Most weeks I spend a few hours with a group of friends who I I have now known for a good few years, most who used to be old customers when we had the shop at Sutton. We get together and take it in turns to produce a general knowledge quiz. Amongst the regular questions that crop up are ones about music and with a fair regularity ones about Eurovision Song Contest winners, so I thought it time to take a look at this much maligned (in this country) competition.

The first competition was in 1956, the countries competing were, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland, the hosts who went on to win with the song "Refrain" sung by Lys Assia.

Lys Assia

The United Kingdom joined in the competition the following year along with Austria & Denmark.  Our entry was sung by Patricia Bredin with a song called "All"

Patricia Bredin

Patricia finished in seventh place with just six points, but did at least avoid what was to become the dreaded "Nil Point" For whatever reason we didn't take part in the following years competition, but came back in 1959 to finish in second place with "Sing little birdie" by Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson. This is the first contest I remember seeing on TV at a family friends house, we didn't have a TV at home yet. The song also gained some notoriety years later when it was subject of a question in a Monty Python spoof Quiz.

Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson

Monty Python "Sing ritle Birdie"

The following year Teddy Johnson's younger brother Bryan also came second with "Looking high, high, high"

Bryan Johnson

The first really popular song that I remember buying as a single was the following years entry by the Allisons, "Are you sure". By now Sweden, Monaco, Norway, Finland, Spain & Yugoslavia had joined the fold and the competition was being shown all over Europe.

The Allisons

   The Allisons went on to have a huge chart hit with this entry and supported many of the UKs top groups during the early sixties including The Beatles.

This seems to be a good time to take a break from this wander down memory lane for now, but more to follow, with the UKs first Eurovision winner soon to come.