Mal's Memories (From Penarth Times)

Mal's Memories

DO YOU remember your first television?

I think the first time I actually watched television was the Queen's Coronation in 1953 when I was almost ten years old. But it was still some time before we would have our own set at home.

One of our neighbours did have a television, though, and my most vivid recollection is that I was allowed to go to their house on a Saturday night to watch Quatermass.

This was a particularly scary science fiction serial featuring one Professor Quatermass. And it was a cult programme that would eventually be transferred to the big screen.

I am not sure my parents actually knew what I was watching, and I am sure today's youngsters would laugh themselves silly at the thought of us sitting in front of the tiny, black and white picture, almost afraid to look.

What I remember was coming out of the neighbours' house in the dark at the end of the programme and running home across the street as fast as I could before anything'got me'.

The point is that television was a real novelty, and even that grainy, monochrome picture seemed magical to us.

You have to remember that until then we only had the wireless, and if we wanted to see pictures too, it involved a trip to the cinema.

Televisions were full of valves which frequently gave up the ghost and there was nothing for it but to call in the repair man.

It sometimes seemed that the little square box in the corner of the room was out of action more than it actually worked!

How different now with colour, widescreen, surround sound and dozens of channels to choose from 24 hours a day, instead of the lone BBC channel that broadcast for just a few hours each evening.

* Malcolm Davies is a former editor of the Penarth Times. Mal's Memories are on the Penarth Times web site www.thisispenarth.co.uk