Hovis: backing cycling since 1900
As mentioned previously, Hovis has ponied up £1.5m to sponsor the London Freewheel ride. In the 1990s the bread brand supported the National Byway with £500,000. But the support goes back further…
In 1900 Hovis produced a cycling map series at a scale of 5 miles to 1 inch. The maps were published by G Philip and Son, for the Hovis Bread Flour Co, Macclesfield, Cheshire, and the co-sponsor was the Cycling Components Mfring Co, Birmingham. This series continued for 25+ years.
In 1973, Hovis returned to its roots with what became one of the all-time classic TV adverts, a delivery boy freewheeling down a cobbled northern hill.
In fact, the ad was shot on Gold Hill of Shaftesbury, Dorset. The director was (Sir) Ridley Scott. He later went on to direct Bladerunner, Alien, Thelma & Louise, and Gladiator.
However, the Geordie director’s first film was ‘Boy and Bicycle’ (1965), starring Scott’s father and Tony Scott, his brother. This was shot on a budget of £65 using a 16mm cine-camera, borrowed from the Royal College of Art in London, where Scott was a student.
The film follows a boy as he decides to play truant and visits various locations around a northern seaside town on his bicycle. The film was on YoueTube last year but has been taken down for copyright reasons. It can be found on the DVD of Scott’s first commercial movie, The Duellists.
Scott’s bike advert was once voted the favourite UK telly advertisement of all time.
The original boy on the bike, Carl Barlow, then 13, is now a 48-year-old fireman.
He said: “It was pure fate that I got the part as the Hovis boy. I was down to the last three, and it turned out that one of the two boys couldn’t ride a bike, and the other wouldn’t cut his hair into the pudding bowl style - it was the Seventies after all. As the only boy who could ride a bike and would cut his hair, I got the part.”
The ad is also famous for its soundtrack. In Britain at least, Dvorak’s ‘New World’ symphony - rearranged for brass - says ‘Hovis’ and ‘good, old, plain Northern values.’
Like many classic adverts of the 1970s, the Hovis ‘Bike’ advert was produced by iconic advertising agency Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners.