RUDDY LONNIE DONEGAN

In your feature (RC 348) about records ‘Banned By The Beeb’ you say that Lonnie Donegan’s version of The Battle Of New Orleans was allowed because he changed the words ‘bloody British’ to ‘Blooming British’. This not quite correct. The first pressing of Lonnie’s version was taken from a live performance which included the words ‘ruddy British’, but I recall that the BBC would not play it on Pick Of The Pops so Lonnie went into the old Southern TV studio in Southampton and recorded another word to dub over the offending word and, in this revised version, it went on to top the charts.

Just before he passed away I attended one of the shows in his last tour in 2002 and he insisted that the original word was ‘bloody’, but I had to remind him of the original word. Still, he kindly signed my copy of the original 45 which I recall was only on sale for seven days and I often wonder of the value of this record.

by Clive Page
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