Bring me the head of Des O’Connor.
No, it’s not an edict from Morecambe & Wise, but rather the cover of the Christmas TV Times from 1969, pieced together in the days before photoshop. Des was the host of ITV’s Christmas Day extravaganza, the ‘All Star Comedy Carnival’, with ten minute slots for all the channel’s big shows, from ‘Father Dear Father’ through ‘The Dustbinmen’ and ‘Please Sir!’ to ‘Coronation Street’ – whatever happened to that?
As the curtain came down on the swinging sixties, ITV also chose its ‘Man of the Decade’, with Alistair Cooke, Mary McCarthy and Desmond Morris putting forward their nominations – John F Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh and John Lennon respectively.
More details on that, and a fortnight of festive entertainment can be found here.
