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Rewind the 60s

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John Craven

Charlie Ross

Pete Lawrence

Gerard Melling

Susie Staples

Rewind the 60s: Episode 1: 1960-61

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Factual: History

Episode 1

Episode 1: 1960-61

1960-61

BBC One - Rewind the 60s, 1960-61

Lulu presents a nostalgic look back at the 1960s with Jimmy Tarbuck

Lulu presents a nostalgic look back at the 1960s, the decade that changed her life. Comedian Jimmy Tarbuck joins Lulu to chat about his time as a Butlin's redcoat.

Celebrating 50 years since the beginning of the 1960s, Lulu presents a nostalgic look back at the decade when her life, and that of millions of others, changed forever. 

In this first episode, all-time comedy great Jimmy Tarbuck joins Lulu in the Rewind the 60s studio. Today we focus on 1960 and 1961, and Jimmy and Lulu recall the beginning of the decade. While Adam Faith and Roy Orbison were topping the charts, Jimmy was working as a Redcoat at Butlins: “at Butlins you learnt your trade”, he tells Lulu, and reveals that even as he was starting out as a performer, his real ambition was to become a professional footballer. 

They say that if you can remember the 60s, then you weren’t there…  Alongside Jimmy’s reminiscences are personal stories from people who were very much there, and can remember it all as if it were yesterday.  We meet Kay, who in the early 60s had a ringside seat on the Liverpool music scene. She returns to the Casbah club, an old haunt that was frequented by The Beatles and run by Beatle drummer Pete Best’s mum. Kay tells us what it was like to be around the embryonic Merseybeat scene, and lets slip how she once shared a pie and a snog with a very young Paul McCartney.

The early 60s was the time when Britain’s housing was going high-rise. We meet Betty, Muriel, Sheila and Maureen - some of the original occupants of Sheffield’s Park Hill estate - to hear how their lives changed when they moved into the “streets in the sky”. They describe what it was like to get a flat with central heating, a washing machine and the latest mod-cons. In time, high-rise estates like Park Hill would be looked down upon, but back in the early 1960s the girls felt they were (literally) moving up in the world.

This was also the decade that cheap air travel finally made “abroad” accessible to the British public. The trouble was, in the early days, we didn’t quite know how to handle the scorching Spanish sun. We hear from Peter and Paul, Bluecoats at Pontin’s first overseas holiday camp in Majorca, who tell us how coachloads of guests would arrive in 100 degree heat wearing hats and overcoats. Not knowing how dangerous the sun could be, the Brits typically would rub oil and vinegar onto their skin to get a tan. But with amusements such as water-skiing and darts on the beach, we soon discovered a taste for Mediterranean beaches, sangria and olive oil. By end of the 60s, 2.7m Brits were holidaying abroad every year.

In today’s episode, we also find out what was topping the British charts in 1960-61, and what we were watching on TV.  And we learn the design secrets behind the Mini – the “Big Big Little Car” that became one of the most iconic objects of the 60s.

BBC One

Lulu presents a nostalgic look at the 1960s, with personal stories and celebrity guests.

Lulu presents a nostalgic look back at the 1960s, with personal stories and celebrity guests with a connection to the decade.

It is now fifty years since the start of the 1960s – ten years of change, innovation, excitement and creativity that revolutionised our lives. To celebrate this amazing decade, Lulu presents Rewind the 60s - five entertaining programmes that explore all aspects of the 1960s: from where we lived, to what we ate, to how we dressed, and what we listened to. With the help of some very special guests, Lulu shows us how that extraordinary decade transformed Britain and the world forever – and how much fun it was to live through.

These were the years when John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated; when we first saw James Bond and Doctor Who on our screens; when we marvelled at England’s victory in the World Cup; and student protests filled the streets. It was the decade of the moon landing; when foreign holidays took a hold among the British, and all kinds of boundaries and taboos were broken. Each episode of Rewind the Sixties looks at two specific years from the decade, exploring the news, fashions, music, and changes in society that took place in those two years. 

Lulu is joined in the Rewind the 60s studio by various celebrity guests – people like comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, DJ Tony Blackburn and fashion designer Zandra Rhodes – to talk about their memories of the decade. And there are specially made films focussing on key events – like the rise of The Beatles, and Dr Beeching’s railway reforms – which are told through the testimony of people who were there and whose own lives were dramatically changed by what they lived through.  

So why not join Lulu on Rewind the 60s – when Britain turned it’s back on the drab austerity of the post-war years, and embraced an exhilarating new world of youth, colour, and pop music.

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