My special and fond relationship with television
ONE of my first memories as a child, perhaps the very first, but certainly a most striking and vibrant memory that is still with me, is of our television at home. Some kind of classical music was playing against the backdrop of black and white architecturally styled contrasty buildings, and as a three or four year old I found it very enchanting and mysterious.
That first television was black and white; it had a record player on the top, which was rarely used, and gold and grey threads covering the single speaker. This would have been 1970 or 1971.
Our lounge room chairs were arranged to take advantage of the viewing angle, and it was placed next to the brick fire place, which was never used as such, but had an electric heater resident in it, all gunmetal grey and quite a dangerous object it was in winter, when it could burn you, and the smell of burnt dust coming off it when we first used it as the air turned chill. I used to shrink crisp packets to micro size on top of it. You can’t do that these days.
After a while we got a colour television. It still had a wood surround, probably particle board with brown veneer, and it was a Rank Arena. The Rank organisation used to make films in the UK, and this TV may well have been made in the United Kingdom, when England still produced electronics.
