Newbury man seeks a nostalgic viewing of royal wedding

Malcolm Franks has bought a single-channel 1950s black and white television from eBay for £86

A NEWBURY man who has bought a television the same age as he is - 60 - plans to use it for nostalgic viewing of the royal wedding on April 29.

Malcolm Franks, of Fifth Road, bought the single-channel 1950s black and white television from eBay for £86 and is to adapt it with computer wizardry so that it can show modern programmes in old-fashioned 405 lines.

The last King of England was on the throne when the HMV television - the hand-made wooden case of which is marked “By Appointment to His Majesty the King” - was first switched on.

“The telly is almost exactly the same age as I am, almost to the month, and was our first family telly,” said Mr Franks, who recalled, aged five, proudly going with his father to collect such a television and wheeling it back to their Queen's Head, Oldbury home in a pram.

“So primitive was the design, if you could hold a stable picture for two hours you were very, very lucky!” he added.

Mr Franks said the low definition, 405-line set, powered by valves, produced a “much blurrier image” than the modern equivalent 625 line standards, but that it was in very good condition and merely required a dab of French polish on the case.

“It's real anorak stuff, but I'd love to watch the royal wedding on it, if I can get it working by then,” said Mr Franks, chairman of the Newbury branch of the British Vintage Wireless Society, which aims to preserve old domestic electronic equipment.

When the set was made only the BBC channel existed.

“The continuity announcer came on at 5pm when programmes started in a bow tie and dinner jacket - that was quite the norm,” said Mr Franks.

The set, which was sold by and to raise funds for, Acorns Children's Hospice, Birmingham, would once have shown history in the making, as Britain conquered Everest, polio vaccine was developed and the first sputniks were about to be launched in the space race of the 1950s.

On whether the television might require a special licence, Mr Franks said he had “not really thought about it.”