20 Oct 2026
There was a lot of love all over the place in 1977. Not just in Donna Summer’s no.1 hit I Feel Love, but thanks to the Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. To the delight of workers and school children alike, Tuesday June 7 was an extra bank holiday.
In St Albans, and all over the country, colourful bunting hung from lamp post to lamp post, roads were closed and the usual lines of parked Ford Escorts and Cortinas were banished for the day. Instead, tables groaned under the weight of meat and fishpaste sandwiches, jellies, cakes and fizz. Street parties were in full swing. There were bonfires, parades and pageants. Children created special Jubilee party hats. It was time to celebrate.
The Herts Advertiser offered prizes for the best Silver Jubilee street decorations, awarding plaques to Cambridge Road and Dickens Close. Whether these plaques still exist remains unknown.
Joy had been in short supply. It had been a difficult few years despite the thriving music and fashion scene. But good things had also been happening. The Queen made a Jubilee visit to Wimbledon (the only visit of her reign) and was there to present the trophy to a British winner, Virginia Wade.
We watched awestruck as Concorde roared into the skies on its first commercial flight. And in St Albans the council introduced a lottery, launched by the Mayor who sold tickets in St Peter’s Steet. Lucky residents were able to win up to £1,000. Given that the average weekly wage barely reached £70, a win would have made quite a difference for many.
On a more frivolous note, Aardman Animations introduced Morph – their first character – on the BBC and the Post-it Note entered our lives. During the winter of 1977, cinema audiences could lose themselves in the all-encompassing universe of Star Wars.
In the music world, Punk received an injection of energy with the arrival of the Clash. On the radio Hotel California by the Eagles, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac and ABBA’s Knowing Me, Knowing You were played repeatedly. And don’t forget that other successful band of the time, Steeleye Span, with St Albans girl Maddy Prior as vocalist.
But on the dance floors of St Albans and elsewhere, disco fever had hit. As well as Donna Summer, there was Boogie Nights and of course, the Bee Gees. Their album Saturday Night Fever was released in Britain several months before the film hit the cinemas.
It wasn’t just the music, disco also dominated fashion. Who can forget John Travolta’s white suit with its flares and sharp lapels. Women shimmered under the disco ball in slinky, curve-hugging jersey halter-necks, hot pants and metallic lurex. Colourful platform shoes and long feathery hairstyles completed the look.
But women couldn’t spend their whole time dressed for the dancefloor. Disco fashion was unsuitable for work, but women’s increasing freedoms began to be reflected in the acceptance of trouser suits as office wear.
1977 was also a significant year for St Albans. As well as the Silver Jubilee, it was also the year of FestAlban77. The centenaries of both the Diocese of St Albans and the elevation of the town to city status, plus the 900th anniversary of the building of the Abbey Church, were all celebrated at the Cathedral.
Festivities included bell-pealing, morris dancing, folk singing and the St Albans Carnival, managed by the Round Table and so popular that it become an annual event. The Cathedral commissioned a special choral piece I Love All Beauteous Things from the renowned composer Herbert Howells. The FestAlban year of celebration came to a grand conclusion with a thanksgiving service attended by the Queen Mother.
In a year celebrating St Albans’ history, the mood was marred when the Roman bronze statue known as the Verulamium Venus was stolen from the museum for the second time, despite the installation of alarms since the previous theft ten years before. Finding it seemed hopeless until, nine months later, ‘Mr Smith’ phoned the Director of Verulamium Museum to say the statue would be left under a hedge at a Hatfield hotel. Clearly Venus had proved too hot to handle.
Controversy reigned in St Albans when the latest proposal for the Chequer Street development was unveiled. Ever since the 1960s there had been one scheme after another to build a shopping centre on the site formerly occupied by the Adey and White’s brewery and Chequers cinema. Opposition came from local traders, the Civic Society, and even from the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman. This chapter in the saga was abandoned in 1979, but that was not the end of it. The ‘Chequer Street Affair’ had not yet run its course.
Putting the controversy aside, in 1979 fun came to St Albans with the arrival of the British heat of Jeux Sans Frontières. This TV staple of the 70s pitted teams from towns across Europe in a series of silly games, usually dressed in bizarre costumes. Despite the support of the crowds and enthusiastic cheerleaders who gathered at Westminster Lodge, the St Albans team could only manage 4th place, soundly beaten by the French. Maybe not our finest hour.
History in colour; www.stalbanstourguides.co.uk.
