Ready Steady Go - The Story

Filmed in Rediffusion's Studio 9 in Kingsway, London , the show went out live on Friday nights at 6pm and opened with the slogan "The Weekend Starts Here", and to the tune of the Sufaris hit Wipe Out, which was later replaced by Manfred Mann's 5-4-3-2-1. Although introduced by former Cambridge law graduate and Radio Luxembourg DJ Keith Fordyce, it was his co-host, Cathy McGowan, who became the real star of the programme. McGowan had been working in an office at the television company when she answered an advertisement for a 'typical teenager' to act as advisor to the show, and was rewarded by being pushed in front of the cameras without the benefit of any training or broadcasting experience. But her natural charm, enthusiasm, style and beauty made up for the occasional fluffed lines or missed cues, and she quickly became a role model for the female population as well as being nominated, unofficially, as Queen of the Mods. Whereas Top of the Pops (which started the following year on BBC), concerned itself with the top ten or twenty chart hits, RSG was not afraid of being the showcase for new talent, and consequently artists such as Eric Burdon and The Animals, The Kinks, Donovan, and The Pretty Things were given their television debuts, and US artists such as Sonny and Cher, The Four Tops, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Rufus Thomas and Marvin Gaye, were introduced to a British audience for the first time. Of course the popular artistes of the day featured heavily, The Beatles and Dusty Springfield being frequent visitors, and whilst most of the acts mimed to their own recordings, there were some memorable live performances from the likes of Georgie Fame, The Beach Boys and The Who.

Two other co-hosts fronted the show which also gave a weekly report on the latest fashions and trends. They were David Gell and Michael Aldred, and years before hitting the big time himself, shamed pop star Gary Glitter worked in the studio as a 'crowd controller'.

Cathy launched her own range of clothes and accessories as well as a record player and other items.

They started the show with '5-4-3-2-1' by Manfred Mann and played some pretty good music, the type we liked. It sounded as if they had got one of Guy's playlists! There were several live acts (miming their records) and videobox about fashion, clothes shops, interviews with singers & groups, and the hosts. They even interviewed some of the mods who were there, asking about clothes & favourite bands.

We managed to get some passes for the next week and told our friends to watch the show & look out for us. We made sure we got in front of the cameras a lot this time. Tony had slugged down 10 pills before he went, trying to make history by being the first person to appear on television blocked! There were some really flash looking people in the audience & more time was spent checking out the clothes people wore and how they danced, rather than paying attention to the music. We had a real laugh that night with our mates who had seen us on the show - Tony the centre of attention as always.

RSG's main 'rival', the BBC's Top Of The Pops, although outlasting RSG by 32 years, did not have the impact, credibility and energy that RSG manifested in its short 4-year run. With the coming of hippies and psychedelia, the beat and mod generation gave way to concept albums and beads, RSG became less relevant and Cathy 'retired' from TV, first marrying Hywel Bennett and, more recently, becoming partner to singer Michael Ball. These days she has established herself as a style guru to the stars.

In 1967 the show was finally cancelled, although with the coming of the Hippie Movement, Flower Power and Concept Albums the following year, it was perhaps a well-timed departure as it is doubtful that the RSG format would have had a place in this new era. McGowan withdrew from being in front of the cameras to become a fashion guru to the stars and the series itself was consigned to fond memory as a quintessential part of the swinging 60's. Then in 1983 it found a new audience, when a production company owned by former drummer Dave Clark released a compilation video Ready Steady Go Volume One which went to the top of the video sell-through charts, and was followed up by Volume Two in 1984. A Beatles compilation was also released from their many appearances on the show.
The show became a phenomenon almost overnight with all mods talking about it, a must see on a Friday night. 'The Weekend Starts Here' was it's slogan and for a while it was a great way to start the weekend with all our favourites appearing on it.

The Animals, The Blue Flames, The Who (doing 'I Can't Explain' - everyone went wild), as well as legendary soul and R&B acts like Marvin Gaye, Solomon Burke, Bo Diddley & others who were touring the UK at the time.

Everyone used to watch the programme to see what people were wearing and the hairstyles they had. Soon the Kingsway studio became too small for the show & it moved to Wembley studios where they could have a larger audience dancing (more like a club atmosphere). Often it would be recorded during the week & then aired on the Friday. We went to it once again at the new location & it was a great night out with all those people there.

Badges with the show's logo were given out and people used to wear them on their clothes at the weekend at the clubs, showing that they

had been part of it, real elitist that was. With prerecording, the program became more professional looking & some of the bands actually sang their songs instead of miming.

About this time the presenters on the show became more prominent and had more camera time than before. They were Cathy McGowan & Keith Fordyce, who both thought they were the coolest mods out there…especially Cathy. Don't know if she was the first person to say it, but she certainly made a point of calling everything 'super' & 'smashing', like a stupid Austin Powers doll. She thought she was a 'trend setter' in what she wore when really she had on last month's fashions or horrible designer stuff she hoped others would copy.

She also had her favourite artists & friends there when she could, like Sandie Shaw, who had several hits including a cover of 'Walk On By'.

I remember seeing Dionne Warwick there once, singing the original, far superior - the audience recognised this as such, cheering & applauding loud and long, much to Cathy's displeasure!

Still the programme continued to gain popularity, still playing good music, with good bands appearing. We saw more & more of the badges on peoples' clothes...especially on scooter boys' parkas.

A few weeks later Roger and I were watching one Friday when he turns to me and says 'I can't stand this silly cow anymore'.

That was it for me too.

We never wore the badges again. In fact we stopped admitting that we had ever been on the show (as did most of the people who had been there near the beginning). I remember Cathy & Keith gracing the 'Scene' with their presence one night and a bunch of mods started shouting 'fuck off Cathy' and 'go back to the Speakeasy or Samanthas' (or one of those other fancy little clubs for the Chelsea set). The same happened when she went to the 'Flamingo'.

'As the camera focuses on the parts in question, Keith Fordyce, a RSG host announces that the current fashion is still for hair worn long and over the collar, jackets without lapels, tight trousers and 'Cuban heeled' boots.

Then the Beatles start their song 'I Feel Fine' while all around a crowd of young mods dance, oblivious to the super group in their midst. The mods wear Levis, desert boots, cycling shirts and have their hair in the French 'crew-cut' style, scornfully indifferent to Keith and his ideas of what they should be wearing.'

'We were not going to let the establishment people tell us how we were going to dress thank you very much, we would make our own fashion statements.'

Ready Steady Go was a great show, and a great idea and was the one thing that all of us loved and watched religiously on a Friday evening.

It didn't take long for something that was THE 'in thing' to be a part of, to become a show we wanted nothing to do with. Too bad the establishment tried to make it how they thought it should to be instead of how we wanted it to be.

Ready Steady Go was almost certainly a role model for later shows such as The Tube and The Word , all of which have given the youth of the day a platform to express their views and their talents, but it was also in many ways much more than a mere youth oriented popular music programme and template for what was to follow.

Like much of the very best television output of its time, RSG was a mirror which not only reflected, but actively helped to shape the formative tastes of an entire generation, and stands today as a historic record of a long passed time of rapid social change and emerging new identity.