When Eurovision was born....
As next weekend will see the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in all its glory, I thought that this week we could take a trip down memory lane and look at the very first Eurovision contest, not least because it was won by a song sung in French - albeit not by a singer representing France... Eurovision was the brainchild of a Swiss journalist and broadcaster, Marcel Bezon çon, who was also, from 1954, the director of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Noting the popularity of the annual San Remo Song Contest in Italy (first staged in 1951) , he hit upon the idea of a Europe-wide contest, with the various members of the EBU submitting songs for inclusion. Fittingly for a Swiss creation, the first contest in 1956 was held in Lugano, at the Teatro Kursaal, with seven countries participating: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Viewers who have grown up - and grown old - with the contest over the subsequent six or seven decad...