THE entertainment on BBC1, that last Sunday before Christmas Day of 1985, included Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom in Shadowlands, about the writer CS Lewis and Joy Gresham; a documentary about Bob Geldof visiting half-a-dozen drought-stricken countries in Africa to decide how to spend £50 million raised by Live Aid, the epic concert that had been staged that summer; a Barry Manilow Christmas concert; and an hour-long festive concert, The Spirit of Christmas, live from George Square in Glasgow.
Fulton Mackay – star of, amongst other things, Porridge, and Local Hero, and who is photographed here with leading nationalist Margo MacDonald – introduced a massed choir of 630, a 160-strong youth choir, and the Clydebank Citadel Band of the Salvation Army, plus what The Herald TV critic described as a “host of ubiquitous celebrities.” The Evening Times, previewing the concert, said there would also be a “mighty brass band and, on the famous tree, some truly magical presents.”
The Evening Times said that the city’s “political and commercial centre” would become a “living Christmas card” thanks to the show, with the Outside Broadcast television lights adding considerably to the 25,000 watts of the Square’s festive lights.
The programmes that Sunday on STV, incidentally, included the Arthur Montford-fronted Scotsport, a Surprise, Surprise Christmas special with Cilla Black, and a TV adaptation of the Elizabeth Bowen novel, The Death of the Heart.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here