The Oldie

When Irish eyes weren’t smiling

When Gyles Brandreth honoured the splendid Leslie Caron for her Oldie of the Year Award at the Savoy, he remarked that the song Maurice Chevalier sang in the 1958 movie of Gigi might nowadays be cancelled. It begins, ‘Thank heaven for little girls/For little girls grow bigger every day…’

Actually, the song was banned – by Irish state radio, then called Radio Éireann. It was considered to be ‘suggestive’.

Radio Éireann (now RTE) also prohibited ‘I’d like to get, as well, took some time to be approved for broadcast.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Oldie

The Oldie3 min read
It's A Family Affair
Is there something you really miss? Not knowing where the light switch is in the middle of the night. And I miss the dog terribly. He’s very grumpy. He’s a cockapoo. If he were a person, he would be the Major in Fawlty Towers. Do you travel light? Ha
The Oldie3 min read
Tessa Castro
IN COMPETITION No 305 you were invited to write a poem called Dawn Chorus. I liked Charles Owen’s description of the cock or rooster as ‘Hot hacksaw-headed, braggart-breasted,/ Liveried in flame’. Wally Smith was right to call ‘A jay’s call like a bl
The Oldie5 min read
Sunny Times In Blue Land
In Murnau, a quaint market town 40 miles south of Munich, there is a pretty little house that changed the course of modern art. From 1909 to 1914, the Münter-Haus – now a fascinating museum – was the lively rendezvous of a group of Expressionist arti

Related Books & Audiobooks