Colour TV

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[absinthe_boy]

My parents received an Invicta 18" colour TV as a wedding present in 1970, so I never knew B&W TV. However the Invicta was a piece of ****, the electron guns needed replacing when I was a toddler and I remember it getting repaired, working OK for a year or so before the brightness faded and it had to be in a dim room, brightness and contrast up to the max. In 1979 it was replaced with a Grundig that lasted well into the 90s.

When you think how much TVs cost back then, and how comparatively cheap they are now it is something that's difficult to explain to younger folk. I remember my parents bought a new house in 1979 and borrowed a couple of thousand more on the mortgage than they actually needed....to have a new kitchen put in the new house, update the heating (oil to gas) and buy things like a telly. I remember going into Ketts with my dad, who handed over £300 and asked "what's the biggest telly I can buy with this?"....that was serious money in 1979. The answer was a 24" Grundig. The model above even had a remote control!

My dad once told me that he was sceptical of colour TV, thinking B&W was fine until he saw the 1969 Wimbledon final in colour at a television shop. People stopped outside to marvel that the grass was actually green! That left him determined to get a colour set, and I guess it was on my parents' wedding list.

[andrec]

I think the first time I saw colour TV was in 1969 or 1970, when I would have been 8 or 9. I remember my gran or mom took me to a relative's house as their son had a Chopper bike and I wanted to have a go on one - my parents were going to buy one for my birthday and also wanted to see if I was big enough for one. Anyway, that relative also had a colour TV and to me it seemed incredible. I can't recall exactly what I saw, it could have been Wimbledon, but after so long I can't be sure. Our first colour TV was a 22" Pye bought very late 1973, not long after Princess Anne's wedding. We watched that wedding on my mom's employer's 26" Grundig colour TV, which seemed enormous at the time to me. 65" flat TVs attached to walls were just science fiction back then, now they are nothing special. Our 22" Pye cost £220 at the time. It was not very reliable, and nearly every time we came back from our week's Summer holiday it wouldn't turn on. It was replaced by a 22" Bush in 1980. I used the old Pye in my bedroom well into the 80s. I connected it up to a Sanyo VCR, but when playing a tape the picture at the top right would start to bend inwards, gradually getting worse as the tape played.

[George 1978]

Re: Colour TV

Although my parents didn't have the same model of Pye set, they did have an identical remote control to go with it, and I bet that the one in the picture would have worked the one that we had! We had ours from 1984 right until the late 1990s.

[darren]

Re: Colour TV

[gamerouche]

Re: Colour TV

Wow! seeing the pic of the old Ferguson 3703 19" Colour TV brought back a few memories. It was a good looking machine & one that I used to sell when I worked for the defunct Electrical retailer Civic Stores in Putney high St. London.

I can date the TV for definite around July 1969 as we were fascinated watching the Moon landing.

HMV & Ultra both produced a similar model with the model numbers 2703 & 6703 respectively. They were part of the same company.

My parents were Irish & very old-fashioned & didn't trust these new fangled colour tellys however, I managed to persuade them to have a home trial.

The TV I chose was a 20" Mitsubishi (the model number escapes me) but at the time (1973) due to some kind of trade embargo, at that time it was the largest size imported TV that could be sold in this country. It did however provide a super picture & started up very quickly.

When Mum & Dad saw programmes in colour like Hawaii 5-0, they were hooked and so my plan worked as dad signed up for a rental agreement promptly.

Everybody rented in those days as being new technology, people were afraid of repair bills. Different today, reliability is so good.

I can still remember the many TV High St. rental outfits now gone......Rediffusion, DER, Radio Rentals, Granada, British Relay, Vision Hire.

Gam

[Richard1978]

Re: Colour TV

My Aunt & Uncle used to have this model, & passed it on to me when they stopped using it.

[darren]

Re: Colour TV

Sony KV1320 Single Standard Colour TV

[darren]

Re: Colour TV

vintage ferguson 3703 single standard 625 lines colour tv

[darren]

Re: Colour TV

[darren]

Re: Colour TV

[Richard1978]

Re: Colour TV

Clive Sinclair made kit audio equipment before moving into computers, the early examples of which were available as kits.