Some people will remember these, before huge flat screen TVs, before TV remote controls, even before colour TV. I give you the cathode ray tube, where an electron gun shot rays at a flourescing front screen in lines and the picture appeared on its surface. The ‘tube’ was a conical shape with a square flat front. It was a vacuum tube so if it broke it would implode as air got in….

People employed TV repairmen to come out if it stopped working (replacing valves or solid state electronics? I’m not sure.) Gradually things changed until TVs changed shape and now use liquid crystal displays.

When ours went on the blink we found hitting it just above the on off switch with a hairbrush got it to work. Apparently the electric connection in the switch burns away slowly so the contacts were seperated, hitting it knocked them back together. Probably not safe!