Radio Times 1967 cover star Linda Lawrence remembers iconic photoshoot
Radio Times put out a call late last year in an effort to identify the cover model.
When Radio 1 hit the airwaves in September 1967, it was Tony Blackburn whose voice was first heard on the 'swinging new radio service'. It was also Tony who was seen on the TV news coverage of the day with Controller Robin Scott looking on. Readers of Radio Times, however, were presented with something different: a young woman dancing to the music coming from her transistor radio. The use of a model rather than a broadcasting personality was quite a departure for Radio Times but the cover image so epitomised the archetypal Radio 1 listener that a cartoon of what seemed to be the same girl regularly appeared next to the Radio 1 listings.
The cover was the first edition of RT to be regularly printed in colour and, as time went on, the 'Dolly Bird' came to represent more than the start of Radio 1; she was the embodiment of a new pop era at the BBC. And so when we came to select our ten covers from key moments in history, this had to be one of them. But who was this uncredited model? Our recent appeal was answered by reader Glenn Reuben who recognised her as Linda Lawrence, a member of the then recently formed song and dance group The Young Generation.
We wasted no time in tracking Linda down to see what she remembered. "I just went for an audition and they told me I'd got it. Then they said – the BBC being cheapskates – can you provide shoes in orange? So I just chose a pair of my shoes and dyed them with Lady Esquire." It was a good match for the Radio 1 logo printed on her dress, which was made from paper. "It was massive at the back with great Bulldog clips attached and, to make it stand out, they had a fishing line pulling on it from the side."
The morning’s photo shoot over, Linda was then asked to star in a short promotional film for Radio 1. "I had to be in bed and then Tony Blackburn’s programme started on the radio and I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs and got into a car (my Morris 1100), and drove off. It was like a little commercial for the radio station. I've never seen it and I don't even know if it was aired." We checked the BBC archives and found there was a specially shot Radio 1 trail screened on BBC One before Juke Box Jury, three days before Radio 1 went to air, but the film itself doesn’t survive.
For Linda this was just one of those occasional extra jobs she did between performing with the Young Generation, the BBC’s song and dance troupe which appeared in many music shows between 1967 and 1977. They appeared with many of the leading artists of the day, so what did Linda remember of them? "As the dancing group we just got on with our work and were told not to talk to them or befriend them unless they spoke to us. But it was interesting to watch them and, if they came into rehearsal, it was great to say that I'd seen Tom Jones, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davies or The Osmonds, but we never socialised with them."
Later, she went to London Weekend as one of The Second Generation appearing in 2 G’s and the Pop People and then performed in 'Shades', a vocal group which appeared on the Mike Yarwood Show. "This was the last thing I did before getting married and having a baby. We had some great times making those shows. I often think back to those days and all my dancing friends with great affection," Linda told us from her home in Spain.
In all the years that we didn’t know the identity of our cover star she was simply the 'Radio 1 Dolly Bird'. It’s a term that would seem sexist today but "that was fine at the time", Linda conceded. And when that Radio 1 launch issue hit the newsstands, did anyone recognise her? "Much, much later when people saw the cover they would say, oh my God, that's you, but it didn't make me famous at the time! All the excitement was for Tony Blackburn. No adulation, I was just the girl on the cover – that was it!"
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