Farewell to “Top Of The Pops”
This evening, BBC2 television broadcast the last programme of “Top Of The Pops” after 42 years of the feature.
It started on 1 January 1964 when I was 15 years old and the Beatles were at No 1 with “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and it was made in a converted church in south Manchester minutes from where I lived.
Can you imagine what it was like to be a teenager when the Beatles were at their height and to watch all the top acts on TV each week? I used to make a tape recording of the programmes and play them back constantly. These days, I have my iPod Nano like any self-respecting cool guy.
But, as I’ve explained on my web site, the pop music of the 1960s was one of the many reasons why it’s fun to be in one’s 50s in today’s Britain..