It’s time to say goodbye to our 1970s television set!
The tv was a hand-me-down in the 1990s from friends who were leaving Canada to work overseas. “It’s on its last legs,” they warned us. “It’ll conk out any moment.”
But it still works in 2015! No zapper to turn it on or off though. Someone has to get up and pull the knob.
I’ll admit it’s difficult to watch a hockey game on it but it’s an old friend and I have a very soft spot for it.
Probably because it reminds me of my first experiences of television.
My family didn’t have a television but our next door neighbors in the small English village where we lived invited us over once a week to watch “Dixon of Dock Green,” a series about a kindly London copper.
We kids would sit on the floor, backs against the sofa or parents’ legs, trying to keep quiet so we’d be invited back the following week.
The curtains were drawn closed. The lights were turned off, the tv on. We wriggled into more comfortable positions. Then right there in our neighbours’ living room, in glorious techi-black-and-white, was Constable Dixon, hand raised to his “bobby’s” helmet, greeting us: “Evening all.” Even now I can reproduce the exact tone of “Evening all”.
An hour later we’d call out our goodbyes and thank yous, stepping into the dark. My mother’s geese would wake up and rush towards us as we ran the ten or twelve paces to our own door, stretching their necks across the path and hissing at us.
One hour a week of tv! What a treat it was! Oh, the deliciousness of living someone else’s story!
Susi Lovell 
I enjoyed that story Susi. Our neighbors had a TV before us also. We used to go and watch a show on theirs, then go home. My dad finally bought one. I remember the first time I saw TV was at the home of an uncle of a friend of mine. There were few programs and a lot of test patterns in those days, but it was magical. When my dad bought one, I used to even watch the cooking shows. That black and white set lasted for years and never gave any trouble. In the late 70’s I talked my husband into a color TV so our children could see shows in color. We had that set for years. 🙂
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Think of all those things we did in the evenings before tv was on 24/7! Cards, board games, puzzles, word games, singing…
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Aw, it’s sad to see another old relic consigned to the dump. I still have one almost the same as yours, also given to me by a friend, but it’s in the cupboard, unused now. I keep it in case we want to watch old videotapes on the old video player, which has no modern usb connections.
It was such a treat in those days, wasn’t it, to tune in to those stories, those other lives. I never had the luxury of geese escorting me to my door afterwards though. . .
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This one couldn’t manage a VCR connection but the Shaw people managed to connect it to a tower! Before that we just had two channels!
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I stopped using mine as a TV when they switched over to digital. Haven’t watched TV at all since then.
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So that’s why you manage to be so productive with your writing!
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