Advert - The Colony Restaurant (1950's)

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Felix King had a residency at the Colony Restaurant from 1950 until 1959. As far as I can tell the restaurant was part of the Colony Club where ageing film star George Raft acted as host for several months in 1966 before being deported as an 'undesirable alien'.

Wally Griffin was an American comedian possibly worth staying awake until midnight to see.

Advert - Granada Video Recorder rental (1980's)

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1982 and the must have gadget was a VHS video recorder and you could rent one from Granada for only £14.45 a month, build up a huge library of tapes and then wonder what to do with them when DVD's arrived.

Advert - Rex Coronation Souvenir records (1937)

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On 12th May 1937 the Coronation of King George VI was held at Westminster Abbey. This advert was published on 13th may 1937.

Note that the records came with a full-colour picture label e.g.

Advert - Ferguson Television (1940's)

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1940's Television 1 channel, black and white picture and only  broadcasting 18 hours a week. 

Note the screen sizes - 10" x 8" is a bit smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. And that's the bigger of the two priced at the equivalent (allowing for inflation) of about £3000.

Advert - Philco Radio (1936)

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1936 advert for a Philco type 444 'The People's Set' bakelite wireless. The auction house Bonhams sold one in 2009 for £144 although another website suggests a going price of £495.

Cutting - Jack Hylton Dies (1965)

29th January 1965

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Jack Hylton was a very popular band leader in England and on the Continent (even playing for Herman Goering in Berlin) throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s. In 1936 he took America by storm and toured Canada. He also dabbled in entrepreneurship, having brought Duke Ellington over the Britain for the first time in 1933. In 1940 he stopped performing and concentrated on theatrical and TV production, having London West End hits with shows like ‘Kiss Me Kate’, ‘Kismet’ and ‘Salad Days’. At the age of 70 in 1963 he married 29 year-old Beverley Prowse and, as detailed above, died in 1965.

Advert - Kan-U-Go (1940's)

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Kan-U-Go looks suspiciously like a Scrabble rip off but in fact pre-dates the better known game. Kan-U-Go was copywrited in 1934 and Scrabble wasn't invented until 1938. This is a 1940's advert. And for the really sad and lonely - Kan-U-Go-Alone.

Advert - Ferguson Radiogram (1940's)

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For those that are too young to know, a radiogram is a radio receiver and record player in one cabinet. If you don't know what a radio or a record is then Google it. This advert is from the late 1940's. 47gns? Approx £1585 allowing for inflation.

Advert - Music Club (1981)

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The Audio Club of Britain offering vinyl long players or cassettes for only £1.29. Who would you go for - Mantovani or Judas Priest, Rod Stewart or Ted Nugent, David Bowie or Blue Oyster Cult?

Advert - 'Hunted' starring Dirk Bogarde (1952)

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Dirk Bogarde in Hunted, also known as The Stranger In Between. The boy in the film was played by Jon Whiteley who had a short 5 film career before eventually becoming curator of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Cutting - Frank Randle leaves West End Show (1952)

February 1952

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Frank Randle was a controversial Lancashire born comedian who was very popular in the 1930's but his career took a nosedive with the passing of variety in the 1950's. He suffered from bad health due to drinking, was bankrupt in 1955 and died in 1957. 'Televariety' ran from February 4th to 24th 1952.

Advert - East Ham Palace Variety (1930's)

Roy Fox was an American band leader who moved to England in 1930 and included the more famous Al Bowlly as vocalist with one of his bands. 

By 1948 the Grip Quartet was appearing in the Cirque Medrano alongside 12 polar bears. 

I don't think Britain's Got Talent has yet to feature a Japanese Foot Juggler like Taro Naito. Where he got the feet from I don't know.

Advert - Vidor Portable radio (1950's)

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The Lady Margaret portable radio manufactured by Vidor Ltd of Erith, Kent circa 1953/4. I hope that she won't be driving while it is playing on her knee. They also produced Lady Anne and Lady Elizabeth models - some sort of specifically targeted marketing strategy?

Cutting - Ronald Shiner Tops Film Poll (1952)

27th December 1952

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Published in December 1952 this poll of Britain's leading box-office attractions is headed by Ronald Shiner. I imagine anyone under 50 will ask, "Who?” Shiner made 86 films between 1934 and 1961. Surprisingly he is above such greats as Alastair Sim, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Trevor Howerd. This was when Britain had a film industry and 8 of the top 12 moneymaking films were British!

Random Ad - Norman Vaughan (1960's)

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Norman Vaughan replaced Bruce Forsyth (whatever happened to him) as host of  the TV show 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium' in 1962. He also devised the TV gameshow 'Bullseye' and appeared in a series of adverts for Roses Chocolates with the catchphrase "Roses grow on you". He died in 2002 following a road accident.

Random Cutting - Soho Midnight (1958)

June 22nd 1958

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Rock'n'Roll has become associated with Teddy Boys but the characters in these pictures are, to use the word coined only a couple of months earlier, beatniks, who tended to go in for cool jazz and reading Kerouac.

Random Cutting - Hermoine Baddely Death Threat (1926)

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Born in 1906, Hermoine Baddely began her stage career at 8, playing a page in The Marriage of Figaro. She went on to appear in plays, musicals and revues in London's West End. She also appeared in over 90 film and TV productions, including a memorable performance as the kindly barfly Ida in the 1947 'Brighton Rock', which starred Richard Attenborough. In 1960 she was nominated for a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for her part in 'Room at the Top' 

Random Cutting - Mick Jagger (1979)

4th May 1979

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The Rolling Stones' singer, Mick Jagger had married Nicaraguan born Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias in 1971, but she filed for divorce in 1978 when she accused him of adultery with model Jerry Hall whom he married in 1990. The $1 million settlement was peanuts compared to the one when he split from Jerry Hall in 1999. 

Random Cutting - Death of Ernie Kovaks (1962)

14th January 1962

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I'm not sure today's newspapers would print such a graphic picture of a dead celebrity. Ernie Kovaks an American radio and TV star, comic, scriptwriter, film actor, novelist and during the early 1950's the first TV innovator who, by stretching the existing video technology to its limits, won a posthumous  Emmy in 1962. As shown above he died in car accident in Los Angeles on the 13rh January 1962. 

Random Cutting - The Princesses see Shakespeare (1938)

February 4th 1938

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The Queen, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret having just seen the Old Vic production of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' on February 3rd 1938. It starred Robert Helpmann as Oberon, Vivien Leigh as Titania and the cast included Ralph Richardson and Anthony Quayle.