the sunday break Archives - ABC: Both sides of the camera

How to make a singing star

20221960 by Marie Donaldson

Marty Wilde was the first of a series of young stars created and moulded by Jack Good.

The Svengali of Rock is seen left encouraging the tousle-haired youth who had only just discarded the name of Reg Smith, but who soon learnt how to put across a beat number.

Presently the hairstyle becomes smother and the jacket is gold lamé; eventually Marty is an engagingly assured young man, joking below with fellow artist Billy Fury.

As a popular teenage singing star, Marty returned to ABC as a guest on The Sunday Break, around the time the jumping craze hit Britain

Another pioneer ABC programme was The Sunday Break, established three years ago under the guidance of adviser Penry Jones, which presents the Christian religion to young viewers on the ITV Network every Sunday in terms of their own way of life, and which now has the largest audience of any religious programme

Television’s first visit to an approved school was made by ABC cameras when Mr C. A. Joyce above invited The Sunday Break to his famous Cotswold School, where boys work on the farm in surroundings as close as possible to normal home conditions

Student nurses from the Wellgarth Nursery Training College visited The Sunday Break to talk about their work with children of all races

The Little Sisters of the Assumption at Langley are trained nurses who use scooters to go about their work of tending the sick over a wide area around Manchester. The Sunday Break cameras went with them on their rounds one day

Traditional religious symbol of Christmas for children has always been the crèche. Among the special programmes presented each Christmas by The Sunday Break was the re-creation in three dimensions of The Adoration of the Magi. The model was presented to Coventry Cathedral

Youth and music

20221960 by Marie Donaldson

▲Modern music has always been an integral part of The Sunday Break. The current season of the programme featured the Sunday Break Songsters, a choral group formed by ABC from teenagers in the Midlands.

Janice Willett is one of the young directors who have worked on this programme.

Bob Fuest designed the set and also the riverboat below.

▼ In Light Entertainment, the Summer 1960 season ended with Steamboat Shuffle, a light-hearted musical programme for young people, networked across the country from a specially constructed riverboat moored on the Thames beside ABC’s London studios at Teddington Lock.

The director was Ben Churchill, who was also the first director of The Sunday Break