It's all black and white on the night for TV fan

Colour television transformed World Cup watching 40 years ago but vintage fan Ian Kennedy will be turning back the clock to watch the 2010 tournament in good old-fashioned black and white.

The Black Country welder is one of 100 householders in the city who still have black and white tellies, according to TV licensing chiefs.

More than 50 homes in Walsall and 30 in Dudley also still have black and white sets. For 44-year-old Ian, monochrome TV is a passion.

He has four old boxes set up in various rooms of his semi-detached home in Wolverhampton with another 30 in the attic that he bought on eBay.

He and partner Dawn Millington, who shares his obsession, got rid of their colour TV two years ago.

Not only do they get a better picture on their black and white, he insists, but they enjoy wallowing in an era when British manufacturing was at its height.

"I don't actually watch much telly these days because people like Bob Monkhouse and the Two Ronnies aren't on any more," continued Ian, of Southbourne Road in Fordhouses.

"But I'll get our 1950 Bush TV warmed up to watch the news in the evening and maybe Casualty. It gives a cosier feel to a room - the picture is much crisper, very vivid, and it sounds better, too.

"A beautifully-polished wooden telly with Bakelite knobs and cloth over the speakers beats a modern plastic set any day. Modern TVs are a disposable item, you can't really repair them."

All Ian's TVs were made in England.

"We made the best televisions, radios and cars before the industry went downhill," said Ian, who also has seven classic cars.

His love of old TVs goes back to his childhood. He continued: "My mother tells me as a toddler I spent more time behind the television, peering at the valves through the ventilation slots, than I did in front of it.

"I can still smell that distinct scent of the heated workings at the back."

Then, at Valley Infants School in his home town of Hednesford, the teachers gave him and a couple of friends a pair of pliers and let them play with an old television set. "We'd sit there and cut up valves," he said.

"It wouldn't happen now, of course, health and safety wouldn't allow it, but I was hooked."

Fortunately Ian, who repairs vintage TVs as a hobby, is not a huge fan of football, as the problem of distinguishing which team is which in black and white is one of the downsides of yesteryear technology.

"I suppose I'm stuck in a bit of a time warp but it's a good place to be," he added. TV Licensing revealed this week that some 25,000 households may watch the World Cup in black and white. It says that 1,200 in Birmingham and almost 5,000 homes in London own black and white licences.

This may be because the monochrome licence costs £49 as opposed to £145.50 for the colour version, but Iain Baird, curator of TV at the National Media Museum and grandson of John Logie Baird, who invented television, suspects nostalgia plays a part.

"There's a real family connection to watching in black and white," he said.

* Do you still watch the box on a black and white set? Call our reporters on 01902 319426 or email wolverhampton@expressandstar.co.uk

By Marion Brennan