< NEW YEAR’S EVE 1979

Tuesday January 1st WELCOME TO THE EIGHTIES! A new decade. I am only eight years old so this is my first. I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but I remember everyone thinking the 1980s would bring about a new era of technological wonders. The future had finally arrived and it was all going to be amazing. Hover cars and jet packs by the year 2000! BBC 1, 7.30 pm: the first ever episode of Hi-de-Hi, a sitcom set in a holiday camp in the 1950s. It will run for nine years. The first episode is available to watch on Britbox, but if you can’t stomach that, here’s a clip. BBC News & Continuity ITV New Programmes Trailer Wednesday January 2nd In the first major British political event of the 1980s, a national steel strike is called by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, which lasts until April 1st. It forms another milestone in the grand battle between the government and the trade unions and should probably affect me very deeply, what with me living in Yorkshire where much of the steel industry is located. But I don’t know anyone who works in steel and, being eight years old, not only do I not notice there is a strike, but Sheffield seems so far away it might as well be Mars. ITV, 4.45 pm: Tom Baker presents The Book Tower, a show about books, now in its second year. Here’s a clip from one of his episodes. BBC 2, 9.05pm: Play for Today - The Black Stuff: Alan Bleasdale’s feature- length drama about a gang of Liverpudlians laying tarmac in Middlesbrough. Its warm reception encourages the BBC to commission a sequel, which airs in 1982 to an even warmer reception. Thursday January 3rd 69-year-old naturalist Joy Adamson, writer of Born Free, is found dead near her home in Kenya, apparently mauled to death by lions. The autopsy, however, reveals it to be murder, apparently at the human hands of a disgruntled employee. Before his trial, Paul Nakware Ekai confesses that he stabbed her to death because she had not paid him for 14 days’ work. But many years later, he retracts the confession, claiming that Adamson was a tyrant who often violently mistreated her workers. On this occasion, he says, she shot him in the foot for disobeying orders and, in retaliation, he retrieved his own gun and shot her three times, contradicting the autopsy report. He also claims his earlier confession was elicited by torture. Whatever the truth, in 2020 he changes his story again and says he didn’t kill her at all. At the time of writing, Ekai is, presumably, still in prison. Star Wars Weekly No 98 Doctor Who Weekly No 13 Spectacular Spider-Man Weekly No 357 Hulk Comic No 45 Look-in No 2: in a staggering editorial, Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart (or whoever writes this column for him) looks forward to the technological advances of the 1980s, heralding the advent of flat-screen TVs, internet shopping, DVDs, smartphones, virtual voice synthesisers and the ascendance of China. The only problem being he’s several decades too early. There’s also an article about Manchester United goalkeeper Gary Bailey. My wife (who I won’t meet for another 17 years) tells me her older brother Mark used to make her play a game called Gary Bailey, in which she played the role of Gary Bailey and had to kneel down by the radiator while he threw things for her to catch. She thought for a long time that her job was to stop the things hitting the radiator, until it slowly dawned on her that it was just an excuse to throw things at her. Needless to say, she was very good at it. BBC 1, 6.45pm: Tomorrow’s World - “A new decade and a new look for the programme,” featuring a swanky new electronic 1980s theme tune and a title sequence which appears to take us on a trip through the cortex of a gigantic spherical brain. BBC 1, 7.10pm: Top of the Pops - for all Peter Powell’s immense enthusiasm for “the sound of the eighties,” we’re mainly treated to the same sound we’ve been hearing for some time now. But some of it’s still really rather good: • My Girl Madness • Brass in Pocket Pretenders • I’m Born Again Boney M • Tears of a Clown The Beat • Day Trip to Bangor Fiddler’s Dram • Christmas Rappin’ Kurtis Blow • My Feet Keep Dancing Chic (via Legs & Co) • Better Love Next Time Dr Hook By the way, there’s a great blog here detailing every performance from every edition of Top of the Pops in 1980, with a far wittier commentary than I could ever give it. Here’s the entry for January 3. I’ll link to the others as we go. Friday January 4th President Jimmy Carter orders a grain embargo against the USSR, in protest at their invasion of Afghanistan. He also expresses a desire that the US should boycott the Olympic games, to be held in Moscow later in the year. Saturday January 5th ITV, 10.30 am: Tiswas celebrates its 6th anniversary. Doctor Who: The Horns of Nimon - Part Three 2000 AD Prog 147 Sunday January 6th ITV, 5.30 pm: Series 2 of Worzel Gummidge begins with an episode called Worzel and the Saucy Nancy (starring Jon Pertwee as Worzel, Una Stubbs as Aunt Sally and Barbara Windsor as the eponymous ship’s masthead). Now available to watch on Britbox and much, much better than you remember. ITV, 7.15 pm: The first ever episode of quiz show Family Fortunes, presented by Bob Monkhouse. You can watch the whole thing here. UK SINGLES CHART No 1: Another Brick in the Wall Pink Floyd No 50: It’s Different for Girls Joe Jackson No 72: Escape (The Pina Colada Song) Rupert Holmes UK ALBUMS CHART No 1: Greatest Hits Vol. 2 ABBA

Tuesday January 1st - Sunday January 6th, 1980

TERM 2: Week 0

TERM 2 WEEK 1 >

TERM 2 (Jan - Apr 1980) New Year (Jan 1 - Jan 6, 1980) Week 1 (Jan 7 - Jan 13, 1980) Week 2 (Jan 14 - Jan 20, 1980) Week 3 (Jan 21 - Jan 27, 1980) Week 4 (Jan 28 - Feb 3, 1980) Week 5 (Feb 4 - Feb 10, 1980) Week 6 (Feb 11 - Feb 17, 1980) Half Term (Feb 18 - Feb 24, 1980) Week 7 (Feb 25 - Mar 2, 1980) Week 8 (Mar 3 - Mar 9, 1980) Week 9 (Mar 10 - Mar 16, 1980) Week 10 (Mar 17 - Mar 23, 1980) Week 11 (Mar 24 - Mar 30, 1980) Easter 1 (Mar 31 - Apr 6, 1980) Easter 2 (Apr 7 - Apr 13, 1980)

TERM 2 IN LINK FORM

TERM 1 (Sep - Dec 1979)

Hi-de-Hi! Jan 1, 1980

Steelworkers Strike Jan 2, 1980

St Pauls Riots Apr 2, 1980

State of the Union Jan 23, 1980

My Girl Madness

Blake’s 7 Returns Jan 7, 1980

Barbara Woodhouse Jan 7, 1980

Grange Hill Roof Death Feb 25, 1980

Mugabe Elected Zimbabwe PM Mar 4, 1980

Atomic Blondie

Echo Beach Martha and the Muffins

Games Without Frontiers Peter Gabriel

Robin Cousins at the Olympics Feb 21, 1980

Underpass John Foxx

Judge Death Jan 19, 1980

TERM 3 (Apr - Jul 1980)