Timeslip moment again, dear reader...
Our trusty TARDIS (in the capable hands of the newly-regenerated Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee) has materialised in an ancient, far-flung land - that of 1970 - the year the Beatles announced their break-up, of the Apollo 13 near-disaster, Prime Minister Edward Heath, the devastating Peruvian earthquake, Lord Laurence Olivier, Jesus Christ Superstar the album, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, The Banana Splits, Bernadette Devlin, UFO, Willy Brandt, the rabies scare, The Female Eunuch, Palestinian plane hijackings, Ska, President Nixon, The Goodies, the Aswan High Dam, Wand'rin' Star, Thor Heyerdahl, The Railway Children, the Isle of Wight Festival, compensation for Thalidomide victims, Mungo Jerry, A Question of Sport, the East Pakistan cyclone disaster, Vietnam, the The Sun's Page Three girls, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Ian Paisley, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, the Kent State massacre in the US, Northern Soul all-nighters, Dana All Kinds of Everything, Commonwealth Games, Tony Jacklin, and the disruption of the Miss World contest by Women's Libbers.
It was also the year that Matt Damon, Naomi Campbell, Queen Latifah, Joseph Fiennes, Simon Pegg, Uma Thurman, Claudia Schiffer, Guyana, Armand Van Helden, NatWest bank, Virgin (Records), Christopher Nolan, Jason Orange, M. Night Shyamalan, Tonga, Neil Hannon, Andre Agassi, the Glastonbury Festival, River Phoenix, the Pascal programming language, Alexander Armstrong, the Range Rover, and the Gay Liberation Front in the UK were all born; and the year Gypsy Rose Lee, E. M. Forster, Charles de Gaulle, President Nasser of Egypt, Bertrand Russell, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Tammi Terrell, "Jack Walker" in Coronation Street and the Half Crown coin all died.
In the headlines this week in October fifty-five years ago? BP struck oil in the North Sea, a Canadian government minister was kidnapped and murdered by Quebec separatists, the last sail-powered Thames barge and the last canal narrowboats to carry commercial cargo were decommissioned, Fiji gained its independence from the UK, the Cambodian civil war was raging, Anwar Sadat came to power in Egypt, and the new Austin Maxi and Ford Cortina were launched. In our cinemas: The Vampire Lovers; Catch-22; Tora! Tora! Tora! On telly: The Pink Panther Show; Play for Today...
...and Vision On, the kids' show aimed at deaf children, hosted by Pat Keysell and Tony Hart [whose centenary it is today].
Meanwhile, in our charts this week in October 1970? "Heavy metal" music had arrived with a vengeance, with both Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the Top 5, jostling for places with Desmond Dekker and Bobby Bloom; the rest of the Top 10 included the Carpenters, Miss Ross, Tremeloes, Chairmen of the Board and the Poppy Family.
Dominating the lot however - in her 4th of six weeks in the top slot - was the most successful artist signed to Holland-Dozier-Holland's Invictus label [that they set up when they dramatically left Motown a year earlier] - and one who is happily still with us, at the venerable age of 83:
A classic!
Fifty-five years?! Fuck.