Eurovision 1960: London

The Netherlands won in 1959 and did not want the contest back. It had hosted in 1958 and wasn’t prepared to pay for it twice in three years. So the 1960 contest went to the country that had come second: in October 1959 the BBC was confirmed as host.

The hall

The BBC put it in the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames, built for the Festival of Britain in 1951. More than 2,500 people were in the audience.

The show went out on a Tuesday night, 29 March, and ran for an hour and twenty minutes. Catherine Boyle, known to everyone as Katie, presented. It was the first of four contests she would host, which is still a record.

She opened the show and ran the voting. Between the songs, viewers heard their own country’s commentator instead — and the audience in the hall heard the British one, David Jacobs, over the speakers.

Thirteen

Luxembourg came back after its year away, and Norway entered for the first time. With the eleven from Cannes that made thirteen.

Luxembourg’s Camillo Felgen sang in Luxembourgish, the first time the language had been heard at the contest. Only two entries have used it since.

Belgium sent Fud Leclerc again. It was his third contest in five years.

A small change with a long life

The voting worked as before: ten jurors in each country, one vote each. But this year the juries were allowed to hear the songs in advance. The final rehearsal was recorded and played to them before the live show.

The running order was drawn the day before the contest, with the singers in the room.

The result

France won for the second time, drawing level with the Netherlands. “Tom Pillibi”, sung by Jacqueline Boyer, took 32 of the 130 votes.

There was a family story in it. Boyer’s father, Jacques Pills, had sung for Monaco the year before and finished last, with a single vote. Twelve months later his daughter won the whole thing.

The United Kingdom was second for the second year running, this time with Bryan Johnson. Monaco, last in 1959, came third. Luxembourg’s return ended at the bottom of the board with one vote.

Two things that stuck

The plan had been to repeat what Cannes did and have the top three all sing again. It was dropped; only the winner got an encore.

And the prize, a silver-gilt vase, was handed over by the previous year’s winner, Teddy Scholten. Nobody had done that before. It became the custom.