I was reading in the paper that the most popular size of Tv nowadays is 70 inches.. 70 inches!! I can’t imagine how anyone would get a tv that size through the door, least of all into the front room from the hall. I can remember a time when Tv’s were about the size of a microwave and the screen size about the same size as my Dad’s lunch box tin.

My earliest memories of TV’s were the black and white sets that were rented from Radio Rentals or Ted Ford’s in the town. For some reason, TV sets frequently broke down in the middle of something important like the Saturday afternoon Wrestling. Wrestling on TV was very popular throughout the 1960’s and I remember each week, my Mother, her sisters and several female friends would gathered in our front room up the Beeches to watch it. It was a sort of “girls afternoon” thing and not dissimilar to watching “Strictly” today with much screaming and shouting at the set as a series of characters played out various storylines.

Everyone knew the so called “fights” were choreographed and that no one really got hurt, but once the theme tune began on a Saturday teatime, reality was suspended and the actor-wrestlers took on superhuman characteristics - becoming “Giant “ (Giant Haystacks) or mysterious in some way such as the masked wrestler, Kendo Nagasaki who according to the storyline was a Japanese Samurai with a mysterious past and various powers such as hypnosis. He was unmasked by Big Daddy during a televised bout in 1975 and revealed to be a chap called Peter Thornley from Stoke on Trent.

I remember, live Wrestling came to Ciren a few times back then, but it wasn't the same Bingham hall; lacking the atmosphere of being in black and white on a 22 inch screen, a mug of tea in hand and a room full of cigarette smoke.