Life was more simple back then – A Contention
When I was young broadcasters used to stop broadcasting TV in the daytime. There was a morning news and current affairs programme until about 8:30 I think and then nothing, until Popeye came on at about 4:30. They simply switched off the transmitters. Perhaps they assumed that during the day people were either working or had fresh air to breathe in. There was always the wireless for those in their sick beds. They also shut down at about 10:30 or 11 ish at night, which was of course when everyone would be abed, unless they had a party to go to.
The beginning of colour broadcasting coincided with my early teenage years. BBC2 was launched in 1967 and was the first colour channel. You needed a new set to receive BBC2, which could be colour or black and white. Colour sets were eye wateringly expensive, certainly beyond the modest means of my family. But we did splash out on a dual standard B&W, so we could receive BBC2. This is why I can write this blog today.
To set up a colour TV in those days was a complex procedure and needed a TV engineer to visit to “align the guns” (really). This caused a small problem in that there was nothing being transmitted in the working day so he could do this. For this reason the BBC2 trade test transmissions were born. On an hourly cycle there would be 30 to 35 minutes of colour test card, for alignment, followed by a short colour film to take it up to the hour. And so we come to the purpose of my maundering today.
Amongst these films there were some gems. I wonder if any other of the other wrinklies around here might recall them.
There was a film about an Australian Road train, which is a massively long lorry, travelling from north to south along to a musical accompaniment by Frank Ifield. Frank Ifield is/was an Australian singer whose sole distinction was that he yodelled; an otherwise essentially Swiss undertaking. This little film told a harmless tale which served to inform the watcher that there were road trains in Australia and why. It did little for Frank, I suspect. He didn’t even yodel in that one.
A tale about a young boy trading along a river in Burma, called I think “Bulong and Bola”, who was saving for an outboard motor to make his life better, was made by the Shell film unit. It educated the watcher on how, I think, cassava plants were brought to market and the lives of the people at the start of that chain.
The best by far was a film about restoring an old Bullnosed Morris from unloved rust and decrepitude to motoring perfection. There was no dialogue but it had a soundtrack by the Dave Brubeck quartet (if memory serves). It was made by British Petroleum in 1963. The star, Mr Ronald Chudley went on to appear in an episode of Emergency Ward 10 (one) and promptly left to become a writer (yay) in Canada. One or two of the uncredited actors had acting careers of sorts. It won an Oscar!
There were many more of these short films, a day in the life of Italian motorway service station is another I remember; some cracking women and great cars in that one. Many of them are currently held in a video library in London owned by BP and they keep them under wraps. I know, I have offered to help unwrap them.
My point is this. These little films made possible the setting up of colour TVs in the late sixties and entertained a swotty 12 year old (me) for a while, but that wasn’t why they were made. Which begs the question why were they made? Those short films were utterly wonderful. They were made by big industrial concerns, the government, or I just don’t know who and for no truly specific reason other than altruism that I can see. They were made simply to educate and inform with no sense of profit.
Am I
right? Was life more simple back then?
18 Comments
My best early TV memory was when I was 7 years old, and was allowed to stay up late to watch the Moon landings live (in black and white).
Yeah, life totally was more simple: we had 'kernockers' and slinkies and spud guns and stuff like that, no computer games, MP3 players or mobile phones. It was a different world!
Wrath, my parents woke me up and brought me downstairs to watch the moon landing. They wanted me to see history in the making. I don't think at that age I thought it was much of a big deal.
Nice blog Alan, I never knew about the short films :)
Wrath - you were too young to be playing with "kernockers" back then!! Bad boy!!
"Ooh Err lets see your kernockers ha ha ha"
But I digress which is odd for me, times were simpler expectations were lower, life was easier.
Now every young person has failed dismally if they don't go to Uni, Then Uni was for the brightest and somehwat elitist. The rest of us got jobs and worked hard and hey presto got on that way.
Now everything sucks..."Come sweet death come....."
We never had a TV when I was younger and we were never taken to the theatre, so my only early experience of drama had been on TV - this was when a black and white rented TV finally appeared. We did go to a grandmother;'s house to watch Dr Who on Saturdays. This was the weekly treat,!
It recall going to the Streatham Theatre to see Billy Bunter one Christmas, but my first theatre outing was at the suggestion of an uncle and I went to see Tom Stoppard' Rosencrantz and Guilderson are Dead' It wad not much of a start for someone whose first writing atteepts were plays. Sorry bout spelling and grammar. Dashing this off before going to work.
Wrathers, I too watched the moon landings. To get permission my father told me I had to rebuild our old (VHF) telly, which was busted and in the shed. He was a radio ham and had raided it for parts. If I could do that then I could have it in my bedroom and watch, which I managed to do. Spud guns were great. We used to hold up newspapers and practice assassinations. You had to hold the paper really tight or it just bounced off. It used to piss my mother off that we were ruining all the spuds.
Weens, I once had a big moment which made it to the news (not me, the event). I ensured my daughter saw it. That wasn't a big deal either and she now has no memory of it at all.
Kiki, a friend of mine also went to tizwaz, about 1978? Anyway, after a football match we had won in which he played really well, we were in the showers when he let out an agonised cry. Apparently he had been kisssed by Sally James and hadn't washed his face for a week. In the excitement he forgot.
Spi, the thing about these films were that they were so detached from their sponsors. The car restoration film, and I'm going from memory, was set in a garage where the owner had simply let the restorer borrow space. I think I saw a BP sign once or twice, but that was it. The Shell Burma film was probably an apology for raping the country of its resources. Although the motivation for the British Railways film unit escapes me completely.
Mike, I have an idea that Alan Plater didn't allow the real world into his personal space that much. I believe he rarely, if ever, watched TV. For him the world may not have changed. He should really have been maintained by the national trust. Whatever, he wrote Beiderbeck and so can do no wrong, except that now I can't.
My father worked for Sunnews London in the 60s and 70s, he used to bring home the photos from the telephoto machine after the printers had finished with them, so I got to see all the Apollo pictures the night before they came out in the newspapers. I was obsessed with the Space Program; I really believed we were all going to the stars and there would be a Terran Empire across the Galaxy. But they put all the resources into building ICBMs instead.
I think the perceived contentment was down to limited choices - no other life was possible, other than what we had, so the boundaries were clear. Now when you can do anything, be anything, have anything, there seems to be so much more dissatisfaction around - we all think we should be doing more/getting more than we have and feel we are missing opportunities all over the place. We probably are, too. Goodness me, where did all that come from?
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