Early TV Memories - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph shows a man reclining in a chair by a television set.  I have chosen to look back at my own early  television memories.  

 

1953 was the year television came to our house in the shape of a small 10 inch screen Bush set, so we could watch the Queen Elizabeth’s II  Coronation on June 2nd.   I was nine years old and had been busy making red, white and blue decorations at school, creating a Coronation Scrapbook, collecting my Coronation Mug  (presented to all children)  and playing with the doll my talented mother had made for me -  dressed as the Queen with a white satin dress and long velvet purple train, embroidered in gold thread.  

 

Sadly I kept neither the doll nor the scrapbook   - something I much later regretted, but I still have the official  programme and the mug. 

 

 

 

       

 

So On the day itself we woke up to the news on the radio that Mount Everest had been conquered by Sir Edmnd Hilary and Sherpa Tensing.    We watched the coronation procession and ceremony on our new  black and white TV - one of the first in the  street, with a full household of my grandad, aunt, uncle and neighbours crowding round the small 10 inch screen.  I wore  my yellow taffeta party dress,  with its puff sleeves and long sash,  in honour of the occasion.

A few weeks later we all trooped in a long crocodile from school to a local cinema to see a film of the conquering of Everest (some of the scenes of men crossing deep ravines frightened me), followed by a film  of the coronation, this time  in glorious technicolour. 

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In those days, there was only one television channel and broadcasts were generally just in the evening, introduced by the announcers in dinner jackets (Macdonald Hobley) and evening dress (Sylvia Peters and Mary Malcolm) - talking in  what seemed very pucka la-di-da accents to someone from the North of England. If we switched on too early we got the test card with the little girl with long hair in the centre.  The interludes were as much a delight - the potter's wheel, or horses ploughing a field. 

 

Children's TV seemed to centre on puppets - Muffin the Mule and Sooty (with the spin off toys as Christmas present). I must surely have been too old for Andy Pandy, and Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men, but perhaps saw them with my younger brother. The forerunner of family soaps The Grove Family and The Appleyards were also favourites; as were were Billy Bunter's Schooldays (I had a crush on Bob Cherry), George Lansdale from London Zoo on Looking at Animals, and Crackerjack, with its Double or Drop challenge. 

 

Saturday and Sunday were treats in that we had tea on the trolley around the television to watch such programmes as the Lone Ranger (Tonto and Hiya Silver!) and Circus Boy - my brother's favourites, and All Your Own presented by Huw Weldon and introducing talented youngsters.

 

Then there were the memorable BBC Sunday serials which we enjoyed so much as a family and which fostered my love of history, costume and reading the classics - Children of the New Forest, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickelby, Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Count of Monte Chrsto, Railway Children, Pride and Prejudice, Worzel Gummidge. Robin Hood, Emil and the Detectives, and The Silver Sword - which told the story of children caught up in Poland during the war - a time close enough to have meaning of what living during the war must have been like. 

 

When the new ITV channel first came on the scene, our old television could not receive it, so I missed out on the school gossip of the previous night's Emergency Ward Ten and Coronation Street, though once we got a new set, I later became fans along with the other soap Compact, set on a woman's magazine - I was an avid follower of that.

The BBC was the natural channel for current affairs and we always had the news on and special coverage to see Yuri Gargarin, the first man in space, the Amercan space launches, and ocean splash downs; major events such as royal weddings, funeral of Sir Winston Churchill,  assassination of John F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. By the time of the first man in the moon, we set the alarm to get up during the middle of the night to see the "first step", and then dashed into the garden to look up at the moon in the sky.

Two programmes my father absolutely refused to have on were the new satirical comedy show "That was the Week that Was" and irreverent comedy Till Death Us Part - the previews were enough for him to ban them. He always had to watch the current affairs programme Panorama - until they were showing a programme on maternity care when he suddenly decided this was not family viewing.

Pop Culture passed me by and I was never into it, though I remember 6.5 Special and Top of the Pops. Of course everything I saw was in black and white, and I did not see colour TV until 1970 which I think was when it reached Scotland. 

American programmes came into vogue:
Doctor Kildare - my favourite
Phil Silvers - my father's  favourite

Perry Como Show  
 Dick van Dyke Show
Jack Benny Show
George Burns and Gracie Allan
I love Lucy

But I was enough of a TV teenager to compile a scrapbook topour over, with cuttings of cast lists and photographs of my favourite actors and performers I had crushes on, 

 

 A hapapy family c. 1953

 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  

to share their family history and memories through photographs

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Click  HERE  to see  posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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Holiday Time in the 1950s - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph shows a happy family striding along, carrying suitcases  - heading for a holiday perhaps?  Cue for me to share my family, setting out in the car for our holiday in the 1950s.  

We lived outside Blackpool, the famous English north west seaside  resort, but for our summer holiday we travelled to Bournemouth on the  south coast, where a close friend of my mother (known as Auntie Phyllis)  had moved to open a hotel. 

It was a long journey, before the days of motorways, through industrial Lancashire.  My brother and I (below) hated crossing the swing bridges over the Manchester Ship Canal at Wigan and Warrington with visions of the bridges   swinging around whilst we were on them.  We would crouch down behind my parents' seats and hide our eyes.

With my brother , c.1948 

Another journey was crossing the  hills of the Pennines through the Peak District to visit my aunt and uncle in Sheffield, passing over the Snake Pass,  or in the Lake District going over the  Kirkston Pass - we must have seemed such wimps, but we hated the twisty roads and sudden drops below us, so it seemed safer not to look out,  until we reached  safer ground.

 

A family group with my auntie Fran  in the middle - with my Uncle Fred at the camera.  

This was  long before the days of electronic games , Walkman and I Pads - I don't think we even had a car radio. To pass the time, we did the usual car games of I Spy, I went to the seaside or the market , and bought A ...B..C ...etc.. ,and making up silly sentences from the registration numbers of cars MXD - Mummy kisses Daddy  and also making up silly songs.  My father was a commercial traveller (sales rep.) for the Beecham Pharmaceutical Group and one ditty we came up with was: (I still remember it!)

There was a hermit in the hills

Living off his Beecham Pills

He ate two in the morning

And two at night

To make him feel so merry and bright.

We usually stopped somewhere for a picnic, prepared by my mother.  One notable time, she excelled herself by making chicken pieces instead of the usual sandwiches and a fruit tart - and left them all behind at home  in the pantry!   We had to stop somewhere and find a cafe for lunch. My father got the blame here, as he was always chivvering us get a move on and get away, whilst m,y mother eas seeing to everything domestic.  We returned home a week later to discover the food covered in fur! 

Like all children, the excitement of going away quickly turned to boredom and the perennial question was voiced   "Are we nearly there?"

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Once there - we enjoyed ourselves! 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history through photographs.

 

 

Look HERE to see more contributions 

from Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

 

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A Grand Life in the Scottish HIghlands - Sepia Saturday

This week's  Sepia  Saturday prompt image is rather different from usual - it is of a bedroom with a four poster bed in a grand house.  Cue for me to look back at a wonderful   gift  we were given of a weekend break at Ardanaseig House Hotel, a 19th century manor house in the West Highlands of  Scotland on the banks of Loch Awe. 

 

 

This was our bedroom 

 

 

 

 Other grand rooms - 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 An atmospheric early morning view of Loch Awe

 

 

 

Getting to know the neighbors -  My husband meets Hamish and Dougal  - the "pets" at the hotel where we were staying ne

 

 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history through photographs.  

 

 

Look HERE to see more contibutions 

from Sepia Saturday bloggers.  

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Fun Times in the Snow - Sepia Saturday

This week;'Sepia Saturday prompt image shows a snowy scene  with  swings in an empty playground - the theme - playing in the snow.   I have no early childhood photographs in the snow - my family only seemed to bring the camera out  in summer, but here are other images of people enjoying themselves in snowy times. 

 Daughter playing  with our dog Casmir, out on the hioll behind our home in Hawick in the  Scottish Borders. 

  

Members of Earlston  Curling Club enjoying  a game outdoors on "real ice". Photograph courtesy of my local heritage group Auld Earlston.  

This is the oldest snow picture in my collection and brings back memories of my father.  This photograph was taken in the wartime winter of 1944 in Luxembourg.  Dad served in the RAF working in codes and cyphers and  at this time was attached to the US 12th Army Group commanded by  General Bradley.  Whilst stationed in Luxembourg, Dad became friendly with a local  family.   Here he is (on the left)  with Mr. Batten out for a walk with his little daughter.  I think he was able to enjoy a taste of family life amidst the realities of war. Dad remained in contact with the Batten family for many years.    I found   this photograph in Dad's album. 

More enjoyment on  Winter Walks 

 

Enjoying a winter walk with friends, 1966.   I am wearing my favourite fur hood, made,  fashionable after the film of Dr. 

 

With my daughter, 1975.

 

Husband also adding a splash of colour as we set out on a woodland winter walk near our home.  

Snow in Summer - this  was taken June 1997  as we stood on the Stubai Glacier  near Innsbruck , Austria - our favourite country for our summer holiday. 

But we can enjoy the beauty of snow.  When snow  first falls, it  can  be a wonderful magical experience transforming the landscape. 

 

 

Trees on the main A68 road which links the Scottish Borders with Edinburgh.

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 I spent a wonderful  year 1965-66  working in Cambridge, Massachussets near Boston and this photograph brings back memories of the kind of winter I had not experienced before -  here in a picturesque image through the trees of  Harvard Chapel.

 

12th century ruined Melrowse Abbey, 6 miles from my home.

 

 Trees on the old railway line through Earlston. 
 

The Leader Water at Earlston. 

And two images which  featured quite recently on my blog, but they fit the theme so well, I am repeating them here.

 

 

 

 Playing at snow angels - not my idea of fun! 

 

 
 

 2009 and my granddaughter exploring this new world of snow for the first time.

  

But spring and  summer fun were  not toofar ahead  - and she was soon back enjoying the swings.

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  

to share their family history and memories through photographs. 

 

Click HERE to find further snowy tales from Sepia Saturday bloggers.

A Nostalgic Look at Toys.

 A little lad in a toy pedal car is the prompt picture from this week's Sepia Saturday.  Cue for me to take a nostalgic look back at toys  in my life. 

  

My cousin's little son, learning to drive at an early age!  My brother had a very similar pedal car - but no photographs was ever taken.  

  

Not driving a car but a tractor.We live in a rural area and from an early  age, granddaughter loved seeing tractors out and about in our village.

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Funnily enough I cannot remember having any favourite soft toys, though presumably the one I am clutching in this studio photo must have been high on the list. 

Here I am, aged around two,  holdimg a soft ball, which I think is one my mother probably made.  She enjoyed making such balls from felt and embroidering the sections in contrasting colours with numbers, or motifs  for sale at village fetes etc.  Today the picture of my father smoking a cigarette close by me, would   no doubt,  be distinctly frowned upon!  

 I was a "dolly girl" -  I loved my dolls, which, as my mother was a dressmaker, were the smartest on the street.  With my best friend, Carol, we would wheel  our prams up and down  and put the dolls in their cot (an old box), with a crocheted blanket and lace trimmed pillow and quilt cover, again  courtesy of my mother, or set up the doll's tea set for a tea party.

My dolls were not particularly sophisticated, usually a rag doll that my mother made, though I had one that said "Mama" if you pressed it in the right place. My mother made rag dolls, but my very special doll she made me in 1953 for Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation, with a long fur trimmed purple velvet train, and embroidered, beaded dress.  I so wish now I had kept it as a family heirloom.   

                                           

I had a "Last Doll" for my 11th birthday, which seems in today's lifestyle, really old for a doll. The inspiration came from the book "Sarah Crewe or the little Princess", by Frances Hodgson-Burnett, where Sarah was given a grand doll with an extensive wardrobe on her 11th birthday.  I saw the book serialised on television and decided that would mark the end of my "dolly" era - it didn't really,  as I went on to collect costume dolls.

As for other toys, I  remember being  given (from the TV series) a Muffin the Mule and a Sooty puppet and these formed a major part of the "make believe" games we played.    We got a new jigsaw every Christmas.  The one I best remember was of a winter scene of skaters at the White Horse Inn, near Salzburg in Austria - 45 years later I actually visited the inn on holiday.    Games were popular such as dominoes, snakes and ladders, ludo, tiddlywinks and colouring books and join-the-dot books.
 

Puppets were a favourite pastime.  We would set up a makeshift theatre in the  front room with the clothes-horse and a sheet, and make simple glove puppets from felt and bits and pieces from my mother's trimming box.  I was usually the script-writer and my brother did the  sound effects, with  my father the hero or villain role and my mother and aunt the audience.  

I loved getting in my Christmas stocking a pristine notebook to write in, a blank scrapbook to show off my collection of scraps and a new pencil case, with new pencils, rubbers and sharpener to take to school at the start of the fresh term.  The really classy one that everyone wanted was wooden where the top swivelled round to show the bottom compartment - the only drawback was it was heavy in your satchel.

 

 I enjoyed playing at shops, so a toy till , with play money  was an ideal choice.   We also played at libraries, so I was in seventh heaven to be given  a date stamp - and I went on to become a librarian!

                                  

Books remained one of my favourite presents for any time of year, with an Enid Blyton at the top of my list.  I loved school stories, particularly   the Chalet School series. 

   

  For my brother it was  meccano, marbles, conkers, his train set, Dinky cars and Airfix models.  Outside, he had his pedal car and football, whilst  I had my tricycle and skipping rope to practice  "crossovers" and "bumps".  I always wantgd  a rope with bright red handles. 

 

And not one needed a battery

Looking back, toys seem very simple compared with the range today's children have in their crowded toy boxes.   I have happy memories of what we did have.  

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Onto the next generation and my daughter's favourite toy -

 donkey, ridden later by her own daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

Daughter   was never a particularly "teddy" girl - panda was her favourite.   Here is Scottie dog, with two owls perched on top of him and alongside  two pandas, a  koala  bear present  from Australia and a  Brownie, knitted from a pattern in "Woman's Weekly" magazine - a great source of ideas for home-made toys for children. 

 

Around the age of 8, she  had a collection of Cindy dolls - the British version of Barbie, I think - with a lovely wardrobe of clothes again made by  my mother.  

My  little granddaughter showed not the slightest interest in dolls but  she too  struggles to find  a place in bed amongst the myriad of soft toys.

   

Christmas Day - but there is as much fun in the box as with the presents! 

 

And if you get bored inside there is always pleasure outside. 

 

Kicking the leaves in autumn  

Helping Daddy cut the grass.

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Or helping  Daddy with the logs.

  

 

 Or feed the swans

  

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With  images courtesy of pixabay.com   

 Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share 
their family history and memories through photographs.

 

  

 

Click HERE to see more posts from Sepia Saturday blogger