Derby enjoy shopping precinct bonanza

A new dance floor craze, armed robberies, appalling weather and the threat of nuclear war – 1962 proved a year of extraordinary events, as Nicola Rippon reports.

ALTHOUGH the 1960s had yet to get into full swing, by 1962, Derby’s youngsters were dancing to a new type of sound, with the “Twist” one of the most popular dances.

The year also saw some of pop music’s hottest young stars visit the town. The seemingly ever-present controversy over Derby’s modernisation programme continued – with the Inner Ring Road again the focus of attention.

And, never mind that for two weeks in October the world stood on the brink of nuclear annihilation, the weather had its own frightening forces to throw at the county in 1962.

The transformation of Derby – which is often today blamed for the destruction of many old and lovely buildings, as well as for the disappearance of some of the original street plan – also brought a new vibrancy to the town.

Although we now look back on each as white elephants, there was much excitement at the construction of two modern shopping precincts. One was to be built on the site of the old Castlefields Mill, off London Road, and would eventually be given the decidedly unglamorous, and ultimately inaccurate, name Main Centre.

At the other end of town, behind the Congregational Church on Victoria Street, work was under way to demolish a number of buildings to make way for Duckworth Place – a state-of-the-art precinct with 20 shops and a drive-in rooftop car park for more than 100 cars.

The church itself and the old Black Prince cinema were among the many buildings sacrificed for the £250,000 development. The cinema had been constructed in 1910 as the Victoria Electric Theatre. From 1948, under the ownership of Edgar Duckworth, it changed its name from the Empire to the Black Prince.

Entirely refurbished, complete with drawbridge-style main entrance and a redecorated auditorium, in 1954 it had become only the country’s fourth independent cinema to boast Cinemascope. It had welcomed its last audiences in March 1960. Even in 1962, the on-going construction of Derby’s Inner Ring Road was causing concern and debate among the town’s residents.

Both Alderman Alec Ling, and at least one reader of the Evening Telegraph, who had proudly signed himself “Petrol Burner”, expressed their concern that the town council had fixed the wrong priorities and completed the wrong phases of the scheme ahead of more essential sections.

Work was, by then, under way on the Bradshaw Way section, to link it with the existing Traffic Street. “Petrol Burner” had complained particularly about the “acute rush-hour congestion” at Derby’s notorious traffic blackspot in the Morledge and Corporation Street.

Asked by the Evening Telegraph to comment, the borough engineer explained that, while he was in agreement that the most important section – in terms of easing congestion – was that which would connect the Morledge with Nottingham Road, it was not yet possible to begin work on this “Central Way”. First the Derby Canal, although long since abandoned, had to be officially closed by Act of Parliament.

At this point permission, and funds to complete the work, would be released to the council.

But, while many were wanting a quick completion of the work, others feared for the future of many of the town’s most ancient byways and buildings, particularly those that lay in the path of the Inner Ring Road. Perhaps these concerns were on the mind of Derby’s new mayor, Stuart Harper, who wanted his year in office to be remembered for Derby becoming a “brighter” place.

He wanted to see the town developed, beautified and “as far as is humanly possible, old and historic buildings preserved”. Improvements of a less controversial sort were announced at one of Derby’s best-known hosiery mills.

R Rowley and Co Ltd, on Uttoxeter New Road, had just completed a total rejuvenation in anticipation of the increased trade opportunities that would exist, once Britain joined the European Common Market, which their directors believed was imminent.

They were also advertising vacancies for overlockers, cutters, neck linkers, hand flat knitters and lockstitch machinists.

On the whole, business in the town was enjoying reasonable prosperity and, with younger folk now having a little more disposable income, the social scene had become ever more vibrant.

The Twist had taken the world, and Derby, by storm and, in February, the Trocadero Ballroom, on Normanton Road, hosted a Twisting competition. Christine Wood and Janet Barber were the winners and received the Wyles Trophy for their efforts.

Some eight months later, 17-year-old Janet, of Napier Street, and 18-year-old Lance Marr, of Crompton Street, won the local heat of a national Twist competition, along with a £10 prize and the chance to compete for the £100 national prize.

The Big Star Show of 1962, which had been touring Britain throughout the year, visited the Gaumont, on London Road, in the spring. Its star was Billy Fury, whose hit records Halfway to Paradise and Jealousy had both made No 1 in the charts the previous year.

Also on the tour was Eden Kane who had also had a No 1 – Well I Ask You – that year. Kane’s early promise would not be entirely fulfilled and his younger brothers, Peter and Robin Sarstedt, would enjoy brief pop careers after Kane’s had faded.

Using his real name of Richard Sarstedt, Kane eventually became a regular television actor in the U.S., appearing in a number of series, including several episodes of Star Trek.

“Sophisticated” John Leyton, famous for his hit Johnny Remember Me, was the third big star to feature. Singing was his second career – Leyton had already made a name for himself as an actor, playing Ginger in the television series Biggles.

He would continue acting, and featured in many films, including The Great Escape in 1963 and Krakatoa, East of Java in 1969.

The star acts were supported by others still at the very start of their careers. Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers would have a hit later in 1962 with their version of The Can Can. Shane Fenton would enjoy two pop careers, one with his band the Fentones and one, in the 1970s, as the glam rock performer Alvin Stardust. The line-up was completed by cockney Joe Brown.

In October, Billy Fury returned to the Gaumont, this time with Mike Sarne and Marty Wilde. “Wearing a sort of tweed suit,” the Evening Telegraph’s reviewer noted, “Billy twisted and shook his hair over his eyes as he went through his top numbers. And he only had to give his audience that certain look to provoke a near riot and a bombardment of autograph books and flowers.”

After the show “almost the whole cast went to a party at 1 West Street, Heanor, home of Mr Albert Hand, publisher of magazines”. What a party that must have been!

Back in March, two lucky Derby girls had had the pleasure of meeting the country’s top pop idol – Cliff Richard. The young rock ’n’ roller had been appearing at the Gaumont, where he had been “showered with missiles of roses, chocolates, stuffed toys and love notes”, and the Picture Edition of the Evening Telegraph showed four-year-old Yvonne Stone, of Watson Street, and her 16-year-old sister, Marie, as the former sat on the pop star’s knee in his dressing room.

Several locals enjoyed considerable success in 1962. Allestree’s Alan Bates starred in the drama A Kind of Loving, while Chesterfield-born John Hurt made both his professional stage and cinema debuts in Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger and The Young and the Willing respectively.

Another debutant, this time to television, was Buxton’s Tim Brooke-Taylor, who appeared in On the Braden Beat.

Today, we worry about gun crime but, in February 1962, in Derby, came two attempted armed robberies in two days. On February 3, the Evening Telegraph reported that a man was under arrest after apparently pointing a gun at a wages clerk in Wilderslowe House, on Osmaston Road, where the Hospital Management Committee’s finance department was based.

He had demanded that the clerk fill his rucksack with money. However, most employees had already been paid and relatively little cash had been on the premises.

The would-be robber had fled when confronted by staff and was arrested a short time later after an extensive police search. His automatic pistol and ammunition had been stolen from a local dealer, where he had posed as a prospective customer earlier that day.

Two days later, police were searching for another armed robber. This time, the Normanton Road Filling Station had been the target. Again, no money was taken and the proprietor, Mrs Pauline Williams, was able to give police a good description, although the man had worn a scarf over his face.

By the end of 1962, it was the weather that was making the daily headlines. The year had got off to a stormy start. At the beginning of February, a violent gale lashed the county. The Evening Telegraph reported: “Roofs were ripped off, chimney stacks crashed, trees fell across roads and vehicles were overturned.”

The roof was lifted off Etwall County Primary School, and, at Allestree Rec, a wooden pavilion was torn from its foundations, the pieces landing in a neighbouring garden. Windows were smashed at Henry Cavendish School, in Breadsall, and lorries were blown over on the road between Coxbench and Kilburn.

Many roads – including Ashbourne Road, Queensway, Enfield Road and Radbourne Lane – were blocked because of fallen trees. Double-decker buses swayed dangerously. One Eggington couple were grateful to have evacuated their new bungalow, as a large beech tree fell on to it, effectively slicing it in half.

But even this great storm was just a foretaste of the awful weather that was to hit Britain. Winter had been late setting in, with little sign of it until early December.

Then, three weeks of fog and near-freezing temperatures had teased the county, but it was not until Boxing Day that a band of snow, sweeping south from Scotland, had stalled over southern Britain and brought a belated white Christmas to the county. The snow, that would become a feature of life for the next few months, had arrived.

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