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My Mum kept a pile of "Disc" music papers, I guess they got thrown out once the house clearers got to work. I would like to have kept them, but there is only so much stuff we can keep. Anyway, that's not the point.

What is the point is that the papers dated from the end of the 50s and early 60s, in that odd period after Elvis joined the Army and the world discovered The Beatles.

Pictures each weeks showed the bright young hopefulls, wanting to be the next big thing. Also appearing beside the budding pop stars was a youthful Bruce Forsythe. Two of the budding stars was Paul Gadd and Shane Fenton.

Every few weeks the two would join the bills of various variety and music tours heading round he seaside theatres and Varieties all over the country. I don't think neither had hit singles under those names.

A decade or so later, and the two had changed their names to Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust. Even by standards of the times, these were odd pop stars.

Glitter is infamous for other things now, of course, and his records are not played, and old TOTPs don't show his turns. By the time found found him, he was in his 30s, going bald, but he learned some stagecraft and wrote some popular pop songs. So popular, the NFL still uses Rock and Roll Part 1 at their games, I suppose sending some cash Glitter's way with each play.

He wore silver suits which exposed his hairy chest, and latterly, a wig to cover up his baldness. He walked down a staircase at each show or TV appearance, as he heard a Hollywood star said it made an entrance.

It did that.

To the young Jelltex, pop stars dressed as your Christmas turkey wasn't unusual. They were all wearing such clothes, and after Marc Bplan wore glittery make up, many other Glam bands did too. And the silery and gold suits. At the time, this is what pop stars wore, when on TV and when they went to the corner shop for half a dozen eggs.

The Sweet, lead by Brian Connolly, wore silvery suits, make up and generally vamped it up. That they looked like was four builders who had been caught messing with their girlfriend's make up. They seemed to have a good time, wearing platform boots, and singing, on Blockbuster, that they didn't have a clue, what to do. I thought they were marvelous, my parents not so. But they were just camping it up. Unlike David Bowie, who when on TOTP singing Starman, hugged Mick Ronson in a way that outraged parents up and down the country.

Shane Fenton became Alvin Stardust, dressed in a leather catsuit and had a single leather glove, over which he wore an oversized ring. Writing about it now, it seem ludicrous. I mean, it was. And yet he was huge, singing songs like My Coo Cha Coo and advertising the Green Cross Code alongside Darth Vader.

True story, that.

Glam was huge.

But didn't last.

Thankfully.