1980's TV Memorabilia To Go Under The Hammer For Charity

Maggie Philbin's Swap Shop jacket and iconic Top of The Pops discs up for sale

On Tuesday March 3rd at Chiswick Auctions, two pieces of television memorabilia went under the hammer for charity.

Maggie Philbin donated her Swap Shop jacket and her friend, designer Marc Ortmans, who devised the 1981 opening titles of Top of The Pops with it's flying coloured singles, gave up two of the surviving discs.

The made £360 at the auction and Maggie's and jacket made £70.

The two friends, who both live in Chiswick, quite literally had their attics raided for "Cash in the Celebrity Attic" and the iconic items will bring back powerful memories for a generation who grew up in the eighties.

"Jonty, the expert valuer was a little uncertain about their value" Maggie told ChiswickW4.com. "I mean, on the surface, you've got an old jacket with my name on it and a couple of singles but I'm sure there are people out there, particularly people who appeared on TOTP, who might want to get their hands on them. The singles would look fabulous on someone's wall"

The famous opening sequence was shot by throwing the discs past a crane mounted film camera into a tank of dry ice so, when the film was reversed, the records appeared to fly out of the clouds past the camera.

Most of the records were badly damaged but Marc retrieved two - one is perfect and the other has a chipped corner, forensic evidence of the special effect filming techniques.

March 5, 2009