My Five Minutes of Fame

Or not as it happened. . .

1966 was a great year in my life. England won the World Cup, but I wasn’t overly impressed with that, I had no interest in football.  More significant to me was the release of a 45rpm record entitled ‘Push a Little Button’. I’m not sure how it came about but I suspect it was a result of my mother pushing my brother to do it.  My brother, Tony Hatch, is a talented musician and songwriter. By the early sixties, he already had a string of hit songs. The most famous of which was Downtown written for Petula Clark in 1964, which became a worldwide success and made my brother a household name — except in our house of course — to me he was just my annoying brother.

In an interview, Tony said, ‘the song [push a little button] was originally intended as a gentle warning against accepting too much automation and not knowing where it might lead us all.’ The lyrics talk about ‘pushing a button to make a motorcar and pushing a button to make some tea…’ and so it went on until the last line, which is, ‘One little man can push one little button and shwit…goes you and me.’

The recording experience was amazing. I loved the atmosphere in the PYE recording studios in London; microphones on stands, wires everywhere on the floor, speakers and a glass booth, behind which my brother sat twiddling all the knobs and switches when he wasn’t playing the piano. The jargon was just like in the movies, ‘Okay let’s take it from the top once more,’ or ‘let’s have a little more bass on that,’ and finally, ‘that’s a wrap, guys.’

It didn’t need too many takes to lay down the backing track and afterwards the voice was added, with me in a soundproof booth wearing headphones. I thought I was the business. So cool - recording artist - Ninette. I put my hands over the ear pads as I’d seen other artists do in films, I wasn’t sure why I did it, but it felt good.

            Before the release of the record, a publicity agent began promoting me and the song.  Photographs were taken, newspaper articles written and best of all, TV shows were approached. Because of my age, the record was being promoted to young people and I was given a slot on The Five O’Clock Club, a pop programme for young people with various artists performing such as Bert Weedon, a popular 60s guitar player.  What an honour to work alongside Pussycat Willum whose puppeteer was Muriel Young, on the show hosted by Wally Whyton. The other TV programme to give me and my song an appearance was Action a children’s magazine programme hosted by Pete Murray, a popular radio and TV presenter in the 1960s.

It took a long time to choose my clothing for the promotional stuff.  Up to that point in my life, most of my wardrobe had been handmade by my mother — especially my dance costumes as you can read in the previous post — but I didn’t think that she should be rustling up something for an aspiring star of the 60s. We went shopping in Oxford Street and chose a black shift dress with a white diamond shape on the front. It was a Mary Quant style, bought in a high street chain store. I wish I had a photograph of that dress. I can still remember it clearly.

My fame was short-lived; the record didn’t go anywhere. I had one fan letter, which came from a Garden Nursery in Buckinghamshire. They ran their own radio station and told me that my song was the most popular one played on their morning programme.

‘It takes all sorts,’ my mother said.

I did manage to taste a little bit of show business life. A car was sent to my school to pick me up and take me to the studios for the recording of one of the TV shows. I swept out of the classroom, ‘Bye everyone, see you on TV!’ Goodness knows what my friends and classmates thought. I must have been a pain in the backside. 

Interestingly, back in 1966, BBC Radio banned the song from their playlists and didn’t give it any airtime, saying it was a protest song.  Imagine my surprise when forty-four years later, I was watching television at my friend’s house in Devon and an advert came on. I heard myself singing, ‘Push a Little Button’, on the BBC TV licence advert!

‘That’s me!’ I said, ‘That’s me on the TV, my voice, my record from years ago!’ I fell about laughing and collapsed onto the sofa, amazed. Within seconds my mobile rang and it was my son Wills, ‘Hey mum, I’m in the fish and chip shop in Bristol, is that you on the telly?’

I just noticed a spelling error in the title — it’s written ‘Push a Litle Button’ Who was responsible for that I wonder? You can listen to it HERE

I actually prefer the B side of the Record ‘I Just Wonder Why’ Click HERE if you want to listen. Then let me know which you prefer…if you can be bothered 😊 I didn’t upload it to Youtube and whoever did, used one of my photographs - they must have stolen it from Facebook. Hmm. . . 🤔