UK Cable TV in the days before Sky and BSB

I used to work for REDIFFUSION CABLEVISION in the mid 80s in the Bristol area.
Channels available were
TEN - THE MOVIE CHANNEL, then chaged to MirrorVision then Premiere.
MUSIC BOX then changed to SUPER CHANNEL
THE CHILDRENS CHANNEL
SCREEN SPORT
SKY CHANNEL

Then later along came
LIFESTYLE
THE ARTS CHANNEL
and a few more.

I used to devote a website to Rediffusion Cablevision, but had to stop due to lack of spare time.
I still have all the old TV GUIDES for this service plus about 3 hours of video WITH all the logos, startups an closedowns for all these defunct channels.

I always remember that we had to press a switch everyday at 3pm just as THE CHILDRENS CHANNEL stopped broadcasting. If we forgot, or were a little late in pressing this button then instad of viewers seeing a rolling REDIFFUSION CABLEVISION announcements etc, viewers were treated to the start of PREMIERE THE MOVIE CHANNEL as that what was on that particular satellite after THE CHILRENS CHANNEL ended!!
I even have video to prove this on occassions that we were late in the switch!

Happy days!

Also if anyone is interested I have lots of old recordings of SWINDON CABLE and STARVIEW CABLE TV, and am willing to swap or trade anything of related value.

Ed Hearn
wsmspar@hotmail.com

Hi Ed

If you chose to automatically sign up to Metropol (this site's sister site for general discussion) when you registered here, you can avail yourself of our upload facility. I'm sure there are many people who would enjoy your clips, myself included.

If you didn't check the automatic registration box, feel free to sign up at metropol247.co.uk - the upload service is free and with no limit to the amount of files you'd care to share.

That's if you'd like to, of course

oh that automatic thing broke months ago, really should fix it one of these days.

but yes, sign up ahoy, would be facinating to see.

It did?

If I had half-moon spectacles I'd be peering over them.

Midlands Cable covered the Black Country didn't it?

It did from Merry Hell ! It later became 'Telewest' & later merged with Birmingham Cable.

(Speaking as a former subscriber from 95 to 01)

I had no idea the Black Country was covered by cable form Merry Hill back then - I wonder how many people across the Black Country region had cable?

We had the first cable network in England in Gloucester in 1950. It was run by British Relay, and was still running in the early 1980's when we had our first house. I remember in 1981 having a small box with 4 buttons for BBC West, HTV West, BBC2, and Channel 4; the box connected to the TV with a type of coaxial cable. The British Relay shop in Barton Street had two big arrays of 4 high-masted "criss-cross" UHF aerials pointing towards Bristol (i.e. the Mendip transmitter). Previously when we had VHF on the cable system in the city, I think the receiving aerials were on Robinswood Hill overlooking the city. The signal was not sent underground (like Virgin Cable do today) in the British Relay system, but ran along the top of house walls underneath the gutters.

ah, British Relay, I've heard of them..
back in the days when VCRs were the size of a room, Glasgow Corporation Education Department (as was) installed a coax system around the city, so they could show videos in many schools simultaneously. It also took in some of the University's buildings. By the 80s, it had become obsolete - so the uni's student tv station bought the network for the princely sum of one pound. I think bits of it are still just about in use today...