Some Of Us Were Watching In Black and White: Dickie Davies, Of "World Of Sport", Gets Ticked Off

Dickie Davies - World of Sport presenter - in black and white, of course.

Whilst colour TV became available in 1967, and became quite widespread in the years following, it is worth noting that quite a lot of us stuck to black and white well into the 1980s. For instance, my mother and step-father rented a slot meter colour set in 1978 but couldn't afford to feed the meter and so away it went after only a few weeks, and back came our very own, decrepit black and white set. Colour vanished from our house until the early 1980s.

Many of our neighbours were black and white folk in the early 1980s.

And one reader of the Sun newspaper on October 3, 1981, reminded Dickie Davies that we weren't all colour privileged:

Dickie Davies should try to remember that there are still lots of us with black and white sets.

Last week he told us our boxer was the one wearing blue shorts. Funny! On our set they were the same colour as the streak in your hair, Dickie.

More about World Of Sport here.

Daily Mirror, December 31, 1982 - the Rumbelows ("We Save You Money And Serve You Right") - make a tempting offer - RENT COLOUR TV FROM ONLY £6.95 DOWN!

For as "little" as £8.95 down, the Rumbelows would deliver and install your "good as new" set and give you a "superb" Ferguson clock radio.

In early 1983, I went in for a thrilling piece of 1980s technology - a 1982 Pye Tube Cube - with cassette, radio, digital clock and TV. It was a lovely bit of kit and the fact that the TV was black and white didn't bother me in the slightest. It served as my main TV set until 1987. Read more about the Cube here.