Colour TV

[Richard1978]

Even though my family was comfortably well off we still rented a set until 1984, mostly because of the cost of buying as set & any repairs were included in the rental fee. Eventually sets became cheaper & more reliable so a Philips one was bought that was still working at the digital switchover, & only needed the channel memory battery changing.

[andrec]

My grandmother always rented her TV but from a local independent shop. She rented a B+W set on legs for years, finally changing it for a colour set probably early 80s, though it wasn't a new one. I can't recall the brand but the colours seemed rather garish. For the last few years of her life she rented a 14" portable.

My next-door neighbour rented their TV and video recorder from Granada, though he changed them quite regularly, so had the latest models.

An old lady near us rented her TV from Radio Rentals. To save her the bus fare I would go in once a month and pay the rental fee on her behalf. She would seal the money in an envelope and I would just hand it over to the shop assistant and let her open it. Every few months the old lady would give me a bag of sweets or bar of chocolate - I was in my twenties lol.

[Richard1978]

I've not been able to work out which set my parents rented from Granada, but it seemed quite old by the time it was replaced. I think they kept renting it for years at a reduced rate rather upgrade to a new TV & pay a higher fee. My grandad had ex-rental sets as he wasn't too fussed about having the latest model!

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/ This site has a lot of scanned brochures & other information about old TVs, including some rental company ones.

[absinthe_boy]

My late grandmother had worked for the Co-Op in the 60s and early 70s and for many years had a set rented colour from them in Yorkshire. She was of the generation where the woman of the house didn't mess with the television or the radio, and also probably felt that any adjustments were the preserve of a repair man. The set itself wasn't bad, as I recall it was branded Co-Op but was a Deccavision in a light disguise. But the channel tuning would stray, as it did in those days before PLL auto fine-tuning. As me and my parents only visited 2-3 times a year, my dad would offer to re tune her telly but gran was steadfast, only the Co-Op repair man could touch it other than the usual controls. She'd often retire to bed around 9pm and dad would retune the TV, then detune it before he went to bed! Once he forgot, gran got up to find the telly in tune and practically beat him out of the house!

Eventually the Co-Op, who had long since stopped renting television sets, gave her a brand new Ferguson in the late 80s. She then moved closer to us and upon her death in 1993 it became the spare set at my parent's home. I bogged off to America for a while, and on my return (complete with American wife) in 1999 I found that my parents had comandeered the TV from my old bedroom...so wife and I took the Ferguson until about 2002 by whicht time the on/off switch had ceased to function.