'There's No-One Quite Like Grandma' Choir Reunites For Christmas Special

'There's No-One Quite Like Grandma' Choir Reunites For Christmas Special
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Hands up who remembers 'There's no-one quite like Grandma?'

Anyone over the age of 40 will recall with misty-eyed fondness that it was sung by pupils of St Winifred's School Choir – and it became a huge and unlikely Christmas number one in 1980.

Well, now the (cough) younger generation have the chance to see what all the fuss was about because the singers are getting back together for a Christmas special.

The young singers from Stockport, Greater Manchester, rose to fame in Christmas 1980 and performed on Top of the Pops.

They even knocked former Beatle John Lennon off number one spot with their irritating cutesy tune.

There's No-One Quite Like Grandma spent a week at number one having knocked Happy Christmas (War is Over) off the top spot, before being replaced by another Lennon tune, Imagine, after he died.

At their peak, the choir even performed with Abba, met Margaret Thatcher and sold more than one million copies of the song.

In 2009 the group reunited to create a reworked version of the song in aid of Age UK and other charities.

The singers – now in their 40s – are getting back together again for a nostalgic Channel 4 programme, Rewind its Christmas.

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Among the original members are Sally Lindsay, who starred in Coronation Street as barmaid Shelley Unwin, and actress Jennifer Hennessy.

The Christmas themed Channel 4 show will include a performance by glam-rockers Slade and The Darkness and an interview with Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan and the family of Kirsty MacColl about the inspiration behind The Fairytale Of New York.

Eileen Brown, who sang alongside her sister in the 1980 hit, recalled chatting with Benny from Abba as an 11-year-old.

She said: "It seems ridiculous now to think that we did things like that.'"

Tara Daynes, another original choir member, said she was more excited at the prospect of staying in a hotel than she was about performing on Top of the Pops.

She said: "People forget that we were a gigging a choir before 'Grandma' so performing was the norm."

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