A Top Of The Pops emergency

[Excerpt from Be Stiff: The Stiff Records Story]

Ian Dury & The Blockheads made a number of appearances on Top Of The Pops to perform their surprise hit, opting for a different look each time. For one, Dury and the drummer sported matching donkey jackets. Except it wasn’t Charley Charles behind the kit – he’d gone missing.

“I don’t know where he was to this day – he just went missing,” says Sonnie Rae [Stiff plugger]. “Robin Nash, affectionately known as Knob Rash, was running Top Of The Pops in those days, and he was calling and calling and I got summonsed and asked, ‘Where is he?’ and I said, ‘Oh, just coming’. We dragged Spider [Fred Rowe, Ian’s minder] into make-up, blacked him up, stuck a wig on him and stuck him on the drum kit. But they forgot to do his hands, which was really funny!”