Early tv memories

My father used to build tvs and radios as a hobby.
My mother would be infuriated as rooms were full of disassembled sets,instruction manuals and tools .

I know that Picture Book with Patricia Driscoll was on Mondays ,but I can't remember the programme content .
She looked like my horrid Auntie Doreen..

Andy Pandy was on Tuesdays . There was Teddy and a girlfriend,Loobylou.

The Flowerpot Men was on Wednesdays and I used to scream with laughter when they said Little Weed !

Rag Tag and Bobtail was on Thursdays and it was my least favourite .

The Woodtops was on Fridays . I think that it's the origin of Spotty Dog .

Apart from the regularity of these programmes was the regularity of our suppers .

Eventually the programmes changed ,but the meals didn't.
I thought that everyone ate leftovers on Mondays and fish on Fridays .

Champion the Wonder Horse, Fury, Rin Tin Tin and Lassie were my favourites- all watched during the school holidays at my grandparents’ as we didn’t have a TV until I was 14.
My grandmother would let me stay up late to watch the classics like David Copperfield and Vanity Fair. Most of it went over my head but I knew better than to ask questions or I’d have been sent to bed.
I could only guess at why Gran would shout, ‘Oooh the swine!’ at regular intervals. 😂

I was 3 sitting on a little pouffe in my Great-Aunt’s front room watching the coronation of the late Queen. All the grown-ups sat behind me as I was so small. After that I don’t think I saw TV till I was 6 and my friend’s grandparents had one. Lots of us filled the room to watch it.
Who was the person who said it would never catch on!

The Woodentops, Bill & Ben, Casey Jones, Pinky & Perky, Trumpton, Camberwick Green

We didn't have a tv nor did many of our neighbours but I remember crowding into our neighbours grandma's sitting room and seeing Grace Kelly getting married. I wasn't very old but I can still remember thinking she looked absolutely beautiful but sad.
Our next door neighbour had TV long before us but as we were all friends together my brother and I used to go in and watch Children's television. They were happy days.

Witzend

Didn’t have a TV until I was 11, but remember younger siblings watching e.g. the Woodentops and Andy Pandy.

One of my very favourites at 11 or 12 was Rawhide, and ClinT Eastwood as Rowdy Yates!
Went off him drastically in later years, though, when he was too chicken to get on a plane and come to a premiere in London shortly after 9/11.

Should add that at the same time dh and I got on a plane to the US, to visit my newly widowed sister.

9/11 had nothing to do with Clint Eastwards fear of flying.
It was because a terrible plane crash where he endured 3 days in the Pacific Ocean.

Apparently I watched the Coronation at my grandparent’s. I was two months old and was tucked up in a drawer which was doubling up as a cot.

Later on I watched Andy Pandy, Tales of the River Bank, the Woodentops … but nothing on ITV. My father would not allow ITV as it was ‘common’. All my friends had it so I felt left out

I didn't have a gentle introduction to TV. No cuddly animals for me.

Does anyone remember Quatermass and the Pit in the late fifties? It was a terrifying science fiction series with evil insect-like aliens emerging from a buried spacecraft unearthed in London. The electronic sound effects were very creepy.

I was only 10 when I watched it at a friend's house. I was so terrified her Mum had to walk with me as I made my way home in the dark without street lights. Still, it was very compelling so I kept going back for more!

Pathfinders in Space, Pathfinders to Mars and Venus. Was so relieved to find that, unlike the BBC the tapes weren’t reused and I can still watch them. Unfortunately Hereward the Wake (BBC) no longer exists. Strange that the former never led to me having an interest in space travel but the latter gave me an interest in history.

I remember watching Bonanza dubbed in German while we were stationed in Germany in the mid '60s - it was a bit bizarre as we all knew exactly what was happening despite not understanding more than four or five words.

I always thought the little man reading the news could see me as well as I could see him - I always smiled for him and said hello and waved goodbye. My younger brother was as confused as me as he once poured a glass of milk down the aerial of my transistor radio to give the man a drink😁

I think we got our 1st tv late 50s, I'm remembering Watch With Mother so maybe pre school. My first viewing were Bill and Ben, The Wooden Tops, Andy Pandy, Mr Pastry, Billy Bunter and Circus Boy starring child star Micky Dolenz who later became a Monkee. I also remember Waggon Train with Clint Eastwood.

This thread has reminded me of the public information films of out youth - which were obviously designed to put the fear of god into us! I particularly remember the 'Lonely Water' one, which if I remember rightly was voiced by Donald Pleasence. There was also one with a boy climbing an electricity pylon to retrieve a kite and a fairly gruesome one in which a boy lost his legs after being hit by a train. Oh, and one with a child running on a beach which stopped just as they were about to run onto a broken bottle. Trying to think of some of the other ones...

Another horse made childhood here, does anyone else remember Fury?

My favourites were Wursel Gummage and Humphrey LeToque on Whirligig

I remember nearly all the children’s programmes already mentioned. A children’s serial I remember was The Silver Sword. More adult ones I remember seem to be all cowboy ones, Wagon Train, Bonanza and Rawhide.
My uncle and aunt had a tv screen that was so small they had a magnifying stand thing in front of it.
Does any one remember the Trolenberg Terror? After watching it I was very scared and screamed when my dog surprised me upstairs.
Also Quatermass was scary.

I remember there was a program called The Appleyards ,but I can't remember what it was about, was it the Woodentops who had ,(The very bigest spotty dog you ever did see). Lost in space was another one, The Grove Family, The Beverly Hillbillies

We didn’t have a TV, but I remember watching at my grandparent’s house. I loved the Wooden Tops, Prudence and Puffer and later with my own children, all the Camberwick Green group.
I liked Tales of the Riverbank too, and was reminded if that when I was learning Andante in C by Mauro Giuliani. Thé theme tune for Tales was by him.

Didn’t have a TV until I was 11, but remember younger siblings watching e.g. the Woodentops and Andy Pandy.

One of my very favourites at 11 or 12 was Rawhide, and ClinT Eastwood as Rowdy Yates!
Went off him drastically in later years, though, when he was too chicken to get on a plane and come to a premiere in London shortly after 9/11.

Should add that at the same time dh and I got on a plane to the US, to visit my newly widowed sister.

The Queen's Coronation, lots already mentioned, Billy Bean and his Funny Machine.

And who else remembers Bengo the Boxer Pup?

A sweet little cartoon dog with an adorable face, back in the 50’s.

I have a Prudence Kitten jigsaw.

4 different ones in the same (now very tatty) box.

Only about 16 pieces in each one, thick wooden pieces, lovely colours.

I hate jigsaws, my Prudence one is just about my level of puzzle competence.

My first TV memory is the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. I was 13. We didn’t have TV ourselves, so we went next door. I also went next door to watch a production of Swan Lake, so I’m told, but I don’t remember that at all.

We got a set ourselves when I was about 17. I used to be frantic because my mother was such an addict that she no longer listened to me!

I'm going to be lazy here - I remember most of the tv shows mentioned above. My earliest memory is probably a very early episode of Dr Who. A fella tried to fight off a rather hairy creature with a pitchfork. That's all I can remember of it. I reckon I was under 5 years old at the time.
The OP mentioned a rented tv. We had a rental black and white tv from Rediffusion. Later on, early 70s, we got a colour one, again rented, but I think that one was from Rumbelows.

Just remembered something. We used to watch Alias Smith And Jones, the western series (Pete Duel & Ben Murphy I think) as young kids. It was during the power cuts and it had just started when the electricity went off. We were most upset!

We had a black and white tv, my parents didn’t get a colour one until after I’d left home in 1975 and my father retired in 1977.

The first programmes I remember watching were Watch With Morher: Andy Pandy, The Woodentops, The Flowerpot Men. A little older, Champion The Wonder Horse, The Lone Ranger and Bonanza.

My mother always watched Coronation Street, and Crossroads. My father spent all Saturday afternoon watching sport, any sport but especially horse racing, while my mother checked the football pools. I don’t think they won much!

Sarnia Prudence Kitten is my first TV memory. She had a sister called Primrose. I had glove puppets of Pru and Prim and a Muffin the Mule string puppet.

Does anyone remember Hank the Cowboy and Mexico Pete?