Popular Nostalgia

Popular Nostalgia from the 1960s. Memories of events and items from popular culture recorded in words and pictures on the internet. Share, remember and get wonderfully sentimental…

Concorde quickly became a symbol of technological advance and British pride despite being a joint enterprise with the French government. More than 2.5 million passengers flew supersonically on British Airways’ Concorde since she entered commercial service in 1976. The most frequent passenger, an oil company executive, clocked up almost 70 round trip transatlantic crossings a […]

A comprehensive history of the Grand National from its official beginning in the 1800’s. From paintings to photo finishes and radio commentary to internet broadcasting. 1839 The Grand National was run at Aintree for the first time on Tuesday, February 26 and a horse named Lottery took the honours. Captain Martin Becher was unseated from […]

Beltran de Osorio y Diez de Rivera, the “Iron” Duke of Albuquerque (1919-1994), was a Spanish aristocrat obsessed with horse-racing. After receiving a film of the Grand National as a gift for his eighth birthday, the Corinthian Duke set his sight on England’s greatest equestrian prize: “I said then that I would win that race […]

The pythons were: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin and they broadcast on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their madcap approach to comedy broke all the boundaries and they were as controversial as they were successful. If I could, I would play every Python episode and film […]

The first James Bond film to hit the screens, Doctor No changed the course of movie-making for the rest of the century. Unutterably cool, calm and collected, the gentleman killer-spy was to cultivate a generation of admirers. Here is the first use of those famous words: “Bond. James Bond”.

A hapless bunch of Home Guard “soldiers” attempt to defend their homeland to little effect. Dad’s Army has a brilliant start sequence with song that was specially written for the show and military progress arrows fighting each other. Lyrics to Dad’s Army Theme Tune: “Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler?” Who do […]

Remember the fighting skeletons? The Hydra guarding the Golden Fleece? The Crashing Rocks that threaten to smash Jason’s boat to pieces and the giant sea monster that holds them apart? Christmas repeat classic -Jason and the Argonauts was always on. Despite the fact it was made in the 60’s and has wierd, shaky, stop-motion special […]

This song sums up everything nostalgic about Christmas. Christmas in Australia just wasn’t the same without chestnuts roasting on an open fire or snow glistening outside. Bing felt the same way when he sang this classic as part of the 1942 classic “Holiday Inn” and later the 1954 hit “White Christmas”: Lyrics I’m dreaming of […]

I never quite understood why we had satsumas in our stockings at Christmas and oranges at the Christingle service. It may well be something to do with them being expensive in “the olden days” and so reserved for special occassions like Christmas. However, I always much preferred the sweets, chocolate and other presents inside and […]

They always used to serve arctic roll for school dinners. I don’t know whether arctic roll was especially cheap for some reason, or whether someone just liked making it but I always enjoyed it and could never work out how it was made. Everyone always tried for seconds and thirds when arctic roll was involved. […]

Many people learnt to read with the Hungry Caterpillar. How well do you actually know it though? I found a Hungry Caterpillar quiz here. I think this book is the reason why I now find many films so predictable. A very good linear story! We passed this book down through the family until I read […]

A 1960’s animation of space-mice that communicate through whistles. The Clangers are very cute but a bit wierd -as all space mice are. I like their pannelled gold outfits -the fashion is coming back into season right now. The predeccessor to Button Moon, the 90’s kids have much to be grateful for.

I love having mobile phones but there was a time before, when people could be unavailable, dates had to speak to the parents who answered the family phone and mates had to agree a time and place to meet. Landline phones meant that nights out on the town were a nightmare to organise. If someone missed […]

The whole reason we have 999 -the circular dial telephone took aaaaages to return to start before you could turn the next number in. People didn’t make so many phone calls because it was actually less effort to run round to your mate’s house or write a letter to your granny. I’m not quite of […]

These little plastic contraptions could be found in every household during the 1980’s and 1990’s, though they had been around for much longer. We used to look through the viewing lense to see things like the Leaning Tower of Pisa in full 3D glory. Despite being a thoroughly useless distraction in the league of kaleidoscopes, […]