My, How things have changed – Part 1, TV

Sunday 6th November

I find it hard to remember what we did in the evenings before Television, although we did love the Wireless, especially on a Sunday evening when Grandma insisted on listening to ‘Sing something Simple’.  We were quite late getting our set, a Murphy – it must have been 1962 or there-about.  Of course, Aunt Maud had one for the Coronation, and though we missed that it was her central show-off item whenever we visited in the Fifties; she would shepherd us all in to her uncomfortable drawing room, draw the curtains and dim the lights, and get Uncle Herbert to plug it in and switch on.  Well, we waited and waited, and secretly I was sure it would never actually start, then slowly a white dot would appear in the middle of the screen, and then after about five minutes, it would pop open and a crazy zig-zag of black and white jagged images would appear, and a crackly fizzing sound.  Uncle Herbert would then go up to the set and start adjusting several small knobs on the back of the set, constantly asking if the picture had settled down.  Eventually it would be watchable, often with a heavy black and white shadow like an aura around the people talking.  Our own set was a bit more modern and would usually start after only a couple of minutes, in fact we learnt not to keep adjusting the vertical and horizontal hold buttons as it only made the picture worse, it usually cleared of its’ own accord sooner or later.  At first, Grandma would be the only person allowed to operate the set, but she soon inveigled me into being the one who had to jump up and increase the volume a bit, or just see what’s on the Commercial channel, (no remotes back then) there were of course only two channels to watch, though this hardly stopped us (well, Grandma mostly) becoming avid viewers.  I soon bored of the thing, and apart from a few American comedies like ‘I love Lucy’, ‘Green Acres’ and ‘The Beverley Hill-billies’, and our very own ‘Doctor Who’ with its’ wobbly sets and ‘Steptoe and Son’ I would watch the Six O’Clock news and a bit of Tonight and then go up to my room to read and listen to music.  My mother liked ‘Gardeners Club’; though Percy Thrower’s words of wisdom rarely translated themselves into action on my mother’s part.  She rarely sat with us and watched TV though, she always had something to sort out in her room or the kitchen.

I have been a sporadic Television watcher ever since, picking and choosing more as time goes on, ending up more often than not on BBC2 or BBC News, since I got my Freeview box.  Sometimes out of sheer boredom I flip through the available channels, and none are at all appealing, especially the shopping channels; I mean, who even watches this drivel, let alone buys anything, but I suppose people must or the channels wouldn’t exist.  Sometimes at friends who have Sky, we are taken through all the cookery and home makeover and travel channels, and even the God ones, and Asian channels, including three or four just on Weddings.  What a strange world we have available on our large flat screens, and who would have thought it when that huge wooden box full of valves was delivered in the early sixties.

Most strange of all though is TV on the computer.  Not only BBC i-player, but apparently you can ‘stream’ almost anything from anywhere in the world these days, and there are literally hundreds of digital radio stations available on the internet.  So, like that old nursery rhyme, “Rings on her fingers, and rings on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes.”  Though I doubt much is worth watching or listening to.