TV in South Africa - 1976

I was looking at the Stat's on my Blog, to see which posts have attracted the most attention, and it seems it is all the one's in which I reminisce about the old days.   

I think a lot of us look over those days with fond memories, and by reading about someone else's memories, they think of their own and where they were and what they were doing at the time.

This reminds me of a post in a blog SA IN THE OLD DAYS from 2011, which triggered so many memories for me.  So, I thought I would write something similar about my own memories. 

1976 - TV was introduced to South Africa with the first Broadcast on the 5th of January 1976, we did not get our TV set until much later that year or the following year. 

However, to start the programs were short, I think they only broadcast for a few hours every evening. 

My Aunt and Uncle who lived on a small farm in Roodepoort had TV, we would go visit them on a Saturday with my mom and swim in the dam when it was hot, it was like a round reservoir with corrugated iron sides and it was slimy with all kinds of stuff floating in it.  But we did not care it was wet and cooling.   
Then when they got their TV, we were allowed to watch re-runs of "The Brady Bunch" that were aired on a Saturday at 1 PM. 
We didn't even realise that the show was almost 10 years old at that stage.   But we didn't care, we were actually watching a box with moving pictures, in someone's house without having to go to the Cinema. 

There was only 1 Channel to start and if I remember correctly each alternate day it would start with a different language, so for instance on a Monday you would have English from 6 - 8 and the news in Afrikaans, and then Afrikaans for the rest of the broadcast.   
On Tues you would start with Afrikaans and go onto English with the news in English. 
I destinctly remember Tuesday, as my mother would make us watch the programme "The World at War" which started at about 9 PM and had some horrific scenes of Hitler and how he killed the Jews.  They even showed someone being shot in the head and the brains splattering on Hitler's shoes. 

The sad thing about getting TV was that we no longer listened to our favourite stories on Springbok Radio.   This was the start of the end of Springbok Radio and the many shows we would listen to in the evening, like "Squad Cars" & "The men from the Ministry", so many different ones. Wikipedia has a list of all the different shows here.  But I think Springbok Radio probably deserves a post of its own, so watch this space. Oh, actually I did one previously ... Springbok Radio.

Mostly we listened to the Springbok top 20 which was late on a Friday night with David Gresham and then repeated on a Saturday.   They eventually made Pop Shop which was shown on TV on a Friday evening with the latest top hits and music videos. 

My best friend's brother "Alex Jay" (name dropping) eventually took over Pop Shop and hosted it for many years. Although now that I googled it, I think Alex's show was called "Fast Forward" and not Pop Shop.  Check it out ... 

That was also the start of all the shows that we became hooked on e.g. Dynasty, Rich Man Poor Man, Dallas, and I could go on and on for 40 years, but I will leave that post here and we can reminisce about something else tomorrow. 

Keep your feet on the ground and reach for the start until next time.  Adios Amigos

The 70's - Remember "Springbok Radio"

Sixteen men on a dead man's ship ... words from McCulley Workshops' best hit "The Buccaneer" - listening to Springbok Radio in the 70's, we were all very proud of South African music and it would be played over and over that most of the time you never even new that other music existed.

On Friday night round midnight David Gresham would do the Top 40 and we would all try and stay awake for it to find out who would be the Number 1 this week, but inevitabally we would fall asleep and have to wait until Saturday afternoon for a repeat of the show.

We had no TV in the early seventies so the radio was our only source of intertainment, and especially in winter when the only warm place in our cold house was between the sheets. The radio would be on just loud enough for us to hear it without mom & dad being able to hear it, else they would come and turn it off.

I remember also listening to the horror stories on "the destined hour" and having nightmares for weeks afterwards, especially the story of the little girl who picked a flower off someones grave and woke up the next day with scratch marks on her cheek. Then there was the story of the little girl who's stepmother hated her and let her play in an old fridge, the poor little girl eventually suffocated inside the fridge, but the kids toys got revenge, they found the stepmother strangled and the only fingerprints were those of the gollywog.


The week-ends had the best radio programms especially Friday and Sunday nights, Friday we had "Squad Cars" - " They prowl the empty street at night, waiting in fast cars ..."
Then Sunday nights would be "The men, from the ministry", "Father dear Father", "The Navy Lark" and "Test the team" oh yes and how could we forget Saturday afternoons with "forces favourites" with all our messages for the boys on the border.

Do you remember Tuesday nights, "consider your verdict" and how can we forget the afternoon programmes "The chappie chipmunk club" and "Jet Jungle", I can see all the characters of these shows in my minds eye, but now that Television is around you wonder what they would have looked like had they been Television shows and not Radio shows?