Sunday 1 December 2013

Musical interlude EXTRA: The 1962 Eurovision entry

One of the questions on last nights Pointless TV quiz show was to name British solo artists who entered the Eurovision Song Contest. Given the point of the game was to get one nobody knew, even my own guesses of Cliff Richard, Sandie Shaw and Lulu would have been no good,though Javine turned out to be a "pointless" answer and she was just a few years back!

The answer given by one contestant was Ronnie Caroll which not only turned out to be correct but was quite unknown it would seem. Determined to find out more off to You Tube I headed!

It turns out Ronnie entered two years in a row, 1962 and 63 being to the only British entrant to do so. The following song  Ring-a-ding-girl was the 1962 entry.

He was previously married to the singer from the TV show which launched the career of David Frost, That Was The Week That Was, Millicent Martin.

There's a political angle to end this story on as Wikepedia helpfully tells us:

He contested Hampstead and Highgate in the 1997 UK General Election, and the Uxbridge by-election in July 1997.[4] In the 2005 British General Election, Carroll stood for the Vote For Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket Party, in Belfast. He is close friends with the party leader, Rainbow George. It has been superseded by the Make Politicians History banner. In the same year, he released a comeback albumBack on Song.[1] He stood in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, 2008 as a candidate for Make Politicians History and received 29 votes despite announcing that he was trying to enter the record books by receiving no votes.[5]

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