It Oughta Sell A Million!
Lyn Paul releases three singles in 1975 - Love (Polydor 2058 552), It Oughta Sell A Million (Polydor 2058 602) and Here Comes That Wonderful Feeling (Polydor 2058 655). Lyn's first solo album, Give Me Love (Polydor 2383 340), is also released.
It Oughta Sell A Million is a top 40 hit and marks Lyn's début on the charts as a solo performer. Like Lyn a number of other singers appear on the charts, having previously been successful as part of a group. Frankie Valli (lead singer with the Four Seasons) has a top five hit in February with My Eyes Adored You; in May Roy Wood (who had found fame with the Move, ELO and Wizzard) has a hit with Oh What A Shame; and in July Bryan Ferry ("Mr. Dapper" from Roxy Music) makes it into the singles chart with You Go To My Head.
1975 is remarkable for the number of women making their début on the singles chart. Lyn Paul is just one of a long list of women having their first hit. Susan Cadogan, Linda Carr, Natalie Cole, Tammy Jones, Maxine Nightingale, Esther Phillips, Minnie Riperton, Billie Jo Spears, Betty Wright, Tammy Wynette and Retta Young also have UK hit singles for the first time. Another chart newcomer is Helen Reddy, who (like Lyn) will go on to star in Willy Russell's hit musical Blood Brothers.
A number of all-girl groups also make in into the charts for the first time - Labelle, the Sharonettes, Sister Sledge and Silver Convention - while groups featuring women lead singers - 5,000 Volts, Fox and Shirley & Co. - add to the total and make it a good year on the charts for women singers.
Even though more women are making it into the charts, the Top 20 is still dominated by male artists and groups. Few of the women making a breakthrough are given the support they need from their record companies to become regulars on the chart. Like Lyn, some of the chart débutantes will go on to have successful showbiz careers but they will not make many returns to the UK singles chart. Minnie Riperton's number 1 Loving You will be her only UK hit single, as will Esther Phillips' What A Difference A Day Made and Retta Young's Sending Out An SOS. The same is true for Tammy Jones and Shirley & Co., while the Sharonettes, Susan Cadogan and Helen Reddy go just one better, with two hits apiece. Even a "big name" like Tammy Wynette, who soared to the top of the charts with Stand By Your Man, would only have two more solo hits in the UK (Stand By Your Man would later become a popular number in Lyn Paul's stage act).

Advertisement for Lyn Paul's album
Give Me Love
from the Jack Jones 1975 UK tour programme.

During 1975 Lyn Paul continues to go down a storm on the cabaret circuit. After appearing in Summer shows with comedian Frankie Howerd, Lyn fills her diary with a series of solo cabaret dates:
- 10th - 16th August, Stockton Fiesta
- 14th September, Talk of the West
- 29th September, Blue Angel, Leeds
- 11th October, Ipswich
- 16th - 17th October, Hendon
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Lyn also appears at a variety performance to mark the opening of the Greenwood Theatre, London's newest theatre, situated near London Bridge behind Guy's Hospital. The show is attended by Princess Alexandra, who officially opens the theatre, and her husband Angus Ogilvy. The proceeds from show go to the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund
Lyn Paul also makes a guest appearance on The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club - a television programme which recreated a working men's club inside the Granada TV Studios, with Bernard Manning as compère and Colin Crompton as chairman. Lyn sings Behind Closed Doors, a song that had been a UK hit for Charlie Rich in April 1974. Also on the bill are Peters & Lee wannabes Mikey and Griff, Chi-Lites soundalikes Broken Hearts and comedian Jimmy Jones
At the end of October Lyn joins Jack Jones on his UK concert tour:
- 26th October, Coventry Theatre
- 29th - 31st October, Southport Theatre
- 1st November, Newcastle City Hall
- 2nd November, Glasgow Apollo
- 3rd November, Capitol Theatre, Aberdeen
- 4th November, Usher Hall, Edinburgh
- 7th November, Winter Gardens, Bournemouth
- 9th November, Theatre Royal, London
- 11th November, Colston Hall, Bristol
- 12th November, Festival Theatre, Paignton
- 14th November, Odeon Theatre, Birmingham
- 16th November, New Theatre, Oxford
- 18th November, Carlton Cinema, Dublin
- 20th November, Fairfield Hall, Croydon
- 21st November, Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
- 23rd November, London Palladium
- 28th November, Central Hall, Chatham
- 29th November, Capitol Theatre, Cardiff
- 30th November, London Palladium
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Lyn opens the show with The Trolley Song and closes her set with a Neil Sedaka Medley. Looking back on the tour eleven years later, Lyn revealed how important it was to her:
"When I left the New Seekers I was full of the joys of Spring. I thought going solo was going to be easy, but doing a 13 week non-stop tour, I began to lose my voice. I was close to having a nervous breakdown.
Then came the Jack Jones' tour. It gave me so much confidence. The change was amazing. It was very much a turning point and I think I would have been absolutely lost if Jack hadn't come along."
(TV Times, 15th - 21st November 1986, page 17)
There are rumours of an affair between Lyn and Jack Jones, which Lyn later referred to in interviews with the News Of The World and The Sun.
Incidentally ...
Singer-songwriter Andy Fairweather-Low, who had written Mellow Down, one of the tracks on Lyn Paul's album Give Me Love, has a solo hit in December with Wide Eyed and Legless (A&M AMS 7202).
The 1970 Eurovision winner Dana also has a hit in December with It's Gonna Be A Cold Cold Christmas (GTO GT 45). The song is the work of Roger Cook, who co-wrote Lyn's single It Oughta Sell A Million.


| In the News - 1975 |
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| Jan |
On 4th January Khmer Rouge guerrillas attack the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
On 5th January 13 people are killed when a freighter hits the Tasman Bridge. Part of the bridge collapses into the Derwent River. The ship sinks.
Teenager Lesley Whittle, who was left £82,000 in her father's will, is kidnapped from her home in Highley, Shropshire on 14th January. Her body is found in a drain shaft on 7th March.
Angola gains independence from Portugal on 16th January.
Dr. Donald Coggan is enthroned as the 101st Archbishop of Canterbury.
The price of TV licences in the UK is increased to £18 for a colour set and £8 for a black and white set.
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| Feb |
On 11th February Margaret Thatcher is elected leader of the Conservative Party.
P.G. Wodehouse dies on St. Valentines' Day, aged 93.
New £10 notes are issued in the UK, with a portrait of the Queen on one side and Florence Nightingale on the other.
On Friday, 28th February 42 passengers and the driver of a tube train are killed at Moorgate station in the worst-ever accident on London Underground. It takes rescue workers five days to recover all of the bodies.
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| Mar |
Charlie Chaplin is knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
On 7th March the United States carries out a nuclear test in the Nevada desert. Four days later the USSR performs a nuclear test in eastern Kazakhstan.
Tammy Wynette and George Jones get divorced on 13th March, just two months before Wynette tops the UK singles chart with Stand By Your Man. Her follow-up hit is the more aptly-titled D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
Susan Hayward dies on 14th March.
Ethiopia ends over 3,000 years as a monarchy on 21st March.
On 25th March King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is assassinated in Riyadh by his nephew Prince Faisal Ibn Musaed.
Tommy premiers in London on 26th March.
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| Apr |
99 Vietnamese orphans are brought to the UK on 6th April aboard a Boeing 747 chartered by the Daily Mail newspaper
Ritchie Blackmore leaves Deep Purple on 7th April to form his own group, Rainbow.
Josephine Baker dies in Paris on 11th April, aged 68.
Khmer Rouge troops enter Phnom Penh on 17th April, following the US withdrawal from Cambodia five days earlier.
The President of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, resigns on 21st April.
Terrorists blow up the West German Embassy in Stockholm when their demand for the release of 26 jailed members of the Baader-Meinhof gang is refused.
At a one-day conference held on Saturday, 26th April the UK Labour Party votes by almost 2-1 in favour of leaving the European Economic Community (EEC).
Elections are held in Portugal for the first time in 50 years.
North Vietnamese troops capture Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, on Wednesday, 30th April. Saigon is renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
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| May |
On 5th May the British social services secretary Barbara Castle announces the government's intention to abolish pay beds (where patients pay for advantages such as privacy) in National Health Service hospitals.
On 17th May Elton John is awarded a Platinum disc for sales in excess of 1 million of his new LP Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy. The LP is the first album to achieve Platinum status on the day of its release. On 7th June it becomes the first album to enter the US chart at number 1.
Sculptor Barbara Hepworth dies in a fire at her studio in St. Ives on 20th May.
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| Jun |
The Suez canal is reopened by President Sadat on 5th June.
In the first referendum in British history 67.2% of UK electors vote to stay in the European Economic Community (EEC).
On Monday, 9th June proceedings in the House of Commons are broadcast on the radio for the first time. The Secretary of State for Industry, Tony Benn, is the first minister to be questioned live on air.
The Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, is convicted of electoral fraud on 12th June.
Lord Lucan, who had been missing since 7th November 1974, is declared by an inquest jury to have murdered Sandra Rivett, the 29-year-old nanny of his three young children. The verdict, returned in his absence on Thursday, 19th June, is the last of its kind to be delivered by an inquest jury - the procedure was outlawed by the 1977 Criminal Law Act.
The first oil from the British sector of the North Sea is brought ashore at the BP refinery on the Isle of Grain.
Mozambique gains independence from Portugal on 25th June.
Cher and Gregg Allman get married on 27th June.
The folk singer Tim Buckley dies from a drug overdose on 29th June.
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| Jul |
Denis Hills, who had been sentenced to death for treason, is released from prison in Uganda.
American and Russian astronauts shake hands in space after the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft make a successful docking.
A Chorus Line premiers on Broadway on 25th July.
On 29th July Gerald Ford visits Auschwitz and so becomes the first US President to visit a Nazi concentration camp.
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| Aug |
Six men from Northern Ireland are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Birmingham pub bombings of the previous November.
An all-party Committee of the House of Commons criticises the UK government's plan to invest £1,400 million in the ailing car company British Leyland.
The Bangladeshi leader, Sheikh Mujib, is killed in a coup.
Talks between the Rhodesian government and the African National Council collapse acrimoniously on 26th August.
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| Sep |
Civil war rages in Beirut.
Two people are killed and 63 injured when a bomb explodes in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in central London on Friday, 5th September. The IRA later claims responsibility.
The kidnapped American newspaper heiress, Patty Hearst, who had joined her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army, is arrested on Thursday, 18th September, after a year on the FBI's "most wanted" list.
At the Trades Union Congress in Blackpool delegates vote by two to one in favour of the UK government's anti-inflation policy of limiting pay rises to £6 per week.
The US President, Gerald Ford, escapes two assassination attempts.
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| Oct |
Dutch industrialist, Tiede Herrema, is kidnapped in Northern Ireland.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton re-marry on 10th October.
On Wednesday, 15th October two members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) are sentencted to 35 years in priosn for murdering three members of the Miami Show Band in Belfast.
Leonard Matlovich, a sergeant in the US Air Force and a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, is discharged on Wednesday, 22nd October after appearing on the front cover of Time magazine publicly declaring his homosexuality.
Dutch Elm Disease spreads across the UK killing millions of elm trees.
In Spain General Franco hands over power to Prince Carlos on 29th October.
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| Nov |
On Monday, 3rd November the Queen officially opens the first North Sea oil pipeline, which runs for 130 miles from Cruden Bay to Grangemouth.
The Royal Pavilion at Brighton is badly damaged by fire.
Tiede Herrema is released unharmed. His kidnappers surrender to the police.
On 11th November the Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, is dismissed form office by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.
General Franco, the ruler of Spain for 39 years, dies on Thursday, 20th November, aged 82. Two days later King Juan Carlos reclaims the Spanish throne.
Angola gains its independence from Portugal. Surinam gains its independence from the Netherlands.
Ross McWhirter, co-editor of the Guinness Book Of Records, is shot dead outside his Enfield home on Thursday, 27th November, three weeks after offering a £50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of terrorist suspects.
Robert Muldoon becomes Prime Minister of New Zealand following the Nationalist Party's victory in the general election.
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| Dec |
On 2nd December South Moluccan terrorists hijack a train at Beilen in Holland. The driver and two passengers are killed. Two days later another group of South Moluccans invade and take control of the Indonesian Consulate in Amsterdam.
Indonesian troops invade East Timor on 7th December.
On 11th December an Icelandic gunboat patrolling the North Atlantic opens fire on an unarmed British fishery support vessel.
In London on 12th December the Balcombe Street siege ends peacefully when four IRA gunmen, who had been holding hostage a middle aged couple, surrender to police.
Following the Liberal-Country Party's landslide victory in the Australian general election, Malcolm Fraser takes over from Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. Political rival Bob Hawke describes him as "the cutlery man of Australian politics. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, speaks with a forked tongue, and knifes his colleagues in the back."
In the UK the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act come into force on 29th December.
On 31st December the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approves the UK's application for loans totaling £975 million.
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| In the Charts |
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| UK Chart Debuts |
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- George Benson
- Eagles
- Kraftwerk
- Barry Manilow
- Bob Marley and the Wailers
- Smokie
(original spelling Smokey)
- Supertramp
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| UK Best-selling Singles |

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- ABBA
S.O.S.
- Average White Band
Pick Up The Pieces
- Bad Company
Feel Like Makin' Love
- Mike Batt
Summertime City
- Bay City Rollers
Bye Bye Baby
- Bay City Rollers
Give A Little Love
- Bay City Rollers
Money Honey
- Bee Gees
Jive Talkin'
- Band of the Black Watch
Scotch On The Rocks
- Hamilton Bohannon
Disco Stomp
- David Bowie
Space Oddity
- Susan Cadogan
Hurt So Good
- Glen Campbell
Rhinestone Cowboy
- Jim Capaldi
Love Hurts
- Carpenters
Please Mr. Postman
- Chi-Lites
Have You Seen Her
- Judy Collins
Send In The Clowns
- Billy Connolly
D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
- Dana
It's Gonna Be A Cold Cold Christmas
- Dana
Please Tell Him That I Said Hello
- Windsor Davies and Don Estelle
Whispering Grass
- Drifters
There Goes My First Love
- David Essex
Hold Me Close
- 5000 Volts
I'm On Fire
- Four Seasons
Who Loves You
- Fox
Only You Can
- Art Garfunkel
I Only Have Eyes For You
- Gloria Gaynor
Never Can Say Goodbye
- Glitter Band
Goodbye My Love
- Bobby Goldsboro
Honey
- Goodies
Funky Gibbon
- Guys and Dolls
There's A Whole Lot Of Loving
- Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel
Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
- Hello
New York Groove
- Hot Chocolate
A Child's Prayer
- Hot Chocolate
You Sexy Thing
- Jigsaw
Sky High
- Kenny
The Bump
- Jonathan King
Una Paloma Blanca
- Mac and Katie Kissoon
Sugar Candy Kisses
- Gladys Knight
and the Pips
The Way We Were / Try To Remember
- Kraftwerk
Autobahn
- Greg Lake
I Believe In Father Christmas
- Laurel and Hardy
with the Avalon Boys
The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine
- John Lennon
Imagine
- Linda Lewis
It's In His Kiss
- Van McCoy
The Hustle
- Ralph McTell
The Streets Of London
- Barry Manilow
Mandy
- Johnny Mathis
I'm Stone In Love With You
- Moments
Dolly My Love
- Moments and Whatnauts
Girls
- Mud
L-L-Lucy
- Mud
Oh Boy
- Mud
The Secrets That You Keep
- Johnny Nash
Tears On My Pillow
- Maxine Nightingale
Right Back Where We Started From
- Osmonds
The Proud One
- Pilot
January
- Queen
Bohemian Rhapsody
- Helen Reddy
Angie Baby
- Roxy Music
Love Is The Drug
- Rubettes
I Can Do It
- Telly Savalas
If
- Leo Sayer
Moonlighting
- Sensational Alex Harvey Band
Delilah
- Peter Shelley
Love Me Love My Dog
- Showaddy waddy
Three Steps To Heaven
- Slade
How Does It Feel?
- Smokey
If You Think You Know How To Love Me
- Billie Jo Spears
Blanket On The Ground
- Status Quo
Down Down
- Steeleye Span
All Around My Hat
- Ray Stevens
Misty
- Rod Stewart
Sailing
- Stylistics
I Can't Give You Anything (But My Love)
- Stylistics
Sing Baby Sing
- Supertramp
Dreamer
- Billy Swan
I Can Help
- Sweet
Fox On The Run
- Syreeta
Your Kiss Is Sweet
- 10cc
I'm Not In Love
- Tymes
Ms. Grace
- Frankie Valli
My Eyes Adored You
- Roger Whittaker
The Last Farewell
- Tammy Wynette
Stand By Your Man
- Tammy Wynette
D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
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| One Hit Wonders |
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- Morris Albert
Feelings
- Gilbert Becaud
A Little Love And Understanding
- Jasper Carrott
Funky Moped / Magic Roundabout
- Jim Gilstrap
Swing Your Daddy
- Mike Harding
Rochdale Cowboy
- Ian Hunter
(solo)
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
- Kevin Johnson
Rock 'n' Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)
- Tammy Jones
Let Me Try Again
- Carl Malcolm
Fattie Bum Bum
- Esther Phillips
What A Difference A Day Made
- Minnie Riperton
Loving You
- Shirley and Company
Shame Shame Shame
- Chris Spedding
Motor Biking
- Teach-In
Ding Dinge Dong
[Eurovision Song Contest winner]
- Typically Tropical
Barbados
- Pete Wingfield
Eighteen With A Bullet
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| Hit Albums |

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- Carpenters
Horizon
- Eagles
One Of These Nights
- Art Garfunkel
Breakaway
- Emmylou Harris
Pieces Of The Sky
- Justin Hayward and John Lodge
Blue Jays
- Elton John
Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
- James Last
Make The Party Last
- Olivia Newton-John
Have You Never Been Mellow
- Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here
- Queen
A Night At The Opera
- Paul Simon
Still Crazy After All These Years
- Bruce Springsteen
Born To Run
- Status Quo
On The Level
- Rod Stewart
Atlantic Crossing
- 10cc
The Original Soundtrack
- Rick Wakeman
The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table
- Wings
Venus And Mars
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| At the Movies |
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- Barry Lyndon
- The Drowning Pool
- The Eiger Sanction
- French Connection II
- Funny Lady
- The Godfather Part II
- The Jungle Book (re-release)
- Lenny
- Lisztomania
- Love and Death
(Woody Allen)
- Mahogany
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Nashville
- Picnic At Hanging Rock
- The Return of the Pink Panther
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- Rollerball
- Shampoo
- Three Days of the Condor
- Tommy
- The Towering Inferno
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| On Television |
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- Angels
- Are You Being Served?
(Series 3)
- Celebrity Squares
- Dad's Army
(Series 8)
- Dave Allen At Large
(Series 4)
- Doctor Who: Genesis Of The Daleks
- Fawlty Towers
(Series 1)
- The Good Life
(Series 1)
- It Ain't Half Hot Mum
(Series 2)
- Jim'll Fix It
- Larry Grayson
- Last of the Summer Wine
(Series 2)
- The Liver Birds
(Series 5)
- Look - Mike Yarwood!
(Series 5)
- Love Thy Neighbour
(Series 6, 7 and 8)
- Man About The House
(Series 4 and 5)
- The Naked Civil Servant
- No, Honestly
- On the Move
- Poldark
- Porridge
(Series 2)
- Rising Damp
(Series 2)
- The Rockford Files
- Seaside Special
- Shang-A-Lang
(Bay City Rollers)
- Starsky and Hutch
- Supersonic
- The Sweeney
(Series 1 and 2)
- Till Death Us Do Part
(Series 6 and 7)
- The Two Ronnies
(Series 4)
- Two's Company
(Series 1)
- Winner Takes All
- Wodehouse Playhouse
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| Sporting Heroes |
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BBC Sport
BBC
Sports Personality
of the Year:
David Steele
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Cricket: Australia win the Ashes but are beaten by the West Indies in the first World Cup cricket final.
Leicestershire win the County Cricket Championship for the first time.
Horse Racing: L'Escargot wins the Grand National. Red Rum, the winner in 1973 and '74, finishes second.
Show Jumping: David Broome wins a record seven events at the Horse of the Year Show.
Mountaineering: on 16th May Junko Tabei of Japan becomes the first woman to climb Mount Everest.
Four months later, on 25th September, Dougal Haston and Doug Scott become the first Britons to do so.
Snooker: In a repeat of the 1973 Final, Ray Reardon beats Eddie Charlton to become World Snooker Champion for the fourth time.
Football: West Ham beat Fulham 2:0 in the FA Cup Final.
Tennis: Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title. He beats the defending Champion Jimmy Connors in the final by three sets to one (6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4).
Five-times Champion Billie Jean King easily beats the 1971 Champion, Evonne Cawley, in the women's singles final (6-0, 6-1).
Britain retain the Wightman Cup, beating the US team in America for the first time since 1925.
Martina Navratilova defects from Czechoslovakia.
Golf: Jack Nicklaus wins the US Masters for a record fifth time.
Tom Watson wins the Open Championship at Carnoustie.
Rugby Union: Phil Bennett sets a new record of 34 points scored in an international match, playing for Wales against Japan.
Motor Sport: Niki Lauder wins the Formula 1 World Championship.
Former Formula 1 champion Graham Hill is killed in a plane crash on 29th November.
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| Page-turners |
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Man Booker Prize
Winner:
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Heat And Dust
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