1972 - Donny Osmond: "Help Me, Help Me Please!"

"Someone help me, help me, please!" was the impassioned plea from Donny Osmond in his teenybopper hit Puppy Love. And that just about summed up my feelings whenever I heard it. The worst times were rainy Sunday afternoons, when I sat in my older cousin Sue's bedroom and was forced to listen to this drivel, which she played on her Mum's '60s box record player. Over and over again.

We were two grotty early '70s primary school kids, but Sue had been bitten by the pop bug early. And, as we spent lots of time together (my mum was always visiting her sister, Sue's mum, and dragged me along) I suffered a lot.

In those days, there were two camps amongst pop-obsessed schoolgirls: either you liked Donny Osmond, or you liked David Cassidy - not both. Kids enjoyed (and still do enjoy) being in opposing camps - it's all part of human nature.

And whenever Donny and his brothers appeared in public, it was like '60s Beatlemania all over again - with hordes of screeching girlies turning out to... er... screech and faint and things.

From the Daily Mirror, November 14, 1972:

The Osmonds bowed out of Britain yesterday with the screams of 500 frenzied fans ringing in their ears.

It was a remarkable farewell for the pop world's newest heart-throbs.

For many of the young girls lining the roof of the Queen's Building at London Heathrow Airport should really have been at school.

The truants began arriving before dawn, and when The Osmonds waved goodbye the screams of the girls drowned the noise of revving aircraft engines.

The Osmonds, whose ages range from nine to twenty-three, signed autographs. And the fans waved banners proclaiming: "Come back soon, we love you."

Fourteen-year-old Donny Osmond, currently the family's star turn, stared at the crowd and said: "It's fantastic! The British fans are wonderful."

The girls clearly felt the same way about their idols.

One eleven-year-old admitted: "I'm really meant to be at school today. But I'm only missing history and maths - and they aren't nearly as good as The Osmonds."

Another, from Hertfordshire, said: "My parents think I'm at school. I arrived at the airport very early to get a good place. It has been well worth it."

So there you have it. Yuck I said, Yuck I still say. Mind you, there were worse Osmonds than Donny. Remember little Jimmy being a Long Haired Lover From Liverpool?

Useless information: did you know that Donny's Puppy Love was a cover version of a 1960s Paul Anka song?