Travelling down TV memory lane
COME on, don’t be shy — tell us about your favourite old television programmes.
Dad’s Army? Bonanza? Close to Home? All suggestions are welcome and I promise we won’t laugh at you or anything along those lines.
Unless you pick something like On The Buses or Teletubbies. Then all bets are off, sorry.
It was about 1971 in London when my grandparents bought their first colour television. I reckon it must have weighed several tons (before they became tonnes) — being made of several forests — and had these folding doors you pulled across the screen to give it some privacy when you were putting it to bed.
A couple of years later Mum and Dad succumbed to the colour fad, I think in time for the wedding of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. Mum was not happy when, on moving to New Zealand early in 1975, we went back to a blackandwhite telly for a while. And the thought of having to watch Coronation Street for almost five years before we caught up with where we were when we left England a month earlier was not that pleasing to her either.
Carol Shortt, of Mornington, emailed to share her early memories of the goggle box.
‘‘As a child, I lived in a councilowned, prefab threebedroomed home in Ribbleton, Preston, in Lancashire. We actually had a television, as Mum had started working for the Ministry of Works after my younger brother was born, so her income must have made us affluent!
‘‘In 1953, I remember running behind the couch to hide while watching The Quatermass Experiment. I must have been only 6 at the time and it was supposed to be an adult programme.
‘‘There have been many remakes of this show, which I’ve discovered via Google, but I can still remember that first one. It’s apparently had an influence on lots of science fiction TV series & movies, including
Alien.’’
Carol got married in 1969, the year regular colour broadcasts began in the United Kingdom.
‘‘We had one (a colour TV) from some time in 1970, but we emigrated to Nelson here in late 1973, selling all our contents to the people who bought our house.
‘‘Our first telly in New
Zealand was a colour one, which we bought around July 1974. But I remember watching the Christchurch Commonwealth Games on our neighbour’s blackandwhite set.’’
Frances of St Albans in Christchurch also has happy TVwatching memories from the West Coast.
‘‘We used to get dressed up to go and watch Meet the Wife at Aunty Lou’s in Greymouth. We could not understand the humour, but we enjoyed Aunty Lou’s rocking chair (outside in the garden) while Mum and Dad soaked up the terrible reception and Thora Hird.
‘‘The first person in our street in Blaketown who got a TV (a portable) brought it home from a holiday in Fiji. She would let us come over at tea time to watch
Casey Jones.
‘‘Those were very exciting occasions. The only reason anyone noticed I was half blind was I had to lie on the floor and squint at the set to see it. The neighbour’s son spotted it — hence I got glasses at age 8 or 9.’’
Thanks Frances and Carol for those memories. Keen to hear from more of you.
More on Mt Cargill
We can’t seem to leave this poor hill alone.
I’ve been told about a remarkably evocative event which has been held on the summit each year for about the past decade or so.
It’s the Easter dawn service for the combined churches of greater Northeast Valley, and usually draws about 80 people to watch the sun rise over Otago Peninsula in what are often rather ‘‘fresh’’ weather conditions.
The photo we’re featuring today looking down the harbour was first printed on page 3 in April 2015. The Sun Princess is making its way towards Port Chalmers.
The summit service that year was led by the Rev Margaret Garland of Opoho Presbyterian Church and the breakfast was hosted by the Sacred Heart Catholic parish.
Baldwin St rolling
No ideas out there as to what we can roll down Baldwin St in place of Jaffas?
One of my esteemed ODT colleagues — who shall remain nameless, but is one of this column’s biggest fans and who was so taken by my story of dropping a mandarin on Stuart St that he mentions it almost daily — has suggested that very same fruit for tumbling down our steepest street.
I wondered about rolling persimmons instead. I keep seeing these finelooking fruit in the supermarket and have no idea what you do with them. Though they may be a bit too heavy and unyielding to pass the health and safety test.
Flagstaff Young@Heart
Looking forward to meeting you all at your group this afternoon.
Get the kettle on!