This week my reflective journey takes me back 60 years, looking back on the days when the “Top 40” was called the “Hit Parade” (singles charts these days).

January
Just after midnight, City merrymakers who had gathered outside on the Cross outside men’s outfitters – John Colliers (TV commercial jingle was, “John Collier, John Collier The Window To Watch”) – made their way home after waving goodbye to 1964.
The cinema in Kings Square was showing Carry On Cleo starring Sid James as Mark Anthony and Amanda Barrie as Cleopatra. This was filmed at the Pinewood Studios located in the village of Iver Heath, 18 miles (29 km) west of central London. The ‘set’ was originally built for the 1963  film Cleopatra starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. American producer Walter Wanger decided after filming that the ‘milk bath scene’ was not large enough, so they filmed it in America. This meant the Carry On producers used the set for Carry on Cleo.
Stonehouse railway station was closed by Dr. Beeching – chairman of British Railways.
The Beatles were at No. 1 in the singles chart with their 6th No.1 single I Feel Fine, which was eventually toppled by Georgie Fame’s Yeh Yeh.
Herman’s Hermits released their 3rd single Silhouettes. The record shop on Southgate Street sold out of Herman’s single within hours.
The Local Answer’s Managing Director, Dave Kingscott, was born on 26th January!

February
Gloucester rates increased by 6d (six pence).
Lydney’s Automatic telephone exchange was under construction.
Roy Orbison appeared for one night only at ABC Kings Square Gloucester (now a pub).
Stroud’s Subscription Rooms TV favourite Wilfred Pickles staged his popular radio/TV show Have A Go. Two days later The Kinks played there.
Churchdown Primary School on Pirton Lane was under construction.
The city’s new swimming baths were under construction (now GL1 Leisure Centre).
John Lennon passed his driving test on 15th February.
Shirley Bassey divorced her first husband, film producer/director Kenneth Hume. At the time, Bassey’s single Goldfinger was slipping out of the Hit Parade.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had been our beloved Queen for thirteen years by 1965.

March
On 4th March, the county was hit by one of the worst blizzards in living memory, with blizzards up to 6ft.
On stage at the city’s Guildhall, local pop group The Saxons (my one time manager Pete Holder was in the band) played along with Tony Face and the Faytones.
ABC cinema Kings Square hosted an evening of performances by The Bachelors (I Believe), Susan Maughan (Bobby’s Girl), Elaine and Derek Thompson singing duo (Derek Thompson would years later turn up in BBC TV’s Casualty as Charlie Fairhead) and comic Freddie Davis.
Local Police Officers were trying out their new pocket radio sets, a huge thumbs up for the rank and file.
Dockers at Gloucester Docks were on strike over pay, but within 24 hours the strike was over.
The Grange Road Infants and Juniors school was under construction.
Coney Hill Hospital Ball Room hosted an evening with Victor Silvester and his orchestra – tickets cost 30 shillings.
One could rent a 19inch TV for eight shillings per week.
Big plans for redevelopment in Gloucester’s Eastgate Street were given the go ahead by the Minister of Housing. Before redevelopment, I used to frequent the Cadena Cafe/Restaurant which was above the shops.
The city’s chamber of trade suggested that all shops should close on the same day – a move which deeply upset traders.
The cost of buying a car in 1965 was at an all time high. A Ford Corsair GT cost £847 (now in good condition: £5,000) and a Ford Cortina GT cost £732 (now, based on condition, costs range from £10,000 to over £24,000 for a pristine car). A Mini Cooper cost £590 (now, the cost ranges from £15,000 to over £50,000, with exceptional, low-mileage or rare ‘S’ models fetching significantly higher prices at auction).
Radio/TV host Hughie Green was slightly injured when he crashed his Jaguar in Reading.

April
6th April was Budget Day: The Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan presented his first budget to Parliament.
The BBC were £5 million in the red, so they instructed TV producers to make cheaper programmes.
A TV licence cost £6.
Mods and Rockers were fighting on Brighton beach (fighting on a pebble beach must have been hell).
At Kings Square Gloucester, The Bon Marche began making their own bread and cakes.
The Bishop of Gloucester the Rt. Rev Basil Guy opened the new W.V.S (Women’s Voluntary Services) headquarters on Spa Road.
The Y.M.C.A. on Sherborne Street was under construction, with the total bill coming to £29,000.
Traffic Chaos: Easter Monday saw a major traffic jam west of the city before the first Severn Bridge opened, with police managing traffic having to be rotated frequently due to stress.
Billy Smart’s circus visited the Oxleaze, which included elephants walking through the city from Eastgate Railway Station along Eastgate Street over the Cross and down Westgate Street, plus a monkey which escaped but was quickly recaptured.
British Midlands Airways started flights from Staverton to the Channel Islands.

May
On 1st May, Mervyn and Pat Western of Churchdown won the Ballroom and Latin American May Day Dance Festival held at the Coney Hill Hospitals’ ballroom.
Mr. W.E. J. King of Downend Horsely won a Mini car and £42 on the Wye Valley pools.
Bristol Road Englands Glory match factory set their prices at 3d (three pence) per box.
Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie men (who would evolve into Steamjacket with Rod Stewart and Long John Baldry as vocalists) appeared at Cheltenham Town Hall.
A Barnwood man was fined 30 shillings for riding his bicycle in Gloucester Park. Another man was fined £1 for cycling without lights.
The Barnwood By Pass was under construction and eventually opened in 1972.
Day trips to London from Gloucester Central station cost 33 shillings. It was cheaper to go to Western Super Mare at just 12 shillings.
The city had a very high level of unemployment. The latest James Bond film From Russia With Love, starring Sean Connery, was showing at the ABC cinema in Kings Square.

June
Miss Yvonne Keen was crowned the Fete Queen at the Twigworth Church Fete.
The first brain operation was shown on BBC1.
On the junction of Westgate Street and The Quay once stood the Blue Star garage, until this month when demolition workers levelled it.
Traffic wardens were seen on the streets of Gloucester for the first time – eight traffic wardens, two female and six male.
Alderman Mrs. Lilian Emblin was elected the city’s first woman Mayor.
Boundary Changes: Hucclecote, Hempsted, Barnwood and Longlevens were incorporated into the city limits, a move that prompted protest threats from the Hucclecote Tenants and Ratepayers’ Association. The protests fell on deaf ears.
Miss Hazel Greenwood was chosen as the Sharpness Carnival Queen.
After the successful run of the Bond film From Russia With Love, the ABC began showing the film Laurence of Arabia, starring Yorkshire actor Peter O’Toole in his first major role. Jack Hawkins & Alec Guinness starred alongside O’Toole.
Elvis Presley was at No.1 on the Hit Parade with his 13th UK Number one single, Crying In The Chapel. Elvis was dislodged from the top position by a group from Manchester called The Hollies with I’m Alive, the band’s eighth single and their first number one.
Robert Allen Zimmerman hit the Hit Parade with his second single in the UK, Subterranean Homesick Blues.
The actress Elizabeth Hurley was born on 10th June.

July
Saturday night on the TV: BBC’s Dr. Who starring William Hartnell; Juke Box Jury hosted by broadcaster David Jacobs; The Dick Van Dyke Show; ITV’s Thank Your Lucky Stars; Opportunity Knocks hosted by Hughie Green, father of Paula Yates.
Councillor Freda Wilton worked as a clerical officer at the R.A.F number two pay division on the city’s Eastern Avenue.
On an unusually cold, dull and wet day, the Daleks paraded through the city as part of the annual Gloucester Carnival.
Lipton’s grocery store, located near Lawrence Brothers on Northgate Street, were selling Stork margarine for one shilling and eight pence, and butter for three shillings and three pence.
Miss Margaret Mackay was crowned Miss Gloucester.
In London, the battle for the leadership of the conservative party was in full swing. The contenders were Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, Reginald Maulding and Enoch Powell. Edward Heath won and quickly became Ted Heath.
On 29th July, the Beatles’ second film Help was being shown at the Odeon cinema on Eastgate Street. The budget for the film was £536,550 and the profit was over £12 million.

August
After twenty one years on Northgate Street, E.C. Johnstone Cameras moved to new premises in Hare Lane.
The 120 foot Lydbrook viaduct, which had stood for ninety three years, was demolished. The cost to build it in 1872 was £7,000. It’s amazing to think that this viaduct had survived two world wars and eventually caved in to the bulldozers.
In more demolition news, the railway bridge at Andoversford was demolished.
Miss Mary Lodge of Bloomfield Terrace became the City’s ‘Miss Swimgirl 1965’.
Whilst The Beatles’ Help film was being screened at the Odeon, a five minute walk would take you to the ABC Kings Square where the film by the Dave Clark Five Catch Us If You Can was showing.
The winning pop group of the Gloucester Beat contest was local band The Crows, winning £100 which had to be split five ways between singer Ricky Welch, John Jaimeson, Greg Ford, Colin Taylor and Jock Gwatkin.
The Berkeley Women’s Institute celebrated their Golden Jubilee.
Two boys from Newent were fined £1 each for riding two on a bicycle.
Bob Dylan recorded his landmark album Highway 61 Revisited on 15th August.
The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium in New York City, a concert that set a world record for attendance and revenue. An audience of 55,600 screaming fans.

September
Illegitimate births in Gloucestershire were 581 for the whole of 1965.
A city man from Tredworth was fined £2 for buying alcohol whilst under the age of 18.
Musician Davie Jones performed at the Blue Moon Club at 170 High Street Cheltenham. Within a few years the world would know him as David Bowie.
Gloucester Operatic and Dramatic Society (GODS) performed The Private Ear and The Public Eye at the Kingsbarton Street Theatre.
Gloucester was a hub for railway spotting, with the Horton Road locomotive power depot being a popular spot, and the shift from steam to dieselisation underway.
The Gloucestershire Philatelic Society (the study of postage stamps and postal history) held a committee meeting on 16th September where it was decided to move to a monthly meeting schedule and discard the title of ‘Chairman’ in favour of ‘President’.
The Rolling Stones released their eight single Get Off Of My Cloud which would become their fifth number one single.
Jim Reeves’ single Is It Really Over was released.
American actor Charlie Sheen was born in New York City.
Boxer Lennox Claudius Lewis was born in West Ham London.

October
The Hucclecote Women’s Institute celebrated its 40 anniversary. Set up on 14th October 1925, four of the W.I’s original members were in attendance – Mrs H. Dove, Miss M. Herbert, Miss A. Holbrook and Mrs E. Bullock.
Escaped animal alert: a Rhesus monkey escaped from Billy Smarts Circus, which were on the city’s Oxleaze. After much monkey business, the creature was found on the roof of Mrs Susan Miller’s house in Dancey Road, Churchdown (off Heathdean Road).
The Stonehouse Brick and Tile Company’s 202 ft chimney was demolished with explosives in five seconds. It took two years to build in 1900 for a cost £790 (had it been built in 1965 it would have cost £20,000). Oh, by the way, the chimney weighed 1,100 tons. How do you weigh a chimney? Very carefully, I imagine!
Parliament were busy with their bills, the following of which became Law in 1965: The Race Relations bill and The Rent bill. The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act suspended capital punishment for murder in Great Britain. However, it remained in place for some crimes, such as treason and piracy.  
BBC 2 was received in the county for the first time. We could watch Play School, Horizon, Jazz 625, Late Night Line Up and The Beat Room.
Monday night TV: BBC 1’s Steptoe and Son, Perry Mason and Come Dancing; ITV’s All Our Yesterdays, Coronation Street, The New Stars and Garters Show, A Day of Peace, Ready Steady Go and The Epilogue. This was followed by TV network closing down for the night, before the white dot appeared and we were played the National Anthem, accompanied by a photo of Queen Elizabeth II.
The 12th of October is especially memorable for me. My mother had bought the number one single Tears by Ken Dodd. On Monday 11th October we watched The Epilogue and went to bed. Within two hours, I sadly watched my mother die. She was 53, I was fourteen. I hope you don’t mind that I share this with you.

November
Kings Square witnessed massive queues pf children outside the ABC Cinema who had brought their parents along to watch the latest film from Walt Disney – Mary Poppins starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. It cost $6 million to make. The box office sales worldwide collected $97 million.
The Headmistress of Selwyn School for Girls, Mrs Dyer, stated that her pupils paid more attention to their boyfriends than they did to lessons.
British Home Stores opened in Eastgate Street. The store closed in 2016 after the company went into administration.
According to the Citizen evening newspaper, 8,000 local households were without bread as bakers went on strike – they were striking for more dough! Panic buying was rife, but how, you may ask? If there was no bread produced, how can one panic buy a product which isn’t there?
The Churchdown Library on Parton Road was under construction.
Lesley Langley from Weymouth was crowned Miss World 1965.
The Severn Bridge (A48) was under construction. It would be finished and opened by 1967.
A youth from Ross on Wye was fined £5 by magistrates for throwing a piece of paper onto the road.
The railway line between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye, which had been closed to passengers in 1964, finally closed completely for freight in November 1965.
The Gloucester Rugby team played several home matches at Kingsholm, including fixtures against Leicester on 6th November, Moseley on 13th November, and Aberavon on 20th November. They also played an away match against Newbridge on 27th November 27.
The Rolling Stones were at number one on the Hit Parade with Get Off Of My Cloud. Within a few weeks they were replaced by The Seekers with The Carnival Is Over. 
The night before Bonfire night, local builder Fred West accidentally ran over and killed a small boy in Glasgow with his ice cream van. He was cleared of any wrong doing. If only he had gone to prison, the future for a lot of girls could have been different.

December
The city’s Christmas lights were switched on by the Mayor. The council splashed out £3,000 on the lights.
TV personality Johnny Morris opened a new travel agency in the city. The Dolphine Night Club on Worcester Street (next to the railway bridge) celebrated its first year in business. It’s now an Indian Restaurant.
The annual Christmas Markets at Gloucester Quays were taking place in the weekends leading up to Christmas, offering a festive atmosphere and holiday shopping.
A party for old folks held by the Coney Hill Youth Club was enjoyed by all who attended.
The Beatles released their album Rubber Soul.
The Catholic church St Josephe on Oldends Lane Stonehouse was under construction. A broadly fan-shaped design displaying the influence of Coventry Cathedral, but also embodying ideas stimulated by the Second Vatican Council.

Christmas Day was on a Saturday.

Christmas Day Top Ten
1. The Beatles – Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out
2. Cliff Richard – Wind Me Up (Let Me Go)
3. Ken Dodd – The River
4. Seekers – The Carnival Is Over
5. Ken Dodd – Tears
6. Walker Brothers – My Ship Is Coming In
7. The Who – My Generation
8. Len Barry – 1-2-3
9. Toys – A Lover's Concerto
10. The Four Seasons – Let's Hang On

Listen to one of my radio shows on Dean Radio (via Google). Tuesdays at 7pm – The 60s in 60 Minutes. Sundays at 10am – Open For Business. Sundays at Midday – Melodic Journey.