A discussion this morning about the late lamented Radio Rentals brought back memories of the evolution, through my lifetime of the eponymous television and what a circuitous journey it has been.

My Auntie Kath and Uncle Phil were the first people in our family to possess a TV and I naturally assumed that they were dead posh! I guess I would have been around four or five years old when we visited their home in Goodmayes and we were looking forward, as always, to Auntie Kath’s cakes. Auntie Kath’s cakes were legendary in the family and there would be a fresh batch waiting for us. Our branch of the family was given special treatment when it came to the cakes, because Auntie considered that Dad needed feeding up – Dad never corrected her. He could eat like a horse but always looked like a whippet!

On this visit, after the compulsory tea and cakes, we were led reverentially into the front room where we were presented to ‘The Box’. A great piece of curved mahogany now stood centre stage like a repository for a ton of conkers. Uncle Phil ran his hand lovingly over the shiny and imposing piece of furniture before opening the double-fronted doors to reveal a large goldfish bowl some three feet wide. With the words of the Radio Rentals man still ringing in his ears, Phil pushed one knob and turned a dial the size of a dinner plate then sat back into his armchair with a look of satisfaction on his face. The assembled masses gathered around the set, full of expectation.

Nothing! We glanced nervously at Phil who maintained his unusually calm persona in the face of – nothing! The kids were starting to lose confidence in this new contraption when simultaneously the Box started to hum menacingly and a pin of intense light appeared in the middle of the screen. As we watched, the picture opened to its full size of seven inches square, the white light being replaced by a sepia haze of moving images and the high-pitched voice of an announcer using an accent unlike any I had heard before.

“The Beefeaters, resplendent in their scarlet tunics, are the epitome of the Taar of London, and are recognised throughout the warld.”

Taar of London? Throughout the warld? What are they talking about? Scarlet tunics? They all look like they are suffering from jaundice, including the tunics.

The picture, being so hazy and so small could only be viewed clearly by two persons at a time and I was way down the pecking order. By the time it was my turn the Box was throwing out heat like a furnace (or should that be “farnace”?) and my dislike for anything fire related meant that I spent no more than a minute in front of the screen before concluding that a homemade scooter was more was much more interesting.

My next exposure to Radio Rentals came on the day of the Coronation and we proudly invited all our neighbours to enjoy Richard Dimbleby, father of David and Jonathan, adding colour to the black-and-white images we could see on our screen. The picture was no longer sepia and the Box was not as elegant and imposing in some ways, being more wood and plastic, although still the size of a small billiard table.

My recollection of the broadcast was pretty hazy but I remember clearly that we suffered two kinds of interference that day – the first from my newly born sister, Susan, and the second from the unreliable aerial and tuner both of which needed to be fiddled with every couple of minutes. Nevertheless, I can still feel the warmth and camaraderie created by this new piece of equipment that could bring the whole “warld” and our next-door neighbours into our humble living room.

Life changed in a major way for my family over the next few years but wherever we travelled, Radio Rentals travelled with us, providing a continuity that might otherwise have been missing from our lives.

Independent Television joined the BBC and we joined up with ITV with our new Radio Rentals TV which, by now, had replaced the fireplace as the focal point of any lining room. The half-moon of seating no longer took its pivot point from the fire; we were happy to forego a bit of heat for Hughie Greene and Michael Miles.

When BBC2 was offered Dad decided to hold out for colour telly before making the change. I’m not sure how long he actually held out – Radio Rentals was relentless.

What we did realise was that as the television aerial became more sophisticated so the need to play with a wire coat hanger diminished – in fact this artform only came into play in times of high winds and its performance had been handed down to the children (obviously not me, as I was too short and too clumsy to be effective – which meant more time in front of the screen for me!).

I guess it was the transition from valves to transistors and then chips that improved the reliability of the TV, reduced the size of the elephant in the room and led to the demise of Radio Rentals. In a desperate attempt to remain viable they went from offering rentals of radio and TV’s to renting out jewellery for those special occasions when costume would just not suffice – sadly, those special occasions did not occur often enough to keep Radio Rentals afloat and they disappeared into the mists of time just like Fruit Spangles.

Right now, I miss Radio Rentals more than I have in many years. This is not based on nostalgia for bygone times but because of a problem which has brought us full circle.

We have recently acquired a state-of-the-art, super-slim, HD screen which perches unobtrusively against one wall. The 3-D picture is so realistic that I recently attempted to swat the image of a fly on the screen using my state-of-the-art, super-bulky, rolled up newspaper. Not a good move for such an insubstantial piece of furniture that is the 21^st Century TV.

Matters became worse when we discovered that our new TV responds to our fridge-freezer in a bad way. Whenever the fridge kicks in to retain the coldness, so the TV screen picture pixilates before creating the kind of televisual snowstorm that I have not seen for decades. A temporary solution is to fiddle around with a wire coat hanger but, as I am still too small and too clumsy, it is not my role.

Now, if Radio Rentals were still about I would simply ring up the shop, threaten to cancel my payments until they sent out “A Man” to fix the problem, and I could guarantee that the problem would be resolved by the next day or they would replace the offending TV with a 22^nd Century version, which is probably an implant into my brain!

Oh, how I miss you, Radio Rentals.