WHISTON'S TV VAN EARLY 1960s

Now here's a real find. This photo was sent to us by Stuart Warren Twigg, grandson of Harry Jackson who is seen here at the wheel of Whiston's TV van in the early 1960s. Stuart sent the photograph after seeing this entry in the Middlewich Diary, in which we talked about Whiston's Garage which once stood where Wheelock Street, Chester Road and Nantwich Road all meet. In the course of the ensuing discussion Geraldine Williams remembered Whiston's radio department which was behind the camera. We think, from the look of the van and the TV set next to it, that this picture comes from the early 1960s when TV rather than radio was the dominant form of home entertainment.
The van driver is Harry Jackson, Stuart's grandfather. As Geraldine mentioned in our earlier discussion the radio department was run by Harry , who later moved just a short distance down the road to Douglas Williams and Co which was based at the shop now occupied by the Easy Tan  Tanning Salon. Another one of nature's gentlemen, Harry was the epitome of old-fashioned courtesy and customer service.
The buildings just visible on the extreme right are the Crosville Garage (later T&M Autoparts, the MoCoCo cafe and now apartments run by the same organisation) and Gater's Bakery, the front part of which was  empty for many years and has now been incorporated into those apartments, only the old shop fascia board giving away the secret that it was once a shop.
Note: Part of that fascia board can be seen on the extreme right of the picture, just above the white vehicle. Can anyone decipher the lettering? 
The Whiston's building seen here, bearing that enigmatic word SHELLUBRICATION which was  seen everywhere in those days, disappeared long ago and all that can be seen on the site in the present day is some shrubbery separating the bus lay-by in St Michael's Way from Red Cow Court. There was also a bus stop, associated with the Crosville garage across the road, on the site.
The main Whiston's buildings, i.e. the Garage and radio and TV shop, were further down the road opposite the end of Nantwich road, as can be seen in that earlier Diary entry.
Also long gone, presumably, is that immaculate Ford Popular van bearing the two-digit local telephone number, which you could obtain by lifting your receiver and saying, 'can you put me through to number 97 please?'
It all sounds rather like a scene from 'The Prisoner'.
The smart looking TV set would enable you to watch BBC Television on Channel 2 or Granada TV/ABC on Channel 9. It was, presumably, made by Pye of Cambridge.

Update (April 2018)

We're grateful to Ruth Sproston for this photo showing the Whiston buildings, shortly before they were demolished to make way for the Northern end of St Michael's Way in the early 1970s:

The Whiston's of Middlewich  building to the right is the one bearing the enigmatic word SHELLUBRICATION in our main photo. 

The grassed area with trees shown in our July 2017 shot replaced it. 

Harry's van was parked approximately where the left hand vehicle is in this picture, and St Michael's Way now comes in from the right and straight across the photo, sweeping away the left hand buildings, to join Nantwich Road, Newton Bank, Wheelock Street and Chester Road in a complicated series of junctions.

The building on the extreme right still exists and is the white building with black edging in our 2017 photo, comprising a small cottage and a nail salon.  Red Cow Court was, and still is, behind that building. So it's highly likely that Whiston's building and the present-day grassed area was the site of the Red Cow public house many years ago.

Update (July 2017)

Here's a shot of the same area taken in July 2017: 

Harry Jackson can also be seen  here

Facebook feedback:


Geraldine Williams: We had one of the early TV sets from Whiston's in the 1950s - I think it was in time for the Coronation in 1953 and I seem to remember our sitting room being full of neighbours and relatives who came to watch the ceremony. This also happened for the Cup Final! The TV was a console model with a 9" screen. My father eventually bought a magnifying screen on a stand which was supposed to enlarge the picture and also prevent light reflection. By the look of this picture the business, and the TVs seem to have progressed a lot and I suspect this van is a new addition. Harry looks very pleased with himself!

Michael Tully: Harry Jackson was one of the nicest guys ever. Absolutely great photo of a great man. Hilda, his wife, was fantastic too.

Dave Roberts: You're right, Michael.

First published 13th January 2012
Re-published with amendments 17th October 2015
Re-published with 2017 comparison shot 29th July 2017
Re-published with Ruth Sproston's early 1970s shot 14th April 2018
Re-published 29th July 2019

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THE TV DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW

by Dave Roberts
It's That Man Again! Another addition to our growing collection of Harry Jackson pictures courtesy of Stuart Warren Twigg, showing Harry working away at what is now almost a forgotten trade - TV repair.
From the look of the set Harry is ministering to, this picture will have been taken in the late 50s/early 60s when a visit from the TV repair man was almost like a visit from the family doctor.
There were the same anxious looks from family members as the 'symptoms' were discussed; was there trouble with the vertical or horizontal hold? Was it a simple matter of a valve needing replacement? Was the co-axial cable getting a little frayed? Did the transformer need rewinding?
Or - horror of horrors - had the tube itself 'gone'?
If your tube had 'gone' then you faced the prospect of the set being taken away to the TV equivalent of hospital and being attended to by specialists such as Harry, who is seen here at, presumably, Whiston's radio repair shop in Wheelock Street assessing the chances of someone's prized set being coaxed back to life.
Because of the unpredictability of valve TVs and their being so prone to breakdown, many people rented sets from Whiston's, Harold Woodbine's, Vernon Cooper's or, somewhat later, Douglas Williams & Co.
This meant that, if your set had to be taken away to be repaired, you did at least have the dubious pleasure of watching a set lent to you by your local TV rental shop.
In theory, at least, this meant uninterrupted viewing pleasure.
In practice, however, it was a bit of a mixed blessing. Loan sets were invariably badly maintained and usually had slightly blurred pictures showing people with highly elongated features like coneheads or squashed up faces like munchkins.
You were lucky if you could locate the vertical hold control in order to stop the picture rolling up and down and inducing a weird kind of motion sickness.

Illustration: BBC

In fact in those days to have a 'good picture' on your set was a cause of great pride and owners would turn on their sets for visitors to show them what a good few hours of twiddling the brightness and contrast controls could achieve.

If you had made the bold move of buying your set outright - always a very expensive business  - any breakdown involving the set being taken away led to long nights staring glumly at the corner where the TV usually resided and listening to the Light Programme or the Home Service on the wireless.

Until 1956 Middlewich could only receive one channel - BBC Television, from Holme Moss in Yorkshire. When ITV came along, in the form of  Granada TV - uncompromisingly 'from the North' - and the much brasher, showbizzy ABC 'Your Weekend Television In The North', viewers were faced with the choice of either getting a new set or buying an 'ITV Converter', a primitive early form of set-top box which could pick up  programmes from the BBC's  new competitor with the added attraction of squiggly lines all over the picture because of co-channel interference.

A 'Band 3 Converter'  in brown crackle finish,
just like the one we had.

Anyone who has ever used the tuner on one of those early 'dual channel' sets will remember the experience vividly.
A circular knob, rather like a miniature water-wheel and with segments numbered from 1 to 13 was turned, causing much flashing on the screen and clicking and crunching on sound, between BBC TV on Channel 2 and Granada/ABC on Channel 9 which came  from Winter Hill near Bolton. In fact ITV and BBC digital channels, along with a bewildering array of other offerings, still come from there.

Photo: BBC

Photo: Granada TV

Photo: Associated-British Corporation

Photo: The Countryman. 

It was all light years away from today's flat screen, multi-channel world, but TV then had an excitement about it which has all but vanished through over-familiarity and the sheer abundance of television everywhere you go these days.

For many people television has been around for over 60 years and, though it's tempting to laugh at those early days, it's such a personal medium that more often we end up shedding a few nostalgic tears instead. 

Photo: WTFK syndicate

And now....here's the Test Card, and some music...

Photo: BBC/The Test Card Circle

TEST CARD MUSIC (YOUTUBE LINK)

Facebook feedback

David Roberts Such was the prestige of the job in the 60s and 70s that TV techs were entitled to fuel their vehicles when there was a fuel shortage. Today it's hard going with very little manufacturer support and virtually no service manuals or fault data.

from the 'Bring Back Regional TV' Facebook Group.

(Note: No, 'David Roberts' is not me. the name's just a coincidence).

HARRY JACKSON AT A WHISTON'S FUNCTION

by Dave Roberts
We're grateful to Stuart Warren Twigg who sent us this photograph of an unspecified celebration from many years ago (such events were always called 'functions' in those days, and the name survives to the present day in one or two local pubs who still advertise the presence of a 'function room' on the premises).
The photograph features Stuart's grandfather, Harry Jackson (seated, left), who we last saw here, and was taken some time in the 1950s (Stuart thinks it may be later - see Facebook Feedback, below - and he may well be right. There's something a bit 60s-ish about the way the men are dressed) at what we think was a 'works do' for employees of Whiston's Garage and Radio & TV shop, situated where Nantwich Road, Chester Road and Wheelock Street all meet.
In his covering 'note' Stuart also mentions Albert Atkinson who, I think, worked in Whiston's Radio & TV dept.
Certainly he later ran his own electrical repair business in a small shop adjacent to Douglas Williams & Co (where Harry Jackson was in charge) at the top end of Wheelock Street.
Albert was also a town councillor during the same period.
I think that's Albert standing up on the right of the picture
So Stuart and I are wondering if Middlewich Diary readers can put names to the other faces.
As always on the Middlewich Diary, we're also open to corrections and amendments.

Facebook feedback:

Stuart Warren Twigg  Hi Dave. A very young Albert is indeed top right, and Mr Sid Whiston is sat next to Harry. I think that the 'function' is at the old ICI club and is possibly circa 1965, which ties in with Grandad's 25 years service at Whiston's, but that, sadly, is where my knowledge ends, though my sister thinks that a Jean Royle may be the lady front and centre?

Editor's note: The ICI Club which served the ICI Works in Brooks Lane, and continued after the works closed in 1962 before becoming Pochin's Club in the early 1970s, is now home to Middlewich Community Church

Geraldine Williams That's Mrs Whiston seated next to Sid and the man in the centre of the back row is Jack Bowers who was the foreman mechanic at Whiston's. Jean Royle certainly worked at Whiston's, but I wouldn't have recognised her in this photograph. I wonder what they were celebrating? Only Sid and his wife are wearing buttonholes......

Bill Eaton The person stood behind Harry Jackson is, I'm sure, Les Bowers, who went on to open his own garage in Lach Dennis

HARRY JACKSON AT WHISTON'S

by Dave Roberts

Hot on the heels of this picture of Harry Jackson, proudly showing off Whiston's smart new TV van in the early 1960s, comes another one from the same source showing Harry outside the Radio and TV shop itself.

Again, we think this is one from the early 1960s, though it may be slightly earlier judging from the radios and the one solitary TV set on show in the right hand window. The style of that set shows us that we're well into the Granada TV era (we refuse to use the boring, generic 'ITV' label) and those windows are a perfect time-capsule of what look, at first glance, like TV and radio trade names of the past. But, strange to say, all three of the names represented here - Bush, Pye and His Masters Voice - are still in business and their trade marks still used, albeit in modified form.

The most evocative, of course is 'His Master's Voice', now masquerading as 'HMV' with a barely recognisable dog and gramophone graphic derived from the original oil painting by Francis Barraud

The dog, as any trivia fan worth his salt will know, was called Nipper. You'll note that, back in  Harry Jackson's day, the Gramophone Company Ltd was still using reproductions of the original painting and the full 'His Master's Voice' title. And so they should.

The painting and trademark was also used by RCA (Radio Corporation of America) which, under the name RCA Victor had a reciprocal arrangement with His Master's Voice to release British records in the USA and vice versa.

And the RCA Victor company in turn had an offshoot in Japan - the Japanese Victor Company, which was the origin of the well-known and still thriving Japanese electronics firm JVC. Such are the convoluted connections and interweavings of the electronics industry.

Any Middlewich resident of a certain age will recognise Whiston's distinctive house style in the shop name and the fine shaded lettering used for the words Radio & TV and Cycles.
Whoever did the sign-writing was a master of the art.
Harry, of course, fits into the scene with his usual style and panache.

Facebook feedback:

Geraldine Williams I see in the later view of Whiston's the sign which you admire so much has gone and been replaced by a more modern (and boring) sign which incorporates the MOT logo. This building was also the Whiston family home and had an entrance door round the side.

Dave Roberts Yes, the whole place ended up festooned with FORD dealership signs and lost its quirky individuality. I hate bland corporate images like that. 'ITV' in case you haven't noticed, is one of my least favourites. An excellent regional TV network wrecked in pursuit of profit.