TEASED FOR BEING THE TEST CARD GIRL

Most of us remember the Test Card Girl playing noughts and crosses with her toy clown, but few people know her name – Carole Hersee.

Test cards contained a set of patterns to enable TV receivers to be tuned to show the picture correctly. The arrival of colour TV required a new card to test signals and Carole’s father, George, was instrumental in creating what became Test Card F. He took snaps of Carole and her sister Gillian to show how adjustments could be made for flesh tones then a photoshoot was arranged. ‘I got irritable,’ Carole remembers, ‘because every time they wanted a photo I was eating a biscuit!’ Eightyear-old Carole’s test card first appeared on BBC2 in July 1967. Reflecting on the experience, she says, ‘I didn’t mind doing it but I was teased at school, which upset me.’ For a while, media interest became frustrating. ‘As a teenager it got annoying, with the papers wanting stories,’ she says. ‘There were banks of

TVs in shops with my picture all over them.’

The card (above), which was shown when the station shut down for the night, has been broadcast for over 70,000 hours giving Surreyborn Carole the honour of being the most-seen person on TV. ‘When we made it, nobody imagined it would have lasted for more than a few years,’ she says. Test Card F was phased out in the late 90s but a version (Test Card X, complete with Carole) was shown from 2009-2013 to help tune in HD TVs.

As an adult Carole (left), a mum of two, has had a successful career as a seamstress in theatre and film, with her creations used in Phantom Of The Opera and The Last Emperor.

Richard Webber