Who's That Girl?
The Best of Ayshea
by Harry Dobermann 
The Best of Ayshea is a CD bringing together highlights from various records by Ayshea Brough. Ayshea was the host of "Lift Off", Granada TV's children's pop show of the early 1970's. As well as introducing the guests and bantering with glove puppets, Ayshea also performed various numbers one of which (Lesley Duncan's Love Song) is reproduced on the CD.
At the same time as "Lift-Off" was on the air, Ayshea also played a SHADO operative in the Century 21 TV show UFO. She was in at the start of the title sequence every week with that shot of her waving to George Sewell. She wasn't exactly the girl next door - more like one of those distracting student teachers who would drift into school on a cloud of perfume.
Ayshea has been in America for several years but recently returned to England. I came across her at a Memorabilia show where she was selling photo's and "The Best of Ayshea". I have to admit if I'd been that close to Ayshea when I was twelve I would probably have passed out, so some things are worth waiting for. The CD has a wide range of songs covering several years. If you watch nostalgia pop shows Ayshea can often be spotted next to Roy Wood on old Top of The Pops footage of Wizzard's See My Baby Jive. It appears that she was at one time engaged to Wood and he wrote one of the songs on the CD for her. 1973's "Farewell" is a characteristically loud and complex piece for which Roy Wood played all the instruments. Ayshea has the appropriate robust delivery to compliment the strings and oboes of outrageous fortune.
(The reproduction below is from a 1971 Look-In column promoting "Lift-Off")
By contrast, 1970's "Flowers Are Mine" is a gentle, seductive tie-dyed tune that starts off like the theme from "MASH" and develops into a cross between something from "HAIR" and "Britt Eckland"/Annie Ross' hotel room song from "The Wicker Man" (sorry, the Jilly Goolden method of music appreciation probably doesn't evoke the enchanting qualities of this song).
The CD includes some country songs, the upbeat "Another Without You Day" by Cook and Greenaway (who wrote "I'd Like to Teach The World To Sing" and The Searchers'"You've Got Your Troubles"), ambitious covers of 1970's hits from male singers like Day Dreamer, and Our Last Song Together, and a self-penned number, "The Best Years of My Life" from 1973, which is in the same vein as (although written before) "I Will Survive". I bought this CD thinking it would be a nostalgic catch-up, but I found it surprisingly addictive. You can buy a copy via Ayshea's website at www.ayshea.me.uk