Lyn Paul website: Lyn Paul then ... 1977

Following the panto season Lyn returns to cabaret, performing in Blackpool, Birkenhead and Wakefield.

On 9th March Lyn takes part in the Song For Europe contest at the New London Theatre. Her song, a ballad entitled If Everybody Loved The Same As You (Pye7N 45678), loses out to Rock Bottom by Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran, who go on to represent the UK in the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest.

1977 includes a string of TV and radio appearances for Lyn, including Pete Murray's Open House (BBC Radio 2, Easter Monday), Pebble Mill At One (BBC 1, 18th April), The Little and Large Tellyshow (Thames Television, 2nd May), A Show Of My Own with Dave Evans (Yorkshire Television, Monday, 11th July, 8.00pm) and Wednesday Night at the London Casino (Thames Television, October).

Between 17th June - 17th September Lyn appears in a second Summer Season with Freddie Starr, this time at the Winter Gardens, Margate. Rehearsals begin on 13th June. The shows are a lot of fun, with Lyn and Freddie playing practical jokes on one another. "Lyn started it," Freddie later told the press, "One day, we were just talking, and for no reason at all, she suddenly giggled, and threw a glass of wine at me." From that moment on, it was war: "When Lyn was singing I went on stage with a fire extinguisher and squirted it all over her. I drenched her ... but like a real trouper she went on singing. She was terrific." Lyn gets her own back: "A few nights later she walked out when I was on stage and threw a bucket of water all over me."

In the Autumn Lyn returns to the cabaret circuit. She also joins Freddie Starr again for a series of shows at the London Palladium.

Pye Records release a follow up to Lyn's Song For Europe single, I Don't Believe You Ever Loved Me (Pye7N 46026).

Lyn opts out of panto to spend a Christmas at home with her family. Just before Christmas, she flies north for a booking in the Shetland Islands and finds herself sharing a plane with Lena Zavaroni who is also going home for Christmas.

Incidentally ...

Randy Newman's 1977 album Little Criminals includes Newman's version of I'll Be Home, a song he had originally recorded with Harry Nillson on the 1970 album Nillson Sings Newman. Lyn Paul sang the lead vocal on the New Seekers' version of this song - first issued as a studio recording on the 1971 album Beautiful People and later as a concert recording on the album Live at the Royal Albert Hall.

In the USA the Doobie Brothers have a minor hit with Echoes Of Love, a track from their album Livin' On The Fault Line. Lyn Paul records the song and releases it as a single in the UK in 1983.


In the News - 1977
Jan	On 1st January a new 200 mile fishing zone comes into effect around the UK. Roy Jenkins resigns as Home Secretary on 3rd January. Three days later he starts his new job as President of the European Commission. The IMF approves a loan to the UK of £2,300 million. 12 inch singles are released in the UK for the first time. EMI sack the Sex Pistols on Thursday, 6th January after members of the group swear at staff at Heathrow airport. The band and their manager, Malcolm McLaren, get £40,000 in compensation. A convicted murderer, Gary Gilmore, is executed by firing squad on 17th January in the Utah state prison, Salt Lake City. On 20th January Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as the 39th President of the USA. The next day he grants a pardon to all those who had evaded conscription during the Vietnam war. On 29th January seven IRA bombs explode in the West End of London.
Feb	The Pompidou Centre opens in Paris on 2nd February. An IRA "bomb factory" is discovered in Liverpool on 4th February. On 10th February the IRA gunmen involved in the Balcombe Street siege are given life sentences for murder. Dr. David Owen is appointed UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 21st February. Keith Richards is arrested in Toronto on 27th February for possession of heroin and cocaine.
Mar	Romania is hit by a huge earthquake. A threat of industrial action by outside broadcast cameramen leads the BBC to abandon its plans to stage the Eurovision Song Contest at Wembley. On 11th March the film director Roman Polanski is charged with raping a 13-year-old girl at the home of Hollywood actor Jack Nicholson. On 23rd March the UK government survives a vote of "no confidence" in the House of Commons by 322 votes to 298. 538 people are killed on Sunday, 27th March when two jumbo jets collide on the runway at Los Rodeos airport in Tenerife.
Apr	Annie opens on Broadway on 21st April. Oil from the Ekofisk Bravo drilling platform escapes into the North Sea on 22nd April when an incorrectly fitted safety valve fails. A team of experts flown in from Texas stops the flood of oil at their fifth attempt. Studio 54, New York's famed disco, opens on 26th April. On 27th April maintenance engineers at Heathrow airport return to work after a 24 day unofficial strike. The strike had forced British Airways to cancel domestic and European flights and cost the company an estimated £15 million.
May	Following criticism from the Price Commission the Post Office gives its customers a £7 rebate. Joan Crawford dies in New York City on 10th May, aged 69. Peter Jay, the son-in-law of the British Prime Minister James Callaghan, is appointed as the UK's ambassador to the USA on 11th May. The Likud party led by Menachem Begin wins the Israeli general elections on 17th May. The Orient Express arrives in Istanbul for the last time on 22nd May. On 23rd May South Moluccan terrorists take passengers hostage aboard a Dutch train and seize 6 teachers and 105 pupils at a school in northern Holland. On 26th May US toy designer George Willig climbs the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. He is fined $1.10 - one cent for each of the building's 110 stories.
Jun	The Italian film director Roberto Rosselini dies on 3rd June, aged 71. Five British plane-spotters, who had been arrested in Greece in March and given 10-month prison sentences for spying, are released on 4th June after 10 weeks in jail. They are allowed to exchange the balance of their jail terms for fines. God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols enters the UK singles chart on 4th June, just in time for the celebrations to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. On 6th June the Queen lights a bonfire at Windsor Great Park, the first in a chain of 100 bonfires across the UK. On 7th June she attends a Jubilee Day ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral. More than a million people line the streets of London to watch the Royal procession pass by. On Wednesday, 15th June democratic elections are held in Spain for the first time in 41 years. Elton John becomes the Chairman of Watford Football Club on 28th June.
Jul	In Pakistan President Zalfikar Ali Bhutto is deposed in a military coup on 5th July. On 11th July, following the publication of a contentious poem about Christ, Gay News and its editor Denis Lemon are found guilty of blasphemous libel. New York is blacked out on 13th July when lightning hits a power transformer. There is widespread looting and vandalism. With wages and inflation still rising the UK government abandons the 'social contract' with the TUC.
Aug	The President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, dies on 3rd August, aged 63. The Queen makes her first official visit to Northern Ireland since 1966. More than 200 protesters are arrested in south-east London on Saturday, 13th August after demonstrations against a National Front march through Lewisham. On Tuesday, 16th August Elvis Presley is found unconscious on the bathroom floor of his Graceland home. He is rushed to hospital but is pronounced dead on arrival. His last words, as reported by his girlfriend Ginger Alden, were: "I'm going to the can, Ginger." On 18th August an estimated 100,000 fans line the streets of Memphis to watch his funeral cortège pass by. Groucho Marx dies on 19th August, aged 86. The Notting Hill Carnival is marred by muggings, looting and violence.
Sep	The President of the West German Employers' Federation, Dr. Hanns-Martin Schleyer, is kidnapped on 5th September by terrorists demanding the release of 11 Baader-Meinhof prisoners. Dr. Schleyer's body is found in the boot of a car six weeks later. In France the guillotine is used to carry out a death sentence for the last time when Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder, is executed on Saturday, 10th September In South Africa, on 12th September, the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko is killed while in police custody. On Friday, 16th September Marc Bolan is killed in a car crash in Barnes, south west London. Maria Callas dies of a heart attack on the same day, aged 53. On Tuesday, 20th September Vietnam is admitted as the 149th member of the United Nations. Film director Roman Polanski is given a three-month jail sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Freddie Laker's Skytrain flies from London Gatwick to New York for the first time on 26th September, offering cut-price "no frills" flights across the Atlantic.
Oct	Labour MP Reg Prentice defects to the Conservatives. On 10th October the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the founders of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams. Amnesty International is awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize. Bing Crosby (in his own words: "an average guy who could carry a tune") dies in Spain on 14th October. He had recorded his last TV appearance the month before, performing Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie. By a macabre coincidence Bowie had also duetted with Marc Bolan the week before Bolan's death. Hijackers demanding the release of Baader-Meinhof prisoners take over a Lufthansa flight from Majorca to Frankfurt. Following the murder of the pilot, West German commandos storm the plane in Mogadishu, killing three of the four hijackers. On the same day (18th October) three Baader-Meinhof terrorists commit suicide in Stammheim prison, Stuttgart.
Nov	On 7th November 8,000 people take part in a mass picket of the Grunwick film processing plant in north London. UK firefighters begin their first-ever national strike on 14th November. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt visits Israel and on 20th November becomes the first Arab leader to address the Knesset. In London the High Court rules that cricketers who have signed up for Kerry Packer's so-called "cricket circus" can not be banned from international cricket.
Dec	Following the execution of two convicted murderers in Bermuda on 2nd December, British troops arrive on the island to help maintain order. On the same day, at the end of a three-week inquest into the death in custody of Steve Biko, Pretoria's chief magistrate rules that the police were not to blame for his "extensive brain injuries". Bophuthatswana, one of ten black 'homelands' created in apartheid South Africa, is granted independence on Tuesday, 6th December. The Queen opens the £71m extension of the Piccadilly Line tube from Hatton Cross to Heathrow airport on Friday, 16th December. Thousands of "boat people" flee from the Communist take-over in South Vietnam. On 23rd December Cat Stevens formally changes his name to Yusuf Islam. Charlie Chaplin dies at his home in Switzerland on Christmas Day, aged 88.

Song For Europe

Incidentally ...

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