Our busy 'Discatron Man', David Ballantyne has not only gone 'VOOM!' up the Fab Forty, but according to this advertisement, he's a Caroline 'Hot Shot' (shouldn't that be Sure Shot?) This is a fact that we have been unable to verify, but Caroline's charts were somewhat disrupted at the time, after the ship had run aground in a gale on January 20th. The advert shows that David's also touring the UK's Top Rank ballrooms, and best of all, he's appearing on Associated Rediffusion's famous kids' TV show, 5 O'Clock Club, with Muriel Young, Ollie Beak and Fred Barker!

The Televison Heaven website describes Fred and Ollie as 'the first glove puppets with attitude,' although we at Radio London feel that Sooty is liable to dispute such a claim by squirting them in the face with a water pistol. The site also tells how Beak and Barker were probably the first puppets to be accused of using foul language on a children's show! (In Ollie's case, it must have been 'fowl' language!)

There are in fact 44 singles in this week's Fab 'Forty'. Two singles sharing the same position is a common Radio London event. However, we have a unique situation for this week's Big L chart, where two different versions of the same song have climbed it in tandem, gained the top spot and held it jointly for two weeks running! There's another Beatles song at #17, where St Louis Union and Truth battle it out with their recordings of 'Girl'. At #26 Stevie Lewis continues to have to share her 'Take Me For A Little While' Fab Forty glory with the Koobas and new at #34, there's a battle for a little bit of musical soap, between Craig and The Exciters.

Dean Ford and the Gaylords, was formed in Glasgow in 1960 and signed to the Columbia label by Norrie Paramour. Four singles sold well locally, if not nationally and fans voted them Scotland's Top Group.

Dean Ford's real name was Thomas McAleese. The Gaylords were William 'Junior' Campbell (lead guitar), Raymond Duffy (drums), Pat Fairlie (guitar/6 string bass) and Graham Knight (bass).

Gaylords was the name of an infamous Chicago gang, although the connection seems to have been lost on whoever organised the band publicity shoot for the newspaper clipping that appears on the Rocking Scots website. They are, as the webmaster points out, dressed like Lord Snooty and his pals! Chicago gang members (who probably would not have been seen dead in Lord Snooty garb) sported a 'uniform' of sweaters in gang colours customised with their club badge.

When, looking for fame further afield, the Gaylords moved to London (and perhaps because a Jamaican ska outfit named the Gaylords also released a single in 1966) Scotland's Top Band became Marmalade.To seal the link with preserves, they borrowed the famous (and later contentious) Robertson's Golly trademark to embellish their bass drum.

Although their biggest hits came after the demise of Radio London, Marmalade reappeared on the Big L playlist with Keith Skues's climber on September 4th with It's All Leading Up To Saturday Night and Can't Stop Now became a one-week climber on April 9th 1967.

He's a Good Face... appears on the Rockin' With the Pirates CD.

Mary Payne, Knees Club Founder, kneecalls the week's Big L highlights

February 1st, 1966 was the date when Camp Coffee began sponsoring TW's 11am Coffee Break spot. One delightful description calls Camp: "A glutinous brown substance which consists of water, sugar, coffee essence, and chicory essence."

Also that week, Cema Bingo cut its regular slot by half, to 15 minutes

Saturday, February 5th was an exciting day for me. At around 10.45am, TW thanked the Knees Club for the birthday card we had sent him.

Later that day, Club Official Lynn and I caught the train for our second visit to London's Marquee Club in Wardour Street, for the Radio London Club Afternoon.

We kissed Dave Cash (member #10) and got him to autograph both my Knees Club card and my knee! (I have to kneeport that this quickly washed off.) Dave promised to promote our illustrious club on his Rabbit Patch programme and gave a public plug to Knees Monthly during the Marquee show.

Dave also confirmed that he still had in his possession the Kenny and Cash scarf! In fact he told us he had recently worn it to host a disco! Dr Who's famous garment had nothing on the 15-yard-long multi-coloured scarf to which my friends and I had contributed knitted segments of varying lengths (and widths!) in the summer of 1965, for the benefit of Kenny and Cash. Well, it can get parky on the North Sea, even in summer. At the Lady Verney High School fete, we'd even run a fund-raising 'guess the length of the scarf' stall!

My diary records that on that memorable Saturday, I also entered a Marquee mime competition, (I didn't win) but I failed to reveal the name of the record I was miming to!

See the Knees Club 40th Anniversary feature.