During my recent flying visit to London, I was struck by the selection of wildlife noises I heard in my Aunt's neighbourhood,
quite a different range to those I'm used to around these parts. Take the skulk of urban foxes, screaming up and down her
small back garden throughout the night and disturbing my slumber. In the two and a bit years we've lived out here in the
sticks, we've seen precisely one fox - and that was being shot (possibly illegally) by a farmer at the time. Then there were
fellow scavengers the magpies, by far most predominant birds I saw (and heard) during my stay and way more confident and
cheeky than their country cousins who live in my neck of the woods. Not quite as confident as the creature perching on this
young lady's head though! It's a c.1950 photo I picked up at a car-boot sale a few years ago in which the young lady in
question appears amusingly oblivious to the sharp-beaked creature pecking away at the top of her head.
From this funny little snapshot it's just a short, extremely tenuous, leap to the 1970s kids TV show Magpie, ITV's cool answer to Blue Peter, which was co-hosted by corkscrew haired Mick Robertson. Already looking the part, Robertson tried his hand at the pop game in 1974 and 1975, releasing three singles and an album through CBS Records. The results weren't the run-off-the-mill, embarrassing drivel you might have expected to emerge from a TV presenter apparently cashing-in on his notoriety, far from it. Singles one and two,'The Tango's Over' and 'Then I Change Hands', are distinctly quirky, quietly ambitious songs, produced by future Rah Band overlord Richard Hewson. I loved these oddities then and I love them still, but for some reason never did get around to buying the LP....until now, 39 years later - thanks to eBay. Single number three? A Clifford T Ward produced, non-album one-off, released at the tail-end of 1975, after which Mick Robertson shelved his musical ambitions to concentrate on his day job.
