“Congratulations”, sang Cliff Richard. And every time he did so a royalty cheque landed on Bill Martin’s desk. The song, which came second in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest, had emerged when Phil Coulter, Martin’s creative partner, wrote the famous first five notes and added the words “I think I love you”. The Govan-born Martin was unimpressed: “I said, ‘It’s bollocks. You don’t go up to someone and say, I think I love you’ ... So I suggested another five-syllable title, Con-gra-tu-la-tions,” he recalled in 2015. “It still makes us money every time it’s played.”
The previous year Martin had enjoyed Eurovision success, the first British entry to do so, with Puppet on a String sung by a barefoot Sandie Shaw. The songs kept on