Gogglebox for Hire

I was employed in my first job with proper pay and prospects.

The role of Trainee Surveyor came with a company car, albeit a gold metallic Mini Metro Van Den Plas which had been handed down from the wife of the boss. It was a diddy, dinky vehicle and I had to slide my inspection ladders through the hatchback and hook them over the passenger seat headrest in order to fit them in.

I was at the start of my chosen career and armed with damp meter, tape measure and clipboard nothing could cramp my style.

Oh, I forgot to say that being a recently impoverished student and taking a job in my local area I moved back to live with my parents and two younger brothers.

Feeling full of myself and with a bit of cash in my pocket I wanted to contribute something to the family. Shamefully, I cannot remember if I even offered or was asked to give towards my bed, board and laundry.

The only thing I could think of was in the televisual and home entertainment sphere.

I had grown up in a household with only a black and white television. The faithful model for all of its hot, scorching valve operated existence just kept on going over a number of house-moves and relocations even though from time to time it required a sturdy thump on the top of the box to settle the picture or switching off for a few moments to cool down.

Overwhelmed with a sort of misguided magnanimity and philanthropy towards my folks I made my way to the Radio Rentals shop in the town for the purposes of renting a radio, no, I mean a brand new colour television.

The growth of Public Broadcasting Services in the UK after the war encouraged more people to want Television sets but they were very expensive, in real terms equating to multiples of the average monthly wage. In addition, there were issues of dependability and high repair costs.

This introduced a business opportunity for companies like Radio Rentals to offer them at a monthly rental price which was much more affordable.

With the coming of colour services, initially on BBC2 only, a further opportunity for renting was created. On 15 November 1969, colour broadcasts on both BBC channels and the ITV network became available from the main transmitter sites around the UK.

This led to a boom in rental of television sets.

My local sales outlet had a good range of the latest models of colour TV with the new fangled Teletext and the life changing revelation of a hand held remote control unit. Modern television would certainly become noisier and potentially more confrontational simply through the knack for the remote to hide itself around the house whenever it was needed for channel changing or Teletexting.

The Radio Rentals Deal which caught my attention was for a combined TV and Video Cassette Recorder (VCR).

This latter piece of equipment first appeared in the latter 1970s but was an expensive luxury.

I find it amazing now that, statistically, only 5% of UK households had video recorders in 1980.
even though Radio Rentals had started to offer Baird branded JVC VHS machines from 1977 onwards.

I was easily persuaded by the Sales Staff to sign up for a TV and VCR.

Fortunately, I had the sense (with hindsight) to go for the VHS model over the Betamax and escaped otherwise certain ridicule and embarrassment if I had taken the wrong side in what became known as the Videotape Format War of that era.

I signed up for a monthly payment of £15.99 which was within my new found means. I would only actually be able to manage that outgoing for a short period until I took on the commitment of a mortgage.  This and the move away to my own first house resulted in the family taking on the contract.

As an indicator of the popularity of renting , at its peak, Radio Rentals claimed it had more than 2 million customers, over 500 shops and employed 3600 technicians, 2700 skilled installers plus a large ancillary staff. There were of course other companies in the same business , the better known being Rumbelows and Granada.

The renting of a TV and equipment was however on its way out by the mid to late 1980's.

As domestic electronics became more reliable, with greater use of integrated circuits and better design methods, the urge to buy became dominant. TV sets and Video Recorders (soon to be confined to the scrapheap by DVD's )were becoming much cheaper to buy and moved from a luxury item to a standard of modern lifestyles.

Today, our home entertainment packages are updated as though on a whim as we are seduced by the very latest in flat screen, plasma and 4G technology.

I do have some cause to reflect with nostalgia on my efforts to bring colour television into the old family home. This is no more poignant than when I take a trip to the local Civic Amenity Dump and see container upon container of TV's and Video Recorders waiting forlornly to go to entertainment heaven.