Light Entertainment
It's a Saturday night in the early 70s and I'm lying on our brown shag carpet in front of our fake-wood, black and white television rented from Rediffusion. I'm waiting for The Two Ronnies and Match of The Day to come on, but first I have to suffer through light entertainment shows like The Black & White Minstrels and Seaside Special with dance numbers performed by The Young Generation and musical guests Demis Roussos, Dana, Lena Zavaroni, and Peters & Lee singing their #1 smash hit "Welcome Home."
Peters & Lee were an odd couple. There were rumours (which my mum mentioned everytime they came on the telly) that blind Lennie Peters had been friends with the Kray brothers in the 60s and with his craggy face he looked more like a tough George Sewell type hard man, put him in a sheepskin car coat and you could imagine him on The Sweeney telling some slag to shut it or he'll break his kneecaps. Dianne Lee on the other hand looked like the glamourous wife of a young stockbroker, passing around the sausages on sticks at suburban cocktail parties.
Posting this I feel like I'm testing the limits of nostalgia's power to put a golden glow on things. Lennie did have a rather good, husky and Charlie Rich-esque voice but it's drowned in a sea of easy listening strings and backing singers and Dianne must have been there purely as eye candy because her voice hardly registers. I can't help but hear it through a filter of memories which makes me more kindly disposed toward it, but strip all the baggage of the past away and it's left alone in the cultural Dead Zone of early 70s Light Entertainment television and that's a dreadful place to be — it's all brown and Mike and Bernie Winters live there.
Download: Welcome Home - Peters & Lee (mp3)
Buy: "The Best Of Peters & Lee" (album)
4 Comments:
I never - not once - thought I'd use the internet to download Peters And Lee tracks. But I'm very happy I have... Nice one Lee
My Dad had the 'Opportunity Knocks - Winners' LP. It had this and Bobby Crush on it of course, but also 'Billy Don't Be A Hero' by Paper Lace. Now if only you'd posted THAT... ; )
Thanks, I hit 44 in August and I am with you all the way, what about "You're a lady" by Peter Skellern, that gives me the same vibe as this. I also think he's singing like a white Ray Charles on this, I hated it at the time, but now I'm back with all my family.
Brought up in the "Cally" I used to see Lennie Sargent selling newspapers in Bingfield St with his alsation sitting at his feet. Then his wife Sylvie(a super lady)would come and walk home with him. Many years later we were to become near neighbours again in Cockfosters.
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