The Way I See It

It was 1951 when John Logie Baird’s life-changing invention went on sale in the town — but the excitement of it all was tempered by very real fears that there might not be a good picture.

Apparently, it was all down to the geography of the area — who put these blinkin’ hills in the way!

The article, taken from our file of 1951, went into great technical detail about how Misty Law and other sizeable summits should not necessarily affect the reception.

But back then we didn’t want to get bogged down in technicalities — all we wanted to do was sit down and enjoy a night in front of the telly with a “TV dinner” balanced on our knees.

I lived in Skelmorlie and was about five or six when we hired our first TV from Radio Rentals. It was like a small sideboard with doors that opened to reveal a wee blue screen. You had to switch it on and wait for the valves to heat up and then, if you were lucky, a grainy picture emerged.

I can’t for the life of me remember many of the programmes, but ones that I do recall mainly were the Westerns — the Lone Ranger, Bronco, Wells Fargo and Laramé. My sister had a huge crush on Robert Fuller, who was “Jess Harper” in Laramé. She copied the address of the film production unit from the telly and wrote to him. Months — possibly even years — later an autographed photo arrived from him and my sister was delighted.

Skelmorlie, however, was at a disadvantage as the era of TV dawned across the UK — we could only get BBC. And it was BBC Ulster, at that.

This meant no Scottish news or sports. While we wanted the Old Firm, Morton and St Mirren results, we had to make do with Ballymena, Ards and Coleraine — fine teams nonetheless!

The restriction to one channel in Skelmorlie led to unrest in our family when we heard that posh relatives in Paisley could get STV. “Hmmm! trust them, they will be even more unbearable now!” was our irritated response.

Then one day, my mother who had been shopping in the village, came rushing through the door saying “Quick, get a wire coat hanger!” Why, we asked? She declared, her voice quivering with excitement: “I have just met someone who says if you put a wire coat hanger in the back of the TV you can get STV!” My father dashed off to the wardrobe to get a coat hanger and we gave it a go — twiddling the controls and banging the top of the set. Yes, just faintly we could make out something. Quite what we didn’t know. But it was worth a try.

The early days of broadcasting brought other irritations. Passing cars caused bands of interference across the screen.

This meant if the ice cream van stopped outside and kept his engine running your viewing was ruined. Aeroplanes also had an effect — they caused the pictured to go wavy. And you had to know your horizontal hold from the vertical hold if further viewing problems were encountered.

It’s no wonder people are complaining about the weather. This has been the wettest winter on record — and it shows no sign of letting up.

However, we have got off lightly in comparison with people living in the Thames Valley and Somerset Levels. Given that storms are likely to be the norm, Largs Community Council are doing the right thing by setting up a community resilience team in which volunteers would be called upon in the event of an emergency.

The project is being driven by community council secretary George Douglas who hopes ultimately that more than 100 members of the public will be recruited to join the team which would respond when called at the request of the police.

Mr Douglas is soon to attend an exercise on Arran organised by the island’s community resilience team who won an award for their response to the March blizzard.

Given the unpredictably of our weather, any advance preparation is to be welcomed.