SO. Farewell to Top of the Pops. I knew you well. There is no doubt that good old TOTP provided the soundtrack for any amount of mis-spent youths and I would definitely include myself among their number.

I recall that New Year's Day, 1964, was unusually mild - very different to that snowbound day of 12 months earlier. I watched the new programme with interest and almost certainly judged it through the eyes of a Ready, Steady, Go fanatic.

More than 42 years later, the surviving stars of that ground-breaking event are nearly all old age pensioners. And to think that most parents hated them so!