FOR many life was black and white for a long time.

This month (April) marks the 50th anniversary of colour televisions being made in Bradford. No doubt firms couldn't make them fast enough as the popularity of watching the small screen at home began to become more affordable.

But Jean Walker, Bradford's pensioner's champion, recalls a time when having a television in your home was a novelty.

It was 1953 when the then 21-year-old Jean recalls accompanying her late father, Frank Scott, to purchase their television, a 12 inch black and white Murphy from Scurrah's, an electrical store in Bradford.

"I can remember going to Scurrah's at Bankfoot and how exciting it was to see all those TVs sitting in the showroom. It was like a child in a sweetshop," recalls Jean.

At the time Jean's parents, Frank and her mum Lily were running the Waggon and Horses at the bottom of Newton Street, Manchester Road. They purchased the Bakelite television to relax after pulling pints for the punters.

"With us having a pub everyone was asking Mum and Dad about televisions. They couldn't go out on a night because they had to stay together in the pub so they bought one of the earlier ones in a Bakelite case. It was called a Murphy and it had a 12 inch screen," reminisces Jean.

She recalls how her parents became popular when people discovered they had a television.

When Jean married, her father gave her the Murphy TV she had helped him to choose for her new home in Wrose.

"We were inundated with friends coming to watch TV!" laughs Jean.

But it was only returning the favour as years earlier, as a young girl and before her own parents had been able to afford to buy a television themselves, she recalls watching a Royal programme about the Queen at a neighbour's home.

"We used to get in anywhere we could when we didn't have a TV."

Jean recalls it was a big thing for families to own a TV as many rented initially because the cost of owning your own was too prohibitive at a time when incomes were so low.

She also remembers going to one of her mother-in-law's neighbours on a Saturday night to watch popular programmes such as 'What's My Line' presented by the late Eamonn Andrews.

"I can't remember colour at all - I think my most interesting memory is the fact we had a TV and it was black and white," says Jean.

While many were involved in the development of the television, the name synonymous with the invention of the entertainment box now commonplace in the majority of households is John Logie Baird.

The Scottish engineer and inventor demonstrated the first working TV system on January 26 1926 and in 1928 The Baird Television Development Company achieved the first transatlantic television transmission.

His grandson, Iain Logie Baird, a former curator of television at the National Science and Media Museum, recalls in his blog post the emergence of colour televisions in British homes began in the late Sixties.

He explains how larger screens, sharper images and colour meant audiences experienced a greater realism while viewing and an enhanced sense of 'being there.'

Iain recalls programmers seeking to attract their new audience with brightly-coloured programmes such as 'The Avengers,' 'Z Cars,' 'Dad's Army' and 'The Prisoner.'

However, as the change was gradual and difficult to recognise initially, many households didn't invest in colour sets straight away.

"Not helping things was the fact that for several years so many programmes were still only available in black and white."

Colour television was first demonstrated publicly by John Logie Baird on July 3 1928. The technology was electro-mechanical, and the early test subject was a basket of strawberries.

A month later the same demonstration was given to a mostly academic audience attending a British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Glasgow.

During the mid-late 1930s, Baird returned to his colour television research, developing some of the world's first colour television systems, most of which used cathode-ray tubes.

Iain explains the world's first proper colour television began in the USA. In Britain several successful colour television tests were carried out, but it would take many more years for a public service to become viable here due to post-war austerity and uncertainty about the best colour television system for Britain to adopt and when.

BBC2 launched Europe's first colour service with the Wimbledon tennis championships in July 1967.

On November 15 1969, colour broadcasting went live on the remaining two channels, BBC1 and ITV.

Colour TV licences were introduced on January 1 1968 costing £10 - twice the price of the standard £5 black and white TV licence.

Despite the popularity, and perhaps novelty of colour television when it was initially introduced, colour TV sets didn't eclipse black and white sets until 1976 - predominantly due to the high price of earlier colour sets.

Interestingly, Bradford was also busy contributing to the colour TV boom. In February 1967 the T&A reported that Baird Television Ltd, of Beckside Road, Legrams Lane, had been producing experimental sets since January.

By April that year the firm's managing director told how the company was making 200 sets a week in Bradford. It was also working in close co-operation with the BBC and had shown colour programmes at the Ideal Home exhibition in London.

Summing up her own experience of the introduction of colour TV, Jean concludes: "When they brought colour in it was exciting, but it was also like the future coming before you, like how we had progressed."