Introduction

It  was  pretty  inevitable  ,as  soon  as  the  Genome  Project  came  to  fruition  a  couple  of  weeks  ago, that  I  would  want  to  build  a  blog  around  it. To  a  list-fanatic  like  me  the  opportunity  provided   to  construct  a  history  of  my  telly-watching  is  irresistible.

I'm  not  going  to  stick  to  a  rigid  format  here; the  variety  of  the  subject  matter  makes  that  untenable. It  will  be  roughly  chronological  though  I  won't  get  too  cut  up  about  strict  accuracy  because  there  are  two  obvious  problems  from  the  outset.

One  is  that  like  most  people  I  have  no  idea  when  my  mum  first  put  me  in  front  of  the  telly  ( not  too  early  I  expect )  so  I   had  to  think  about  a  starting  date. The  first  programmes  I  recall  are  the  obvious  Watch  With  Mother   favourites  but  these  were  all  repeated  endlessly  so  there's  no  help  there. I've  no  recollection  of  watching  any  great  televised  event- the  Moon  Landing  being  the  obvious  one  - so  that  doesn't  assist  in  anchoring  it. I've  no  spin-off  toys  or  books  from  that  far  back  either .

I'm  sure  I  was  watching  some  TV  before  I  started  school  in  September  1969  as  I've  no  memory  of  the  sense  of cultural  deprivation  that  would  have  ensued  had  I  not. Fortunately - because  the  period  when  I  went  home  for  lunch  was  short - I  do  remember  Chigley   starting  as  a  new  programme  which  Genome  tells  me  was  Monday  6  October  1969. And  so  I've  taken  one  year  before  that  as  my  Year  Zero. If  I  was  on  balance  likely  to  have  watched  something  on  or  after  6th  October  1968  it  will  go  in.

The  other  main  problem  is  the  absence  of  an  equivalent  site  for  ITV  ( Granada  in  my  case ) . There  are  some  good  sites  but  they're  not  comprehensive, and,  I  would  expect,  vulnerable  to  legal  assault  from  IPC  magazines . That  can't  be  helped  unfortunately  - there  will  be  omissions - but  it's  not  quite  as  big  as  a  problem  as  you  might  expect. Both  my  mum  and  gran  were  distressed  Tories- my   maternal  grandfather  had  either  been  made  redundant  or  lost  his  business  before  his  time - and,  like  others  of  their  ilk,  keen  on  those  notions  of  gentility  that  could  be  maintained  without  spending  too  much  money. ITV  was  deemed  lowbrow  and  a  bit  vulgar; although  my  sister  and  I  were  never  banned  from  watching  anything  on  ITV  for  that  reason  alone,  and  TV  Times  was  a  weekly  purchase  , the  default  setting  on  the  TV  was  always  BBC. The  one  exception  was  19.30  on  a  Monday  and  Wednesday  night  when  a  certain  Salford -set  soap  was   broadcast.