books, but they are close enough that you can recognise the characters that Lester Dent created.

Apparently not everyone could see the fun side of having a humourous Doc Savage movie. "Purists" absolutely hated it. I can sort of see their point. They had probably been waiting years for a faithful adaptation of their favourite pulp franchise - and this certainly was not it. Maybe because I had come late to reading the books and only discovered the film fourteen years after its initial release, I was able to enjoy it more on it's own merits rather than weighing it down with decades of expectation. It seems that the musical choices (the Sousa marches, etc,) came in for particular scorn. If you want that all removed and some of the effects updated, there is a fan-edited "Detarnished Edition" out there on the interweb. I do have a copy and while it turns the film into something more akin to a colour version of the old Republic cliffhanger serials, it also loses some of the charm.

There's one other thing that I want to mention about "Man of Bronze" and that's Doc Savage's car. It's a now extremely rare bronze Cord Model 810 convertible with modified running boards (for Clark Savage Jnr to stand on) and it is just absolutely stunning. I have always appreciated cars from the early decades of the 20th century and for me this one is just at the top of the pile. I. Want. That. Car. Sadly unless I win the lottery and can have one custom adapted to look just like that picture below I think I'm out of luck..

In conclusion - more than thirty-five years after reading my first Savage story I still enjoy Doc's adventures in novel and comic book form. There have been multiple suggestions over the decades that a new film version will be made, with everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Dwayne Johnson up for the role. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. Until then I have the 1975 version of the Man of Bronze and I know I may be in the minority here, but despite its flaws the film always makes me smile. It's not a guilty pleasure at all.

Time for some music...

Honourable mentions:

• Jaws - There are movies you watch - and then there are movies that become part of your DNA. For me, "Jaws" is the latter. It's probably my favourite film of all time and certainly the one I have purchased in more different formats than any other (yes, even the disc for the Phillips LaserVision). It's astonishing that a film made under such difficult conditions ended up being just about perfect. John Williams' iconic score. The superb performances - especially from the magnetic Robert Shaw. The way that being forced to keep the shark mostly unseen actually makes the film better. Fifty years later it's as powerful and scary and dramatic as ever. I've watched it more times than I can count and I love every single frame. It's not just nostalgia. "Jaws" was the first film where I wanted to know how it was made - that got me interested in the art of film-making. The first film where I knew the name of the director and followed his career. The first film I could quote lines from. I may never need a bigger boat - but I'll always need "Jaws".

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show - There was a time in my late teens / early 20s when "Rocky Horror" wasn't just a movie - it was a lifestyle. I must have been watching it on a weekly basis. Richard O'Brien was my idol. I went to every live stage show and film screening I could find. I dressed up as Brad in his lab coat and white underwear. I shouted out talk-back lines, threw rice, toast and toilet paper with gusto. I bought every LP going. In short, I was addicted. There's something about "Rocky Horror" that just spoke to me. It wasn't just Tim Curry strutting his stuff in fishnets and a basque. It wasn't just the marvelous songs where I knew every lyric. For someone that didn't have a lot of friends (especially after leaving school) it gave me a sense of belonging. And although the decades have passed and I fell in love with other things, I only have to hear the opening notes of "Science Fiction, Double Feature" to be back in that time.

• Space:1999 - In my humble opinion this is Gerry Anderson's finest live action series (although I do have a lot of affection for "UFO"). It helps that it has one of the best theme's in the history of SF television. Barry Gray's thunderous orchestral blast, the whining electric guitar riffs accompanied by glimpses of what was in the episode this week. It's simply glorious. The show has an absurd premise really - a nuclear explosion blows the moon out of orbit, where it travels across interstellar space in mere months. But this wasn't "Star Trek". It was more philosophical. More eerie. Yes, there were monsters (none more horrifying that the tentacled horror from "Dragon's Domain"), but there was time to ponder the meaning of life. Martin Landau was never less than brooding magnificence and Barbara Bain was worthy if a little dull. My favourite though was the wonderful Barry Morse as Professor Victor Bergman. He wasn't the flashy science guy - he was warm, grounded and had a kind of quiet sadness about him. A shame he only lasted the one series. The second not only dropped him (and the fabulous Main Mission set), but also the theme and the more serious elements - going for a "creature of the week" vibe that never quite worked. At least we still had the Eagles and the Com-Locks and the Stun Guns. Those are technical elements that still stand up today. Oh and yes, like every school boy, I did have a massive crush on Catherine Schell as Maya...

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 8 - 1974

This selection may seem like a safe and obvious choice. It's not because this year is particularly lacking in things that made a lasting impression on me - just look at the "honourable mentions" section below - but more that it stands head and shoulders above everything else...

1974:

The trivia:

• Suave actor David Niven was speaking at the 46th Oscars ceremony at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and was just about to introduce Elizabeth Taylor, when a fully naked man ran past, flashing a peace sign. Streaking was a huge fad at the time and photographer Robert Opel had posed as a journalist to gain access to the stage. Niven did a double take, adjusted his bow tie and then famously quipped "Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen. Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?". When the laughter finally subsided, Taylor floated onto the stage, received a standing ovation and remarked, “That’s a pretty hard act to follow!”. Later, some evidence arose suggesting that the whole scene had been set up by the show's producer Jack Haley Jr. as a stunt, but Niven's family vehemently denied this. The streaking was commemorated 50 years later during the 96th Academy Awards when John Cena presented the award for Best Costume Design naked and covered only by the envelope. 

• At a ceremony to mark the remodelling of the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico, the first ever interstellar radio message was sent towards the Messier 41 cluster in the Canis Major constellation, 25,000 light years from Earth. The 1,679 bits of binary data was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a serious attempt to enter into a conversation with possible extra-terrestrials, although it did contain information about human, DNA, the solar system and radio waves. In 2001 a crop circle appeared near the Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, England which visually represented most of the information from the original Arecibo message. The SETI Institute dismissed the idea that it was a response from aliens. 

• On the night of Thursday 7th November 1974, Lady Veronica Lucan, wife of Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, burst into the local pub in Belgravia and claimed to have been attacked by her husband - who had also admitted to killing their children's nanny. In the early hours of Friday morning, having apparently penned letters protesting his innocence and accusing his wife of hiring a hitman, Lucan drove away - and vanished. Known for his expensive tastes and gambling habit, Lucan was estranged from his wife and apparently desperate to regain custody of his children. No sign of him was ever found again despite intensive investigations. The case become a bit of a media sensation for many years afterwards, with multiple theories put forward. It was not until 1999 that Lucan was declared legally dead and amazingly, a death certificate (allowing his son to inherit the title and what was left of the estate) was not issued until 2016. 

The memory:

Bagpuss

It's probably fair to say that this little show starring 'the most beautiful...the most magical...saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world'  is one of the most memorable British children's television programmes. It has gone way beyond popular culture to enter the nation's collective consciousnesses, in the same way as say, Doctor Who. 

Anyone who has ever watched an episode can remember the iconic images and characters. The series of Victorian sepia tinged photographs at the start. The shop Emily owned that did not sell anything but was full of lost property The mice on the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse organ. Gabrielle the toad. Madeleine the rag doll that never moved from her chair. Professor Yaffle the acerbic and haughty carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker. Plus of course a candy stiped cat that was baggy and a bit loose at the seams.

Each episode Emily would place a recovered broken item in front of her cat and sing the familiar song:

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss

Old Fat Furry Catpuss

Wake up and look at this thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright, be golden and light

Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing.

As the pictures turned from sepia to full colour, Bagpuss would wake up with a huge yawn and so would all all his friends in the shop window. The toys would discuss the new object and usually tell a story or sing a song that would be illustrated by simple animation. This would appear via a thought bubble above Bagpuss's head

These tales were often taken from local Celtic folklore, but would help uncover the true nature and purpose of the thing that had been found. Then the hard-working but mischievous mice would squeak a variation on their "we will fix it" song and mend the broken item, placing it in the shop window in case whoever had lost it happened to walk past. Their task complete, Bagpuss would yawn again and as he fell asleep, the others would also turn back into immobile toys.

Across a mere thirteen episodes, the show's simple storylines, timeless stop-motion animation and lovable characters entranced multiple generations of British children. Some episodes are obviously better than others. Who can forget the classic "The Mouse Mill" where the six rodents try to convince the pompous Professor Yaffle that a wooden toy mill can make chocolate biscuits out of beans and breadcrumbs - or "Uncle Feedle" with it's charming tale of a cloth man with an inside out house. 

But others had subtle elements of the real world woven into their fabric. "The Ballet Shoe" has the mice threatening going on strike unless they are allowed to sing. Even stranger is "Ship In a Bottle" where Bagpuss reveals that he once met a topless mermaid in a bar who sat on his lap, while "The Fiddle" has dream-like layers as Bagpuss tells the story of how he met a a leprechaun  - who then proceeds to ask for his own story. This is also the one where Gabriel the toad starts to question the very nature of existence - after Yaffle extorts that leprechauns are not real, Gabriel simply states "Well perhaps we aren't real either".

"Bagpuss" was developed by stop-motion animation legends Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin and originally transmitted between February and May 1974. A short run you might think, but what cemented the programme in the minds of children countrywide was the fact that it was repeated twice a year, every year until 1987 ! In the days before VHS, this exposure and the fact that the opening and closing minutes were always the same, meant that, much like repeating multiplication tables parrot-fashion, the familiar words and pictures just sunk into kids brains.

Such has been the overwhelming popularity of the show that it was once voted the favourite kids TV programme of all time. Much has been written about the underlying themes of kindness and working together - and there is even critical analysis which cast the disparate characters as somewhat mythic versions of the important people in a child's life - Madeleine and Gabriel as mother and father, the mice as siblings, Professor Yaffle as the teacher and Bagpuss himself as the grandfather figure. It's an interesting hypothesis.

What is certain is that it is extraordinary how much life Firmin and Postgate manage to imbue into these characters made of wood and cloth. The stop-motion process still allows for amazing nuance in their movements and interactions with each other. The series presented a world full of the power of storytelling where there were no limits to imagination. There were moments of education in some of the folktales and discussions about the discarded objects, but primarily it was fabulous entertainment for kids of all ages.

In the many years since, Bagpuss has received an honourary degree from the University of Kent, had a Romanian children's hospital wing names after him (funded entirely by royalties from the BBC), appeared on a Royal Mail postage stamp and even been part of a touring stage show featuring the songs from the episodes by original singers Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner.

For myself, I have always adored this little show and I bought it immediately it came out on DVD. My own children watched it. My younger nieces and nephews watched it. A small bean bag version of Bagpuss is looking down on my now as a write this - and if he could wake up and talk I am sure he would be pleased that he has brought such lasting joy to millions.

Honourable mentions:

• Hong Kong Phooey - In civilian life a mild mannered janitor, Penry Pooch jumps into a filing cabinet and emerges as a masked crime fighter and Kung-Fung “master”. While his Phooeymobile can transform into a boat, a plane or even a phone booth, his skills are from a correspondence course and are usually ineffective. Obviously an anthropomorphic slapstick spoof on the popular marital arts TV shows and films of the time, this Hanna Barbera show is pleasant enough animated fare, lifted by a few great gags and some solid voice perfomances. But it gets onto my list for the fantastic theme song. Sung by Jazz legend Scatman Crothers it perfectly explains the core concept and captures the shows goofy charm. In fact it’s fan-riffic !

• The Man With The Golden Gun - This may be the ninth Bond film, but it’s the first one I ever saw on the big screen. When I used to visit my maternal grandparents for a week in the school summer holidays, my much-loved late grandfather used to often take my brother and I to the local cinema. A single giant screen that showed modern releases and classic films for young and old. While it’s by no means the best of the Roger Moore era (that's "Live and let Die" if anyone is keeping score) it still has some iconic perfomances and images. The double whammy of Christopher Lee as elegant assassin Scaramanga and Herve Villechaize as his assistant Nick Nack. The gorgeous Hong Kong and Thailand locations. The corkscrew car jump stunt. The final funhouse duel. Yes the humour may be a bit over the top, but that was probably perfect for the younger members of the audience, like me. This film started a decades-long love affair with the franchise. Let's just not talk about Sheriff J.W. Pepper okay?

• Zardoz - John Boorman's post-apocalyptic science fiction oddity is an intriguing look at class, religion and free will. Yes it’s pretentious. Yes it’s campy. But you can’t deny the ambitious production design, even if some of it make no real sense.  It’s a true example of a cult film - bold, bizarre and unlike anything else, which is probably why I love it. It’s definitely worth a viewing,  even if it's just for the fabulous logo, the huge flying head and Sean Connery in a giant red nappy....

• Phantom of the Paradise - Another cult film, but this time it’s Brian De Palma’s satirical glam-rock mash up of Phantom of the Opera, Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s another of those movies that I was way too young to see on original release, but was introduced to it as a teenager by a friend who was a bit of a connoisseur of weird cinema. For me the big draw was Paul Williams as sinister record producer Swan. I’d seen him on “The Muppet Show” and knew that he wrote and performed songs in Alan Parker’s “Bugsy Malone”. But this was a totally different side to the folksy charm of “An Old Fashioned Love Song”. I may have come for Williams, but I fell in love with the unique costumes, quirky visuals and offbeat acting. Truly a film that defies the mold.

• Dark Star - I’m at risk of turning this post into a cult film love-fest, but there were so many good movies released this year. None more so than this counter culture SF classic. For perhaps the first time, the future was seen not as gleaming spaceships and perfect technology, but full of malfunctioning equipment, vast empty voids and most of all - boredom. I loved the deadpan delivery, the beach ball alien slapstick and the whole anti-“2001”-ness of it all. Plus who can fail to love surf-boarding through space to the strains of “Benson, Arizona” ?

• The Four Musketeers - See 1973. 'Nuff said.