I’ve just been watching the Queen’s 60th Anniversary of her Coronation on TV. I wasn’t alive at that time, but I know that my parents bought their first TV – as did thousands of others up and down the country – to watch the ceremony. I still have the table on which that original TV sat – it now holds my printer – and I remember that it took a while for the TV set to warm up after you turned it on. I loved – loved – that warm dusty smell when I switched it on at lunchtime to watch The Woodentops.
I can’t tell you how much I loved – and still love – watching television. Growing up, my Mum and Dad accused me of having ‘square eyes’. If I wasn’t reading a book, I was watching TV or going to the cinema.
Here’s a list of just some of the programmes that have captured my imagination over the years. (I’m giving you fair warning – my tastes are not particularly sophisticated.)
I would love it if you’d tell me some of yours.
The Woodentops.
Andy Pandy.
Blue Peter
Doctor Who
Z Cars
The Valiant Years
Star Trek
The High Chaparral
Alias Smith and Jones
The Forsyte Saga
Poldark
Starsky and Hutch
The World At War
The Jewel in the Crown
Dallas
Dynasty
Hill Street Blues
The Sandbaggers
Tenko
To Serve Them All my Days
Flambards
The Young and The Restless
China Beach
Star Trek Next Generation
Brides of Christ
Cracker
History of Britain
Highlander – told you I wasn’t very sophisticated!
The Rector’s Wife
Taggart
Brideshead Revisited
Rebecca (Charles Dance and Emilia Fox version)
Pride and Prejudice
North and South (UK version)
Goodnight Mr. Tom
Band of Brothers
Rome
Dexter
Game of Thrones
Diana Cranstoun 