The Debs’ Go Dancing In Lively Photographs From The Set Of Nineteen-Fifty-Eight Television Show The ‘Six-Five Special’

By Mark McConville

STUNNING RETRO pictures have offered a glimpse behind the scenes of top British TV show the Six-Five Special in 1958.

Incredible images show compere Jim Dale introducing the debs’ chaperone for the night Lady Donegal, debs and their escorts dancing during the show and Olga Loubcheny whose moves ‘made all the boys stare’.

Other striking shots show one woman looking adoringly at Calypso singer Philippe Fornando as she dances, the crowd arriving for the recording of the show and some of the debs and their escorts sitting out after the pace got too much.

The remarkable photographs were taken at the Six-Five Special television show in 1958.

According to the original caption, top British TV show the Six-Five Special invited the top people to the studio. Britain’s Debs clad in the latest fashions – sacks, chemises – went along and rocked and rocked and rocked.

The Six-Five Special was Britain’s most informal TV show in which the audience were as important as the artists. TV cameras tracked through the milling dancers pointedly catching them unaware.

Compere Jim Dale (Teenage Idol) introduced performers from all positions around the studio. The audience clustered as near to the singer as humanly possible.

As one cameraman said: “Organised chaos – but we screen a first rate show”. Producer Russell Turner (husband to Barbara Lyon of the famous Ben Lyon family) decided that the teenage fans of the skifflers and rock ‘n rollers had had their share of attendance and invited the Debs.