I remember getting up early and trying to watch TV, there would just be a high pitched sound and a photo of a girl and a puppet I think. There was an urban myth that the girl was slowly moving but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see it.

The TV was heavy and cube shaped, it hummed and had a picture that was grainy and flickered. It had an aerial and had to be tuned with a dial on the front, like a radio. The channels were tuned to buttons which clicked in, on the front of the TV.

We didn't have a VHS for ages either. We had a local video rental shop (not blockbuster) and we'd go rent a couple of films every week, which was an event which we'd get excited about.

Later I was the only one who could work out how to do the timed record function on the VHS player, so I was in demand as that was the only way to do 'catch up' for most things on TV. You would just miss whatever it was you wanted to watch and not be able to do anything about it. :o

Sometimes they did put on replays of programs, even regular ones, but people were crazy about 'their soaps' or whatever program they liked and planned their lives around being at home to watch them.