To that it's almost inconceivable now that telly used to go off-air every night

[fishdishwish]

Even though I grew up in an age before 24 hour TV (I'm 38), it seems like a million years ago!

oh gosh, fiddling with the tv top ariel to get the right picture, the big bulky tv set, the 2 Ronnies/Morecambe and Wise/generation Game browns and torquise and orange colours of the 70's tv, (when we got a colour tv in 1976)

and the days only ONE tv in the whole house and everyone sat to watch it. and watched kids tv together, Nationwide, the footy results on a Saturday with dad doing the pools thing (pre lottery tickets), mum with Coronation street in the days it was good,

actually having to physically get up to change channels, better programmes (less is more) on only 3 channels....

do miss those days sometimes.

HerRoyalNotness I have very watery eyes now. I spent half my childhood in NZ and watching that brought back so many memories. The definitely had GNK on earlier too, I have a feeling it was 8pm, but more likely 9 at the watershed.

I was in the UK when I was little and remember watching Pebble Mill at One with my Mum :)

Snapespotions It was me with P & the MC! I loved it too, I'd forgotten all about it until the other day the 9yo was wittering on about something and a magic carpet and it just came to me, we spent a good hour or so watching youtube clips of it - brilliant memories flooded back, I even remembered what happened next...

Ceefax was amazing. I used to be fascinated by holidays you could buy on there even though I was about 16 and was never going to buy one. There was a really blocky icon of a palm tree on top of the holidays page.

I remember staring at the test card girl for ages waiting for the bbc to restart.

I remember watching Torchy the Battery Boy on a tiny TV screen inside a casing the size of a washing machine [gimp}

I remember the test card - the girl with the blackboard and toy clown.

I remember they played Muzak over it to make it more entertaining.

Also - the National Anthem playing when the tv shut down.

I remember having only 3 channels and I had a little b&q tv with a dial that I had to twiddle to change channels - no remote!

I remember being amazed to hear that, in the USA, there were dozens of tv channels.

I also remember when VCRs came in.

Generation Game - LOVED IT!

Also, It's a knock out!

George & Mildred
Good Life
Dad's Army

I'm 26 and can remember the programmes going off overnight.

When I was little my dad was in the army posted overseas so we only had one channel which had an hour of children's programmes in the morning and just after school and a couple I hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It used to really annoy me that I couldn't phone in for live and kicking.

I loved coming over here for holidays and four channels.

Crown Court then Pebble Mill.

I can remember when there was only one channel, and there were gripping intervals between programmes featuring pottery wheels. Fixing a dicky TV back then was easy; the repair man removed the back, replaced the dead valve, refitted back - 30 seconds and that little six inch screen flickered back into life. Departs singing 'Here comes Muffin, Muffin the Mule'

Gah! Makes me feel old!

Never mind sorry, I actually am old! Well, oldish.

Did anyone else's family go for Betamax rather than VHS? Ours did

growingby the day I remember Torchy too! and Four Feather Falls..."Kya.....Kalamakooya Kala Kyam!" Haha,you had to be there!

Remember horizontal and vertical hold? What did they do?

We were early adopters of vcrs. We had a massive toploader with big clunky buttons that you had to push really hard. At least it was vhs though. My cousins had a Betamax.

We didn't have a TV at all until I was about seven. I know we didn't have one in 1953 because we didn't see the Coronation at home. I was taken out of school one day instead to go watch it at the cinema in colour on a big screen. Then father acquired an Ambassador from somewhere. Walnut cabinet shaped to fit in a corner and a twelve inch screen with a sort of purple tint. I remember me and my mother clutching each other on the sofa watching Quatermass and the Pit: I would have been nine at the time. Children's TV was dreadful. Pinky and Perky, Shirley Abicair and her stupid zither, Muffin the Mule, Andy Pandy - all in glorious black and white (or in our case purple and lilac.)

Have found Quatermass and the Pit on Youtube. Wonder how well it stands up?

Scirry, Beta was much better quality. TV videographers shot on Beta and then DigiBeta. No professional or keen amateur would be caught dead shooting on VHS. I was told (by a very old cameraman) that porn was ultimately responsible for VHS winning that contest. I'm not sure if it's true though.

Sorry, that should be Scurry. Damn my fat fingers.

4 words ...............Dave Allen At Large

DH is 64 and he remembers well the Beta vs VHS. He too says Beta was better.

The kids were astounded to find out we only had 4 channels as kids, we had to get up to change the channel as well as the fact we had no internet and the big stack of encyclopaedias on the study was how mummy looked things up for her homework!

Tardis we still have only one TV in our house -and it's a bulky CRT one!

Darkeyes we had a Betamax. and yes they WERE better than VHS, and less bulky!

YY DH says the sound and picture quality was loads better.

OOh my first uk tv memories were Torchy the Battery Boy , Twizzle and the Five O'clock club with aunty Muriel, but having spent some time in the USA as a very young child I was astonished there was no day time tv here in 1964!

The test card girl is Carol Hersee, I was at sixth form with her and she was very nice and told us stories about the test card shoot and being bribed with sweets.