A look back to the future
Viewers got excited about science and technology 55 years ago with the launch of Tomorrow’s World
IF YOU wanted to know about the new trends and cutting-edge inventions of the 1960s then Tomorrow’s World was the programme to watch.
The BBC science show, devised by Glyn Jones, began on July 7, 1965, with a look at topics ranging from kidney dialysis machines to the possibility of life on Mars.
The first programme was scheduled between a Welsh sitcom called Lil and the Miss Interflora/GPO beauty contest.
Six episodes were initially planned, but Tomorrow’s World proved so popular that it ended up running for nearly 40 years attracting up to 10 million viewers at its height.
It promised to present viewers with “gee-whiz technology” and later in the 60s highlighted laser eye surgery, home computer terminals, plastic grass and Nellie the school computer.
Former Second World War Spitfire pilot Raymond Baxter was the first face of Tomorrow’s World and other presenters over the years included Judith Hann, Maggie Philbin, Peter Snow, Anna Ford, Carol Vorderman, Kate Bellingham, Philippa Forrester and Kate Humble.
The programme introduced viewers to digital watches and pocket calculators in the 1970s, barcode readers, wearable tech and the compact disc in the 1980s and the robotic vacuum cleaner and clockwork radio in the 1990s.
Maggie Philbin remembers how Tomorrow’s World reported on a cordless experimental cutting-edge gadget called the mobile phone in the
1980s.
She said: “We could only talk on it for 30 minutes, and it cost about £3,000.
“No video, pics, GPS. I didn’t imagine not only that one day I would have one, but that everyone would have one!”
Tomorrow’s World ended in 2003 after 1,400 episodes and predicted
many innovations that we now take for granted.
Not everything caught on though. We’re not tucking into worm omelettes for protein, travelling to work on water bikes, buying foldaway cars or relying on robot secretaries in the office... yet.