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Stuart0742

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Are you answering your own original question there Stuart? Surely not????

Are you answering your own original question there Stuart? Surely not????

Yes it looks like he is, - but he has exagerated and bent the truth a bit.

In 1972 when the Osmonds first made it big in Britain me and Stuart were 2 teenage lads.

What do teenage lads like? - teenage girls

And what did teenage girls like? - the Osmonds

Now to me, using those 2 well known principles of "cutting out the middle man" and "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" I worked out that if I liked the Osmonds than I would have a better chance with teenage girls.

It worked!

In the early 70's I had a few girlfriends when Stuart didn't get a look in :P

He should have followed my lead instead of trying to ridicule me.

However, moving on 34 years.

I am now married and my wife, being of a similar age, is an old Osmonds fan coming up to her 50th birthday

One of our daughters bought her 2 tickets to see Donny Osmond at Sheffield Arena so we both went

What a night, thousands of screaming women and the only 2 men I could see in the arena were me and Donny. :rolleyes:

Older and not a "teenbop" idol anymore I was impressed with his performance.

However, it was just Donny and his own backing group, NOT the Osmonds.

2 years later on and we go to a "1970's music on tour" show. I think it was at the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield but I could be wrong.

The artist in the show were the whole of Showaddywaddy, David Essex, David Cassidy and Jimmy Osmond.

Jimmy Osmond had now lost his "Little Jimmy" tag and hated singing "Long Haired Lover From Liverpool", although the again almost entirely female audience insisted that he did. He preferred to sing other types of song covering quite a wide variety of styles. Again I was impressed with his performance. It was just Jimmy, and NOT the Osmonds.

During this show Jimmy announced that next year he would be touring Britain again with his entire family who very rarely appear together these days.

So we decided that we would go Sheffield arena to see the Osmonds.

I have to admit they were great.

All the singing Osmond brothers were there, Alan, Wayne, Jay, Merryll, Donny and Jimmy as well as their singing sister Marie.

They performed all their old hits, some from the intervening years and some recent ones as some of them, Donny and marie in particular still record new stuff to the present day. They also performed some standards and classics, mainly from a country & western or rockabilly background (as you may expect for a group from the mid west USA) or by their favoured performers like Paul Anka (who wrote and performed Puppy Love) and Johnny Mathis (who did 12th of Never)

At this time the 2 elder singing Osmonds were quite clearly ill and this is why they rarely perform together as a full family group any more.

Alan is almost permenantly in a wheelchair and suffers from Multiple Sclerosis while Wayne is in remission from a brain tumor which he has been treated for.

Which brings us to Stuarts plug for their tour of Britain next year.

It has been advertised as the Osmonds "last ever tour of Britain" and given the health of Alan and Wayne, it could well be.

Which is why I would actually like to go and see them again as there may not be another chance to see them all together on this side of the Atlantic again.

However, I am sure that Donny, Jimmy and Marie will continue to perform individually and tour for quite a while yet.

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Both of these groups would rate amongst my favourites.

Given that I have seen so many "tribute acts" to musical heros now sadly departed it is likely that since the death of Freddie Garrity in 2006 I am now more likely to see Freddie and the Dreamers than I was before.

I have never seen the real Freddie and the Dreamers live.

I have seen The Scaffold live at Hull University Union when I was a student. This came about because Roger McGough, the well known Liverpudlian poet as well as member of the Scaffold, is a graduate of Hull University.

Dave,

You'll be interested to know in his new book "Headlong into Pennilessness- Lessons in Life from 1950's Sheffield" Michael Glover recalls that he had a next door neighbour in Coningby Road, Fir Vale , called Dennis Swift who was close friends with Freddie Garrity and he was introduced to him on a visit to Coningsby Road in the 1960s in his white Rolls Royce and observed him crossing the yard to use the outside lav!

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Dave,

You'll be interested to know in his new book "Headlong into Pennilessness- Lessons in Life from 1950's Sheffield" Michael Glover recalls that he had a next door neighbour in Coningby Road, Fir Vale , called Dennis Swift who was close friends with Freddie Garrity and he was introduced to him on a visit to Coningsby Road in the 1960s in his white Rolls Royce and observed him crossing the yard to use the outside lav!

I seem to remember in the 1960's Freddie came to Sheffield to open a supermarket at Darnall. I have mentioned it in another topic on here somewhere previously. I am not well up on Darnall but MrsH is a Darnall Lass and she will know more details about it.

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I seem to remember in the 1960's Freddie came to Sheffield to open a supermarket at Darnall. I have mentioned it in another topic on here somewhere previously. I am not well up on Darnall but MrsH is a Darnall Lass and she will know more details about it.

Tesco at Darnall, in 1967, Dave, and I have no reason to doubt you.

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Tesco at Darnall, in 1967, Dave, and I have no reason to doubt you.

Thanks madannie for that brilliant bit of link fairy work.

I knew I had posted it somewhere a long time ago but had no idea where.

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Thanks madannie for that brilliant bit of link fairy work.

I knew I had posted it somewhere a long time ago but had no idea where.

It might not have seemed logical to find it in a topic about Darnall cinema, although reading the topic made it clear what the connection was. Reading through lots of old topics recently helped as well.

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:rolleyes:

Hey, the present day, 21st century Jay Osmond has turned into a 1970's version of me. :o

So The Osmonds contains "One Bad Apple" after all. lol

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