More About Alison Trowsdale And BBC Misinformation Regarding Brighton Nudist Beach...

The saga of "Year You Were Born" birthday cards listing the opening of Brighton Nudist Beach as 1979 due to the BBC's unclear information on the subject, continues. A new range of such cards came to my attention today: "1979: Brighton introduces Britain's first nudist beach", read the card for that year.

When contacted, the card company, as always, cited their source of information as the BBC's "On This Day" site. So, thank you to the horribly arrogant Alison Trowsdale for allowing this nonsense to continue.

In point of fact, Brighton Nudist Beach was "introduced" on 1st April 1980. It's simple to record, isn't it? Why can't the BBC simply commemorate the Beach's opening date - 1st April 1980 in it's "On This Day" section, rather than clouding the issue and confusing web-skimming researchers?

Read the background story to Alison Trowsdale, the BBC and On This Day Versus The Licence Payers (from March this year) here...

Alison Trowsdale: BBC Nonsense: Skewed Information On Brighton Nudist Beach

It's ridiculous to see how the BBC with its flawed "On This Day Section" is still misleading web surfers. "Brighton Bares All" it declares on 9 August 1979. But that was only the day the beach was given the green light by the local council. It opened on 1 April 1980. "Brighton Bares All" is highly misleading - baring anything naughty on Brighton beach in 1979 was an offence!

I entered into long and wearisome correspondence with the BBC on this subject - surely it's far more usual to commemorate the opening date of any particular institution? But the BBC adores hyping the 1970s and hates the 1980s.

The BBC does not belong to the public. It is an arrogant, PC, biased organisation, with a bizarre 1970s fixation. And "journalists" like Alison Trowsdale should not be salaried by our licence fees, which we are FORCED to pay. After my correspondence with Ms Trowsdale, who was responsible for the article, she IGNORED me! Brighton was still "baring all" in 1979, according to her headline, when in fact it bared NOTHING!

And so it remains.

The BBC is being run by a clique.

And clear and accurate reporting matters not.

Apparently, Ms Trowsdale and a team of journalists trawled the BBC archives for news footage for their "ON THIS DAY" on-line features, found the April 1st Brighton Nudist Beach opening footage from 1980, but then decided to backdate it to the decision to give the beach the go-ahead the previous August because it fitted in better with Ms Trowsdale's bizarre view of the free-loving, free living '70s. She was absolutely loath to allow its opening in 1980 to take the headline. The reality simply did not agree with her view on how the 1980s should be represented.

Confusingly though, the news coverage accompanying the feature is not from 1979. It's not from the council meeting which made the decision. It's from the 1 April 1980 - the beach's opening day.

And so, from then on, various "Year You Were Born" birthday card manufacturers, TV and radio shows and web sites have been echoing the BBC - and Alison Trowsdale's - inaccurate information.

They go to "ON THIS DAY", they see a headline entitled "1979: BRIGHTON BARES ALL", they don't bother to read the small print blurb, they look at the beach's opening footage on the same page and they wrongly assume that it opened in 1979.

I really resent contributing to the salaries of the BBC's "journalistic staff" at times like this.

But I don't have a choice.

And yet what arrogant, inaccurate so-and-so's many of them are!

Rumour has it that the BBC is about to build a new complex to house its journalists' self importance. Complete with hi-tec Ego Massage. May I suggest "The Alison Trowsdale Brighton Bares All Wing" as the name?

RetroWow - My Review

RetroWow is an interesting site, with some terrific insights. But, in my opinion, it falls down by occasionally relying on secondhand research and voicing highly subjective opinions.

We all know that the recent '70s revival was based on a heap of inaccuracies. '70s rewriting appears to have begun in the mid-1990s, and then to have blossomed ridiculously with the BBC's I Love The 1970s. Sadly, RetroWow appears to echo these errors at times. Not always though. There are times when RetroWow bucks the trend and gets something right, despite mass inaccurate reporting of the subject elsewhere. Take the space hopper - 1971 according to the BBC (later echoed by the Toy Retailers). 1968 and 1969 according to toy shop ads in UK newspaper archives. Refreshingly, RetroWow gets this fact right - placing the hopper, quite rightly, in 1968!

But then...

Flared trousers - 1970s, according to the BBC, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. 1970s according to RetroWow. At least as early as 1969 according to fashion shop ads in UK newspaper archives.

Cambridge Evening News, 1969.

Cambridge Evening News, 1969.

And then there's the 1980s. Of course, the 1980s get a bad press - the scapegoat decade for all known ills. RetroWow does quite well in avoiding the instinctive priggish stance of '80s haters, but falls down when it comes to 1980s decor and fashion. There is absolutely no doubt that the 1980s plundered the past for fashion inspiration, just as the 1970s did and, to some degree, the 1960s. Even the original 1950s Teddy Boys were thus named for wearing Edwardian style suits.

But RetroWow mistakenly negates all 1980s fashion as past plundering (following the lead of the notoriously inaccurate Wikipedia?). But what about the shell suits? The bulldog hair grips? The strange lycra outfits? The distinctive colour schemes and patterns? The horrendously large shoulder pads? The jelly shoes? The leggings, pixie boots and ra ra skirts combinations? The deelyboppers? The bizarre hairstyles? Doorknocker earrings? The leg warmers fad? I could go on.

I really cannot believe that the 1980s were any more "retro" than the 1970s.

RetroWow slips up on shoulder pads. Originating in the 1940s, the massive beasts of the 1980s did not appear until midway through that decade. Study any '80s era American soap (Dallas in 1978/1979 had no evident pads and exhibited a curiously late 1960s flavour in fashion and decor - Lucy's orange flares being a case in point) and watch the pads appear and grow, reaching hideous proportions circa 1985. These are the fondly remembered (or otherwise) shoulder pads of the 1980s.

As far as we can see, the RetroWow shoulder pad misinformation originated with the good folk at Dallas, eager to claim credit for all things 1980s. But really it was Dynasty which led the '80s "pump up the shoulder pads" movement - as anybody studying early Dallas/Dynasty seasons would quickly discover.

RetroWow also claims that all '80s interior decorating was retro - but for those of us that remember the black ash/futuristic schemes, this seems absurd. Retro was highly prevalent. This trend first appeared around the late 1960s, as a desire to return to something that was not plastic and formica kicked in, and flourished in the Laura Ashley '70s.

But in the 1980s, retro interiors were not the whole story, far from it.

RetroWow also illogically states that the 1982 PhoenixPhone "screams 1970s"! What?! Its design echoed the 1960s trimphone which still seemed very modern and cutting edge even by the early 1980s. RetroWow is guilty of '70s hype. It is not good enough to say that Life On Mars used a 1982 Phoenix Phone so it must "Scream 1970s" - we all know the modern agenda to colour up the 1970s. Those of us there in the 1980s remember the new phone models released when BT was formed and began to sell phones for the very first time, and the explosion in colourful and interesting models then available. This is well reflected in TV series like Howards' Way.

UPDATE: One of the things which first interested me in RetroWow was the statement:

"Flares were derived from the hippy fashion for loon pants of the late 60s. ....."

Not accurate, of course. Flares were derived from the hippy fashion for flares in the late 60s.

But RetroWow has now updated its information.

Excellent. I'm looking forward to further developments.

The site is definitely worth a visit.

More Proof That The Spacehopper Was Being Distributed By Mettoy In The UK In The Late 1960s...

An advertisement from the "Cambridge Evening News", England, November 1969.

Now, you already know what I think of the BBC's 1970s rewriting exercises. And particularly regarding things like the spacehopper - released in the UK around 1968, but according to the Beeb in "1971":

Space Hoppers - also known as Hoppity Hops, Hop Ball, and Kangaroo Balls - bounced into the UK during the Summer of ’71 and served absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever.

Below is pictured some details from a British Toy Fair brochure from January 1969 - and amongst other jolly things attending was the SPACEHOPPER!

The British Toy Fair At Brighton, 26-30 January 1969 - and (left) a page from the brochure. Mettoy was the original Space hopper distributor. Below the word "Mettoy" on the brochure page, to the left, you'll see that the spacehopper itself was present at the show.

Meanwhile, back in our own world of pathetic 70s hype, the BBC's lies about the spacehopper have infected the Toy Retailers Association and just about everything else.

And so we exalt in the radiant light of another (false) 70s-debuting object.

Why don't I simply tell the Beeb? I've tried. I even tried to get a researcher to come and look through my local newspaper archive at some of the evidence. But nobody can be bothered. And meanwhile our licence fee goes towards the BBC leaving false information mothballed online.

What's It All About, Alfie?

Yes, I know Alfie was actually a 60s film - but that wouldn't bother a lot of "70s" researchers...

Hi, folks! My name is Maria Mitchell. I'm 50 years old, and live in Cambridgeshire, England.

What's this 'ere blog about, then?

Basically, over the last ten years or so, I've been hearing youngsters (including my own children) spouting rather a lot of hot air about a certain decade sandwiched between the 1960s and 1980s - yes, you know the one!

Fuelled by pop culture shows like I Love The 1970s, these youngsters live in a world of fantasy - a 70s of no tears, no trouble - with all the fads and fun of the 1967-1985 era crammed in.

I find this slightly worrying. In my day, kids were interested in politics, the current day - out there spouting opinions on anything and everything. Nowadays, youngsters live in a retro wonderland of nonsense, created by the likes of the BBC.

This blog is intended to be fun. I find 70s adoration amusing as well as worrying and the decade certainly had its funny side, but it's mainly designed to prick the 70s bubble and, hopefully, get youngsters and the youngsters of the 70s to think a little about what that decade was REALLY like and perhaps take a look at how things are now.

Children's TV On Trial - The Director Dictates...

Graham Kibble-White reveals some fascinating facts about the making of the 1980s episode of the BBC4 show Children's TV on Trial:

"... the director then says, "Thank you." I say another bit. "Thank you. Now I just want you to say ..." and she tells me what to say. Phew, the cynical '80s, eh? The '70s weren't quite like this. But we warm up, and while always rather stilted, we get into something that feels a bit more like a conversation. "I want you to say that American shows had a negative impact on British children's programmes in the 1980s". "Well, I don't really think they did," I reply, taking a stand mere minutes after disgracefully parroting back some guff she's fed to me about a Pigeon Street episode I'd never seen (they open a vegetarian café, apparently). But, here, I'm salving some small sense of dignity. I'm not just going to say anything. Although I do then concede that perhaps buying in episodes of He-Man dissuaded British broadcasters from commissioning their own fare. I'm guessing that bit won't make the cut, but my musings on Pigeon Street's eatery probably will."

Fascinating. The programme's director directs the contributor to give a negative view on 1980s children's programming that is not his own.

Meanwhile, the 70's edition was Cloud Cuckoo Land - obviously prepared by smug middle class types who lived in a cosy post 60's afterglow in the 70s - or who weren't even born.

Increasingly, the BBC seeks to mould and dictate our view of the recent past, always with the 70s bathed in loveliness. Pathetic.

The Spacehopper - Released In Britain In The Late 1960s, NOT The 1970s...

Here is part of a newspaper advertisement showing a girl on a space hopper...

... here is the whole advertisement...

... and here is the date - Nov 14th, 1969. For the I Love 1970s series, a small caption was inserted in the opening titles, stating that the space hopper was released in 1968 and then "bounced its way through the 70s". Fair enough, but the I Love... website states that the first spacehoppers arrived in this country in 1971. Would you like onions with your tripe?

The spacehopper was an instant hit, very popular from 1968 onwards. It was still going strong in the '70s, yes, but did it really deserve such major billing? Other sites follow the BBC's line, touting the hopper as either new in 1971 or as THE craze of 1971. Popular, yes. New or a sudden craze? Most certainly not.

A willing victim of the BBC's misinformation is the Toy Retailers Association, formerly the British Association of Toy Retailers. Their website informs us that the Space Hopper arrived in 1971 and was "Craze of the Year". But unfortunately, the Association NEVER had a "Craze of the Year" award, and media of 1971 reveals that the Hopper was certainly not newsworthy.

Oddly enough, in the late 1990s, the Toy Retailers Association were listing: "Clackers, otherwise known as Klik Klaks" as the "overwhelming toy mania of 1971".

That information is accurate. So, why hype the spacehopper out of the 1960s and into the 1970s now?

I believe this muddling of facts is due to the BBC having an agenda to hype the 70s in the I love 1970s series.

There is also the fact that people who were children in the 1970s are often pulling the strings now, and the Internet provides a tremendous opportunity for the spreading of untruths and building up or knocking down of various eras. When you consider that the World Wide Web was only invented in 1989, and Internet use has blossomed incredibly since then, you can see the difficulties. Anybody can publish anything on the Web - and, as well as great sites, there are many which tell untruths for their own ends.

Many people invest much time in hyping the 70s - those who want to feel good about their youth, and those young geeks and nerds who do not remember the 70s, but have no present and enjoy "living" in a nice, safe fantasy past.

It is sad and silly.

But the spacehopper did not arrive in this country in 1971, or indeed in the 1970s at all.

And that's a fact.

BBC On This Day - Brighton Nudist Beach, 1980 - NOT 1979

The "We're always right" attitude of the BBC and the Corporation's 70s fixation has been causing one reader a few problems.

My sister-in-law Deborah has been in touch to tell me of a sorry tale involving Brighton Nudist Beach, and Alison Trowsdale and Hanna White, two BBC employees committed to the old maxim "the customer is always wrong".

Deborah is a researcher who specialises in recent pop culture, and was surprised to read on the BBC's "On This Day" site: "August 1979 - Brighton Bares All". There followed an article about Brighton nudist beach, which opened in April 1980. The article referred to a decision made in 1979 to give the beach the go-ahead, but the "Brighton Bares All" title rather suggested that the beach opened in '79 and the only reference to the 1980 opening date was tucked away under a heading entitled "In Context". Odd.

Some months later, Deborah bought a birthday card for a young relative, born in 1979. It featured so-called events of 1979 - a "Year You Were Born" theme card - and announced: "Britain's first nudist beach opened in Brighton". Intrigued, Deborah phoned the manufacturers.

"But it must be true!" she was told: "The BBC says so - August 1979, on this day, 'Brighton Bares All'!" Further investigation proved that the BBC's On This Day article had led quite a lot of others up the garden path. Surely it made more sense to commemorate the anniversary of the beach's opening day - 1st April 1980?

But the BBC doesn't like the 1980s. Bizarrely, a BBC Oxford online article, this time about the World Wide Web, touts 1990 as the pivotal year - and the trivial fact that the web was invented in 1989 is tucked away in the small print!

Anyway Deborah wrote to the BBC about the Brighton nudist beach...

Ridiculous article - it gives the impression that the beach opened in August 1979. There was no nudity on that beach until the opening day in 1980. The BBC really needs to get over its 70s fixation.

And BBC employee Alison Trowsdale replied:

The report "Brighton bares all" was written to coincide with the date the local authority made the decision to designate part of Brighton beach for nudists. It clearly states that the beach officially opened 1 April 1980.

"Officially" opened? Actually, the beach "opened" on 1 April 1980. Deborah wrote again, reasoning:

The Brighton nudists' beach article is headed "August 1979 - Brighton Bares All" and only states some way in that the beach officially opened on 1st April 1980. It did not OFFICIALLY open on 1st April 1980, it OPENED on 1st April 1980 - I was there.

The article is, I'm afraid, misleading and has led to inaccurate information appearing on several websites and a range of "Year You Were Born" greetings cards - all stating that the beach opened in 1979. I have made enquiries, and the BBC has been cited as the source of information on each and every occasion.

Brighton and Hove Council's article on the beach does not even mention 1979...

"On This Day" for 1st April contains no mention of the beach's big opening in 1980.

I do wish that you would not reject my complaint out of hand. The BBC is supposed to serve, not press its bizarre 1970s obsessed view of the past on to the general public. We had quite enough of the warped view with the "I Love 1970s" TV series.

No answer came the stern reply. Deborah wrote again and received this reply from one Hanna White:

Dear Mr [Mr?! Wonderful attention to detail, but then it is only a member of the public]xxxx,

Your latest email to On This Day is not being ignored at all. Alison Trowsdale works part-time for the BBC and is not currently at work.

Her initial response to you was not dismissive but sought to point out that all the facts of the story were there to be read.

However we have decided to changed one word in the first paragraph of the article from "has" to "will" for greater clarification.

Regards

Hanna White

Finally Deborah decided to make a formal complaint.

This was a trivial matter. Deborah had evidence that the article had led to confusion. But the BBC dug its heels in and conceded only to the point of making a grudging, tiny, alteration to the article. The article is still open to misinterpretation. Web surfers are notorious for skimming - we do it ourselves!

BBC information should be clear. The article should be dated 1 April 1980, beginning with the tale of the beach's opening day, and then telling the background story.

Deborah has recently suffered two bereavements, and has handed over the reins to myself and the 80s Actual group. We think it is best to publicise the BBC's attitude - and, although this is a trivial incident, we think it is important. It indicates the BBC's attitude to the public, and also its ridiculous attempts to glorify the 1970s.

We shall be monitoring!

The BBC Hypes The 1970s and Youngsters Lap It Up!

The BBC series I Love The 1970s should really have been called I Love 1967 to 1982. Apparently reflecting the pop culture of each 70s year, the things we were "into", the series was often wildly inaccurate, pumping in pop culture from the adjacent decades. I Hype The 1970s would have been a better title. For instance, the Lava Lamp, released in 1964, was featured as a major 70s icon. The reality was that the thing was at the height of its popularity c. 1968/69. In the early 70s, the lamp became deeply naff - so naff Stan and Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street acquired one and proudly placed it on their serving hatch! There was something of a revival midway through the decade, in a post modern tongue-in-cheek style, as Mildred Roper acquired one in the ITV sitcom George & Mildred. But never was the Lava Lamp "cool and cutting edge" in the 70s.

CB radio was featured as THE craze of 1976. It wasn't legal, and not available in England. This American 1940s invention began to arrive here in any appreciable numbers c 1979. Illegal breakers rose steeply in numbers in 1980 and, after a mass rally in London, the date for the legalisation of CB radio was set for the 2nd of November 1981, with the American inventor of the gadget, Al Gross, making the first legal call from a Rolls Royce parked in Trafalgar Square. But the BBC vaunted it as THE craze of 1976. In reality there was simply some interest in the terminology and the beginnings of a campaign to get it legalised here because of a hit record and a couple of American films!

The Space Hopper was popular in the 70s, but had been so since 1968; the Stylophone was released in the late 1960s.

In addition, the I Love The 1970s series boldly stole from the 1980s. Of course, some 80s arrivals were invented in the 70s - time is a constant stream and this is how things are with all decades. But the Walkman (invented in 1979) did not arrive here until 1980 (as the Sony Stowaway) and there were several other items, some unnamed and unmanufactured until the 1980s, wrongly sparkling away as 1970s pop culture in I Love The 1970s.

I don't hate the 70s, but surely it's better not to live a lie about them? I have an uneasy feeling that many of today's youngsters have bought the hype and have a very unrealistic view of the recent past. The fact that they might try and live out a fictional 70s, rather than living in the current day, worries me. Virtual reality lives - a virtual 70s which really never existed in the first place. For some years now, I've been hoping to find a Tardis, bundle our 70s loving kids into it, and sentence them to a week in the real 1970s. I could imagine the shock - where are the hippies? Why are there no personal computers? Why have the lights gone out? NOT paste sandwiches again! etc etc. But at least, on their return, today would seem more attractive to them.

There are things that need doing, issues which the young should be addressing. Stuff the fictitious 70s and get on with it, I say!

The 70s - Non Retro? So Modern? Oh Yeah?!

In the 1990s it became fashionable to look at the 70s as a golden era. Young people began living in a decade rewritten and repackaged by cynical marketing types and the BBC. Non greedy! Non retro! Lovely - peace and love all around! Let's look at the reality. Starting with "non-retro" - because the 1980s was the first "retro" decade, wasn't it? In reality, the 1970s matched it pound for pound! The putrid orange and brown colour schemes and platform shoes/wedges were lifted from the 1930s, and disco glitter balls were so 1920s/30s/Come Dancing. 1940s boutiques were a wow.

The 1950s permeated the music and fashion of the 1970s like nobody's business. There were drainpipes and DAs and 50s chords could be heard in pop music from Abba to Punk and beyond. We adored Alvin Stardust, Wizzard, The Rubettes, Showaddywaddy, Elton John, Darts - all of whom had torn pages from the 1950s image and song book. There were many others. At the flicks, we watched That'll Be The Day and Grease. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was in the retro style of a 1950s "B" movie. On Telly, we adored that 50s retro style icon, The Fonz.

The 1970s also adored the 1960s... In the absence of new ideas, the hippie look continued - though if you were to suggest to the majority of housing estate youngsters back in the 70s that they were hippies, you'd probably get a thick lip. Later in the decade, we scanned back further into the 1960s for a Mods & Rockers and Ska revival. The 70s even put Juke Box Jury, The Avengers, The Saint and The Rag Trade back on the telly.

The 1970s went a bundle on programmes about the Second World War - like the doomly A Family At War and Danger UXB. Past recessions were relived (why? The 70s had its own recession!) in Sam, The Stars Look Down and When The Boat Comes In. We ate Upstairs, Downstairs with a big spoon - and thrilled to Royal abdication drama Edward and Mrs Simpson.

Older retro TV was hot with Poldark and The Onedin Line.

In fashion, Victorian style mutton chop sideburns, puffed sleeved blouses and long dresses and smock tops were much in evidence. We stuck fibre glass wood effect beams to our ceilings and adored electric retro aga style stoves and plastic beaten copper effect tables. I have more to write on the 1970s love of retro, but now it's time for a cuppa and a nice Curly Wurly.

ITV Teletext hypes the 1970s!

I remember last year reading about the "heyday" of Top of the Pops on ITV's Teletext service. It was said to be, of course, in the 1970s - "viewing figures of up to 19.4 million".

Good heavens - when?! I wondered. A quick check of the TV ratings showed that Teletext was right - TOTP had 19.4 million viewers on one occasion in October 1979.

When the ITV strike was on and viewers had no other option but to watch the BBC!

And as BBC2 was a minority interest channel, guess what BBC channel we were all watching?

Yes, top prize is yours, we were all watching BBC1, home of TOTP!

In fact, BBC1 was the only other option - there was no Channel Four and no Sky back then.

But Teletext didn't mention the strike. Perhaps the article's writer was too young to remember it? Or perhaps it simply didn't go with 70s hype mode?

So, that was the (entirely imaginary) Top of the Pops 1970s heyday. I contacted Teletext, who removed the "heyday" comment, but, it must be said, grudgingly!

Did any decade ever undergo such a lot of tweaking and lies to make it seem enjoyable in retrospect as the 1970s? Was it the same when we were celebrating the 1950s back in the 70s? I doubt it. In one of the online "Off the Telly" reviews - subject the BBC's I Love... series, the reviewer states that the 80s were "a less enjoyable decade". Now, I'm no 80s fan, but bear in mind that this reviewer had just sat through I Love The 1970s, which had contained at least five items of 1980s pop culture! Things unheard of in the 70s, or completely unavailable, sparkling away as fads of that decade.

The 1960s were also raided.

The real 1970s were NOT a time of fast-moving fads. Pop culture moved much slower back then (look at the time we took to shake off the 1960s hippie look).

But people who weren't even there seem happy to believe the lies.