So, What Did We Do Before Television?

I overheard a remark the other day, it wasn't made to me so I did not reply. It was not the first time I had heard it said, nor will it be the last. The remark was "what would we do if we didn't have television". I can only assume they had spent most of the festive season slumped in front of a TV screen. Unfortunately, I am at an age where I can tell them exactly what we did. As far as my memory allows me to recall I was about fifteen when we acquired our first television. Prior to that I was never short of something to do and nor do I recall my parents being without anything to do. The first thing to say is that in those days there was far less spare time to fill. Imagine having to clean a house with no vacuum cleaner, clean out and light the fire, black-lead the grate, keeping clothes washed, dried and aired with no washing machine, tumble drier or airing cupboard. Having to cart water across the yard in a bucket because there was no running water in the house, not even cold let alone hot. A route march down the bottom of the garden just to go to the toilet. A trip to Lincoln took most of the day by bus. So, when we were fed and watered, all scrubbed-up and most of the chores done how did we spend our spare time? Well, I'll tell you .....we listened to the wireless......and what a fantastic feast of entertainment it was. Who could forget those warm summer Sundays, windows flung open and the smell of Sunday lunch accompanied by Jean Metcalfe and Family Favouites. Cold dark winter nights sat on a snip rug in front of a roaring fire waiting for Dick Barton (Snowy and Jock) to start at quarter to seven. Being allowed to stay up late to listen to the boxing, as related through the unmistakable tones of Raymond Glendenning, remember Bruce Woodcock, Freddie Mills, Randolph Turpin and many others. Not daring to make a sound at 5 o'clock on a Saturday when the familiar music of Sports Report signalled time for silence as the football results were read out and carefully copied down on the back page of the daily newspaper. The Paul Temple Mysteries serialised weekly. Listening to the BBC news, it always sounded more official on the wireless than it does on television. Then there were the great comedy programmes, Itma, The Navy Lark, Round The Horn, Over The Garden Wall (Norman Evans) and The Al Read Show. Those wonderful BBC plays that even at a young age stirred the imagination. One of my main gripes as a kid was having to take the wet accumulator, without which there would have been no wireless, up to Clarry Fox's shop in Metheringham High Street to get it recharged. Looking back it was a more worthwhile job than I had then realised!