I had little information about this 1969 record, their is some discussion on 45Cat:- 45cat - Topo D. Bil - Witchi Tai To / Jam - Charisma - UK - CB 116
I recall hearing this played on Sounds of the Sixties by Brian Matthews who mentioned that this record was played about once a year.
I do not recall where I acquired my copy of this record from.
During the week I had an appointment for a Flexible Cystoscopy at Epsom Hospital, I have had this procedure before' so I was aware of what would happen, this time it was very painful, I did not recall any pain the first time I had the procedure, after it was over I was given a letter explaining what could happen and what to do in the event of it happening, well two days later I developed a urinary infection, back to Epsom Hospital there I was prescribed Anti Biotics and high strength Codeine tablets, after two days my high temperature subsided, I managed to take Biscuit for her walk, but was in no fit state to drive so I was unable to do the weekly shop, however today I feel much better and will do the shopping, and hopefully by the end of the week I should be back to normal.
I remember hearing this record being played by Charlie Chester on is early morning Saturday show, I did not know (or remember the title or artist), I could recall some of the chorus, though I was not sure if it was correct, well I brought a batch of records for the blog this was amongst them, for the blog on a Sunday I would sort out the records I was going to post for the whole week, first I would clean them with record cleaner, then scan them, then play them and record the sound file in Magix then get rid of the clicks, pops and scratches etc, the last thing before saving was adding the scan to the mp3 file, I would prepare 9 records from mainstream full price labels, 1 EP and one budget label such as Embassy, Cannon etc. I would post 3 singles, a budget label and an EP on Sunday also the Budget label would appear on my Forgotten Vinyl blog, the other 6 records would be posted one a day Monday to Saturday, on one Sunday I had miscounted and was one record short, this was in the days of six cans of strong larger for £5 I would often have a few cans of beer while getting the posts for the blog ready, this record was near the front of the box so I decided this would be the one to make up the number, as I started to play it I realised it was the elusive record from my past, I did have the chorus wrong.
They All Came Marching Home - Sgt Will Scuffham (youtube.com)
I first came across this track on a CD on a set of novelty CD's intended for Radio Stations, on the Ray Stevens - High School Yearbook there was a lot of hiss, the programs I used were unable to remove the hiss, couple of years later I saw another CD of Novelty Songs that included High School Yearbook, it also had a number of other tracks I wanted on the CD, alas on the CD the High School Yearbook track had even more hiss than the first CD, eventually I tracked down a 1959 issue vinyl copy, at last a copy with no hiss.
"High School Yearbook (A Deck Of Cards)" - Ray Stevens (1959 NRC) - YouTube
This 1970 release is one of the stranger records I acquired I do not recall ever hearing it played on the radio, like many things little has changed, one of my many jobs within the company I worked for was a spell in the Personnel group, I was in the Exit group dealing with people leaving the company, the work covered Age Retirement, Medical, Death In Service, Resignations and the largest part (at the time) Redundancy, on the redundancy side the most often asked question was "How can I get my whole Pension paid out as a lump sum" at the time it was not possible, you could only transfer it the another pension scheme, after I had left that group government rule changes allowed people to withdraw their pensions as lump sums.
The scans are from 45cat and are of my copy of the record, there is also a factory sample (not mine) it indicates that at least 100 copies were pressed, as part of the QA controls the 100th, 200th, 300th, etc. records was played, if the record was faulty the batch back to the last good record were rejected, the record that were played had a sticker put on them and were sold to the staff at a reduced rate, they are not as some people who try to sell them as promotional copies, generally the first 500 records were produced as promotional records and were supplied to Radio Stations, some D.J's and at one time record shops (so you could listen to the record before deciding to buy it).
The rejected records were dumped, the children local to Hayes where EMI was based found out where the records were dumped and started scavenging them, sales in the local record shops of EMI records declined, a number of children were interviewed about the records and all said they had 100's of records from the dump and all of them played perfectly.
When I first started collecting records I could often get 10 for £1, on 45cat it has this record valued at £20 I think I paid £1 for my copy.
I am still trying to work out is this worse than the record by the Saucepan Lids or is the Saucepan Lids better than this record?
O.A.P's - Give Us The Right To Live (Part 1) (youtube.com)