British and European visitors to the site are well aware of what the Eurovision song contest is, but I do get quite a few emails from other visitors from around the world asking "what's it all about", hence the page!

It was in 1955 inspired by the popular Italian San Remo Festival, that the idea for the ESC was born during a meeting in Monaco. The event was to be held for the first time the following year in Lugano, Switzerland; it was entitled "The Eurovision Grand Prix", it was a name thought up by a British journalist.

In 1956 seven countries entered the contest, each participant
was allowed to submit two songs in the language they wanted.
The only restriction was that the performance was limited to
3½ minutes. 
The winner was chosen by a jury consisting of two delegates
from each country who could award between 1 and 10 points.

In 1957 the whole ESC moved to West Germany,
the new hosting country, Then the rule that determines
that the winner's home country will be hosting the next
contest did not exist.
New rule: Everyone was allowed one song only! Also
the scoreboard that we are now used to, entered the scene!

In 1958 it was decided that the winning country would host
the next ESC from now on! some countries did make
exceptions once in a while.

In 1961 there are now, 16 counties competing
in the ESC.
 
In 1962 a new scoring system is introduced.
Now the winner can obtain a maximum of 60 points.

In 1963 two international stars take part
Nana Mouskouri for Luxembourg and Françoise Hardy
for Monaco but only reach the 7th and 5th places
respectively as Grethe and Jorgen Ingmann from Denmark win with "Dansevise".

In 1964 to keep everyone on their toes the voting system is changed again now each jury can only award 9 points. 

In 1966 it was decided that all contestants must sing their song in their own language!

In 1969 this would no longer be possible now: 4 out of the 16 countries shared the Grand Prix – France (Frida Boccara with "Un Jour, Un Enfant"), Netherlands (Lenny Kuhr with "De troubadour"), Spain (Salomé with "Vivo cantando") and UK (Lulu with "Boom bang a bang").

In 1970 the Netherlands is elected host country. In the end, though, Dana from Ireland can celebrate her victory with "All kinds of everything".

In 1971 Who would have thought it?! The voting system is amended yet again ... What came out of it was a new jury constitution and the award of 10 points per song. (I Always thought the voting in the 1970 contest was dodgy!!!) OK so I am a slightly biased!!!

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Now Of Course the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest

The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on March 7th 1970 and presented by Cliff Richard during his own TV show at the BBC.

Knock Knock (Who's There)" won the national selection and went on to come 2nd in the contest.

Location: RAI Congrescentrum, Amsterdam
Broadcaster: NOS
Hosts: Willy Dobbe
Participants: 12
Voting: Free Ten

The Eurovision Song Contest 1970 was the fifteenth and was held on March 21st 1970 in the Netherlands only 12 countries participated.

Norway, Sweden, Finland and Portugal boycotted the contest because they were not happy with the 4 winning countries the year before and the voting system that was used. This reduced the number of participating countries to twelve.

Since four countries had won the previous year, lots were drawn to decide which of the winning organizations would host the Grand Prix. The Netherlands won the draw and hosted the contest.

A change was made in the voting system to avoid possible ties. If two or more songs were awarded the same number of votes, the winning songs would be immediately performed again and all of the juries, except for those of the countries concerned, had to state by show of hands which song they preferred.

In the unlikely event of an ongoing tie where the voting could not decide between songs, then, and only then, would the Grand Prix be awarded jointly to both.

During the dress rehearsal the stage collapsed, but during the live broadcast everything was ok. Ireland won the Eurovision Song contest for the first time, partly because Belgium gave them 9 points out of 10

Each Country had 10 Jury Members who each decided the best song and each awarded 1 point.

OK, so as we have gathered "our Mary lost" Now, please umderstand, I was only 13 at the time, and I was GUTTED, totally devastated I went storming up to my bedroom and cried and cried.

Then I decided it was a fix, she couldnt possibly lose... How could she not win!!! Ireleand must have cheated!!! "Knock Knock who's there" was a brilliant song. so how didnt it get the most votes ...

Today I am older and I hope wiser, able to look, I would hope, far more logically at this situation

BUT NO, I STILL FEEL THE SAME WAY AS I DID WHEN I WAS 13, and SHE SHOULD HAVE WON!

Mary has been quite open about her dislike of 'Knock, Knock' and has stated in many interviews that she did have a favourite among the 6 original songs and would have preferred to sing that...

We will never know if that song would have won, but I quite liked Knock Knock, my dad loved it and used to sing it around the house all the time, (I have my suspicions that it was also just to annoy me, but that's another

I also had another reason for doing this page, a couple of years ago I had a wonderful surprise arrive in the post in the shape of a parcel sent to me from Mary.

It was the VERY dress worn by her in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest,
I will include pictures shortly that I have taken of the dress.

Pat Richmond