Remembering Ruby Flipper

Things I wish I’d know when I was writing…

In my book Crisis? What Crisis?, I quote an entry in Michael Palin’s diary from 1978 in which he acknowledges the poor state of the economy, but concludes that, despite everything: ‘I’m better disposed to letting the present Labour government run my country for me than any other group – apart, perhaps, from Pan’s People.’

And, purely as an aside, I point out that sadly he was behind the times, that ‘the five-woman dance troupe Pan’s People had recently retired, after ten years of providing visual relief for dads obliged by their children to watch Top of the Pops. They were replaced by the short-lived and barely remembered Ruby Flipper, whose mixed-gender line-up failed to console a bereaved audience.’

It was, of course, an entirely gratuitous reference to Ruby Flipper, included only because they so often fail to get a mention, lost between memories of Pan’s People and Legs and Co. But I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for them after their inexplicable performance to the sounds of David Bowie’s TVC15 in 1976.

And the reason this turns up now is that I’ve been reading Ian Gittins’ excellent history of Top of the Pops – Mishaps, Miming and Music: True Adventures of TV’s No. 1 Pop Show (BBC Books, 2007) – in which he reveals that Ruby Flipper were removed from the show on the direct instructions of Bill Cotton, then Controller of BBC.

This is the story as told by Flick Colby, the resident choreographer on the series: ‘Bill Cotton called me in to the BBC and said the British public didn’t want to see black men dancing with white women. I argued, but he told me to form another all-girl group or I was out.’ And so Legs and Co were born.

I didn’t know that until yesterday, which is a shame since I would certainly have included it in the section on the BBC’s attitude towards race. It would have fitted in well in the discussion about The Black and White Minstrel Show (which, let us never forget, ran on television from 1958 right through to 1978 – that is, it was still on after Ruby Flipper had been axed), particularly since I make explicit reference to the issue that so troubled Mr Cotton:

‘Initially the blackface make-up was worn by all the singers, but early on it was decided to restrict it to the men only, presenting the culturally curious spectacle of white women dancing with caricatures of black men, as though such a depiction might inoculate the nation against the possibility of miscegenation.’

In the years that followed the eventual (belated) cancellation of the televised version of The Black and White Minstrel Show, there were loud and repeated complaints that the viewing millions were being deprived of a harmless bit of entertainment. Even if there were some kind of racism, it was argued, it was unconscious and certainly not intentional. But Mr Cotton clearly knew what he was doing.

Son of Wakey Wakey and the Six-Five Special

The obituaries for Sir Bill Cotton, who died last week, centred – quite rightly – on his astonishing record in television light entertainment. He was, after all, the man who brought Morecambe & Wise, The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game and Parkinson to the BBC, shaping the look of Saturday night for a generation and more.

But, without wishing to be disrespectful to the man and his contribution to British culture, there’s also been something that’s troubling me.

According to the BBC website: ‘Cotton brought pop music show Six-Five Special to BBC television,’ a comment echoed by other obituaries. The Daily Telegraph also claimed that he was responsible for ‘the discovery of Tommy Steele’.

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. But let’s not get carried away.

Just to be clear: Tommy Steele was discovered by John Kennedy, with Larry Parnes subsequently brought into the management team.

And while Cotton did work on Six-Five Special, it’s a gross distortion of history to give him the credit for the show. Because the credit belongs pretty much exclusively to the very great Jack Good. It was he who was the original producer in 1957, the man who made sure that the emphasis in this new series for teenagers was very firmly on music.

That hadn’t been the original intention at all. Good’s co-producer was to be Josephine Douglas, who had much more traditional ideas: ‘Jo wanted film excerpts on mountaineering – hobbies-for-the-youngsters kind of a programme; I wanted all music.’ His solution was elegant; he invited Douglas to present the show, along with disc jockey Pete Murray, thereby ensuring her absence from the control box.

So, although Six-Five Special did emerge as a magazine show, with sports features and with resident comedians Mike and Bernie Winters, it was the music that caught the popular imagination. Amongst those who benefited most from the programme were Tommy Steele and Lonnie Donegan, while Marty Wilde, Jim Dale and Vince Eager got their first break here.

And, quite apart from the content, it was Good who constructed the look of the programme. In particular, he took the revolutionary step of placing the audience between the camera and the performer, so that they could be seen dancing to the music of the live bands. And he refused to patronize his viewers by pretending that a TV programme was somehow an objective observation of an event; instead he admitted frankly that this was a constructed experience: ‘Who gives a damn if a camera comes into shot?’ he asked rhetorically.

As George Melly pointed out in the context of the look of 1960s youth culture: ‘he virtually invented the pop style.’ The influence was felt not merely in rock and roll television, but far beyond, from That Was The Week That Was onwards.

Having put the record straight a little, then, here’s a photo of the late Sir Bill Cotton, with his bandleader father Billy Cotton (© V&A Images). Taken by Harry Hammond, this picture, together with some wonderful shots of Six-Five Special, can be found in my forthcoming book, Halfway To Paradise: The Birth of British Rock.