This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
In this age of High Definition, odd TV ratios and social media, it is sometimes refreshing to go back to our Eurovision roots and remind ourselves what it looked like in the early days. Gents in dinner jackets. Ladies in their posh frocks. No dance routines. And an orchestra. So that’s what I’ve done today. Luxembourg used to host contests dontcha know. And countries sang in languages that weren’t English. Like this one from the Spelbrekers from 1962. The Spelbrekers were Theo Rekkers and and Huug Kok (snigger, snigger). Neither of them are longer with us, having died in 2012 and 2011 respectively. as you’ll see, they had the orchestra in the palms of their hands. Theo would have been 93 today.
