Reporters: Jeremy James, Jeanne La Chard, John Pitman, Jack Pizzey, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson

'Someone comes along with something original and, whoops, they all come in, riding on the gravy train' (Journalist Roy Carr)

It didn't take the British record companies long to notice they were missing out when the Americans invented the weenybopper singing star. The latest to join the race to manufacture a British little Jimmy Osmond is EMI, the world's biggest record company. Their product, 12-year-old Darren Burn, seems to have all the right ingredients: he's pretty, he can sing and his dad's an executive at EMI.
John Pitman has followed the marketing of Master Burn, Ricky Wilde and the James Boys, and talked to their families.

On the Wilde side: page 5