When you were a child , did you use a remote or did you have to get up to change channel?

[BeCraftyFatball]

Remote

Person sitting in the chair near the TV turned it over with their toe.

We didn't have a telly so I'd go to my grandparents who rented a black and white one.
There was no need for a remote control as only BBC1 was allowed.

We got a TV with a remote when I was about 8. Before then it had 6 physical buttons, channel 1-5 and the 6th was for whatever was plugged into the AV socket - usually my sega mega drive but sometimes the tape player.

This was in the late 90s. We were quite poor and the TV, console and VCR were hand-me-downs from wider friends and family.

When I first got married we lived with my husband's grandmother. She would only watch BBC1 too and she used to turn it off using her walking stick. Sometimes turning it off when we were watching it because "I don't want to watch that, I'm going to bed" - 9pm every night we looked at a blank screen until she went upstairs 😀

No remote, had to walk over to change one of the 3 channels, BBC1,BBC2 and ITV. TV's were very expensive and temperamental in the 70s and 80s. Everyone we knew rented from one of the numerous TV rental business on the high street,
A different world!

My parents were late to every trend.

No remote till late 80s. My dad would use a stick 🤣

I was brought up with a bulky black and white television. Colour hadn’t been invented let alone remote control!

I feel very old - no remote for a black and white telly. I remember our first colour TV being delivered. I was furious that nobody had told me we were getting one but they'd told my brother!

When I was a child, there were 2 channels. BBC and ITV. Occasionally, you had to get up and slap the top of the TV to get the sound to work. When BBC2 arrived, you had to get an engineer in to enable UHF.

The screen was so small, you had to sit close up to see it. So remote not needed.

I am 55 So born in 71. We got a remote sometime in the 80s and my DM called it ‘the box of tricks’ 😍

My dad used my sister and I as his remote control!!!

When I was a child, we had one channel and a B&W tv (rural Ireland). One of the biggest surprises of my childhood was finding out that Sesame Street’s Big Bird was yellow.

Likewise during family watching before being put to bed.
Born mid 60s.

Had to get up - remotes were invented when I was about 14, but they had a lead trailing from the tv to the handset. You were very posh if you had one. We didn’t. I’m 57.

I was about 11 when we got our first remote control TV. It wouldn't switch it on/off - only change the channel/volume and show Teletext.

Prior to that there were only 3 channels to choose from so not much scope for 'channel surfing' but channel 4 had just arrived when we got the remote TV

My parents picked me and little bro up from the grandparents saying they had a big surprise for us. We were convinced it would be a colour telly, but no, it was a new rug and very 70s leather swivel chair.

I bear that disappointment to this very day 😂

I remember not having a remote for ages. We also had a rental tv which I’m sure you had to put money in to get it to work.
I remember my grandparents getting a TV with remote control or dibber in the late 80’s and thinking they were so rich.
We didn’t get a remote controlled television until the early nineties.
Then when DH and I got out first house in 1998 we had his grandparents massive old television with no remote. It took ages to come on, the picture grew from a small square in the centre and when you turned it off it reduce back down to the tiny square then made an alarming banging sound!

I used to make my little sister sit in front of the TV and change the channels for me. She obliged, until one day it hit her that she was being taken for a fool and refused - I was incensed. Mid/late seventies - then we got a remote.

I remember being sent, by my dad, to buy a BBC2 aerial, which he put on the roof of our house. I was about 11 then, in 1965. We rented one from Radio Rentals and I remember going weekly to pay for it. I think we got colour television in 1967, but I don’t remember when we got a remote control one.

I was born in the 60s and our first tv was second hand (black and white of course). Not only did we get up to change the channel but the knob broke off so we used a pair of pliers to do it!

Had to get up and press the buttons no remote in our house . Gosh what a memory ! Things have moved on so much since I was a girl

Both. At home we had a remote, my dad insisted we always had the most up to date TV and video from Radio Rentals. 😆 My nan’s ( where we spent a lot of time) TV didn’t have a remote.

We had remotes. We also had a built-in fish tank between the stairs and the sitting room. All three of us kids had great fun when we realised the remotes were universal and worked through the fishtank.

We did eventually have to admit to what we'd been up to when my dad started threatening to phone Curry's about his broken TV.

Had to get up, as remote control wasn’t invented. When we changed TV it had just come out, so had one then.

Remote wasn’t infrared, it was ultrasonic and each button made a different pitched sound to control the TV.

And here’s it is, what a thing of beauty!! 🤣