I am a big TV watcher.  Always have been. 

When I was a little girl, “Mum, can I watch telly?” required more than a “yes” it required coins! 

Our TV was a coin operated one.  I don’t remember how much it cost, but my ‘research’ has other children from the 70’s remembering approximately 50 pence for 4 hours.

I do remember inserting the coins.  (We also did this for our electricity, in 10p increments – you try putting coins in a meter, in a cupboard, when it’s dark! *shudder*). 

Loved the day the meter man came to empty out the box.  I would hide some of the money and when times got a little tighter than normal, I’d surprise my mum with the stack of coins.  (Wait, did I steal that from the meter man or was that overage?  Oops).

I had started out wanting to post about English sweets (oh those penny sweets!), then got sucked into the toys of the 70’s I played with – that led to the comic books I read – then came the shows. 

We’ll do the shows first I think.  There are a lot!  Even though we only had 3 channels back then.

The Wombles. 

They lived on Wimbledon Common (yes, that Wimbledon).  These creatures were our introduction to ‘going green’.  They lived in burrows and cared about the environment, picked up litter and recylced. Very catchy song they had too.

Dr. Who.  Anyone my age has to argue that Tom Baker was the best. 

Yes, he was.

Then there was Playschool, Fingerbobs, Basil Brush, Top Cat the Magic Roundabout, Swap Shop, Roobarb & Custard, Magpie, Top of the Pops … SO many!  I want to insert pictures for all of them (and I have them, oh yes I do), but I couldn’t possibly leave out Rainbow and the hilarity that is the ‘innuendo’ scandal. 

In my innocence, I watched.  I loved Bungle, Zippy and George!

Then years later – this came out:

Shocking! LOL

I’ll share a little secret dream with you now as I sign off for now.  This was the picture we got before programming began (remember that?  When TV wasn’t an around the clock affair?)

I always wanted to be the little girl in this picture.