My younger granddaughter, who loves to chat, asked me what kind of television programmes I liked when I was young. We didn't have television when I was young, I said. She looked stunned. 'What, hadn't it been invented?', she asked. I could practically hear my crinoline rustling. No, I said, although television was invented before the war, production then stopped and it wasn't until after the war it started again. Then sets were expensive and not many people had them. She looked at me as if I'd confessed to being part of Noah's crew on the ark. So I told her that in the village where I grew up only one family had a television. They owned the local mill and obviously had a few bob to throw around. One of my first very clear memories as a child was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and the fact that the mill owners invited a select few to view the event on their much prized television. We were not amongst the select few, mainly because my grandmother had fallen out with the wife over a matter of hierarchy in the local WI branch. This was no surprise. In her time my grandmother had fallen out with numerous members of the WI. In fact I suppose a new branch of the WI could have been formed consisting solely of members who had fallen foul of my grandmother, and their numbers would have certainly dwarfed the remaining few who hadn't. Afterwards my grandmother, who had a spy amongst the honoured few, was delighted to hear that the reception had been so bad that when HRH alighted from her coach it looked as if she had arrived for a royal tour of Alaska in the middle of the worst blizzard for centuries. My granddaughter was obviously fascinated, so much so I suspected she might be considering doing a school project on 'my dear old nan's memories'. 'Did we have a record player?', she asked. No, I said. My mother had once had a gramophone but it was lost when their house was bombed. I felt it was a bit tactless to say who had bombed it, we were after all in Germany, but because she was proving to be such a good audience I explained that the bombing of the house was, in my grandmother's opinion, the second attempt on her life by Adolf Hitler. The first had come when she was machine gunned in the street by a stray plane, and saved by a passing milkman who grabbed her and threw her under his float. In the proceeds her best navy blue crepe coat was ruined, for which she blamed the milkman and the Luftwaffe equally. 'You can't get crepe like that any more', she had told my mother when she was escorted home. 'He didn't have to be quite so rough.' Warming to my theme I said we did have a radio. With an accumulator, which was a sort of battery. My granddaughter is only used to tiny little batteries which fit into her various electrical items, so I told her that this 'battery' was huge, filled with acid, and had to be taken to the local garage in a pushchair to be charged. I can still see my grandmother marching purposefully down the street, sweeping all before her, or all who didn't want an accumulator dropped on their foot, as we walked down to the garage. I usually went with her, because there was a tiny sweet shop next to the garage and she could always be persuaded to buy me a quarter of pear drops, because she liked them herself. Why people loved sweets which could easily take the skin off the roof of your mouth I don't know. But we did. We then went through a whole list of things we didn't have. Microwaves, videos, DVDs, mobile phones (no phone, actually) portable radios, camcorders and so on. We didn't have a car, few people did and neither my grandmother nor my mother could drive. We did have bicycles. We had the pictures once a fortnight in the village hall. We went to the cinema in town on occasions. And the local dramatic society's plays which forever put me off am dram because they usually chose boring classics and it's just not possible to do Romeo and Juliet properly on a tiny village hall stage where the balcony scene had to be enacted on a scaffolding plank slung across two ladders. I realised that I was beginning to lose her interest, so I stopped. 'Thanks nan', she said. 'It's been interesting, we must talk again.' And off she went with to find her iPod. Later in the week I watched the Eurovision Song Contest. This wasn't entirely willingly, but then I was in a household where the remote control was superglued to my son-in-law's hand and I had no control whatsoever. Besides, there wasn't anything else on. Not since the days of dear old Cliff have I been even tempted to view this shambles. Indeed I don't usually care who wins, except I know that the UK won't. A few years ago I was on a two day trip to Beirut with my elder daughter, and it was my birthday. After a day's sightseeing in the city and surrounding countryside we were sitting on our cruise ship's deck relaxing. I was still recovering from my birthday surprise of having the ship's Chinese waiters descend on our dinner table to sing 'happy birthday Malee' when my daughter's mobile rang. It was my younger daughter ringing from Cornwall and instead of wishing me happy birthday, as I naturally thought she would, she told us in doom laden tones that the UK had got nul points in the Eurovision song contest. 'Everyone thinks it's because of Iraq', she said. 'Sorry, I thought you'd be interested', and then thankfully trotted out the required words. After that we went to bed, walking past lots of other British people who didn't know of the ignominy suffered by the great British Isles. So we felt rather smug. My disinterest has continued, but as there was nothing else to do but sit outside in the rain, and dark, I was forced to look up occasionally. A few days before I had seen our entry performed on some other programme, except I didn't realise what it was. 'That's our entry for the Eurovision', someone said, as some scantily clad people wearing skimpy in-flight attendants' (as they are now called) uniforms with their chests hanging out (men as well as women) performing a song which wouldn't have looked out of place on the end of the pier in some out of the way holiday spot in July. Any minute I expected Bernard Manning to walk out, onto the stage; or a reincarnation of Dick Emery to leap up out of the orchestra stalls crying 'ooh, you are awful'. It was beyond Benny Hill, beyond Carry on up the Kybher. It was dire. If this was the best we could produce, what had the rest been like? It was painful in the extreme. This is a country which has influenced the rest of the music world for generations, so why can't we find someone to sing a decent song? People in the first rounds of talent shows do better. Simon Cowell would have kicked their aircraft attendants' little butts right out of the door seconds after they sang the first note. It was, however, on a par with all the other entries. It became worth watching because you kept thinking it couldn't get worse, but it did.Only the ready wit of Terry Wogan made it bearable and he didn't go far enough. We know we aren't going to win. In the future it's going to be a merry-go-round of Eastern European countries all voting for each other and nobody in mainland Europe is going to be in with a chance. And what's with Europe? Since when has Israel been in Europe? Having lost the will to live several times I only woke up as the votes began. Ireland very kindly gave us 12 points. Was this something political? Well, it was very nice of them, because we didn't return the favour. I only hope that the group singing our entry aren't so grateful to the Irish that they do a tour of Ireland anytime soon. I wasn't sure if the winner was a man or a woman. In fact many of the contestants were sort of gender wobbly. She at least had a decent voice and I'm sure her song will go down well in Serbia and the other countries surrounding it. I suppose the best you can say is that it does offer a bit of light relief. All the presenters in the various countries saying what a lovely evening it had been. 'Get a life', we thought. And all of the women had been to the same hairdresser. Best of all the Finnish television presenter who had possibly been at the drinks cabinet one too many times, wobbled round the contestants with what she assumed was a Marilyn Monroe pout but who looked a bit like Lily Savage on a bad night.
