NOSTALGIA: TV sets with no remote! How on earth did we cope?
The building with the portico on the right was once the town hall and later became the city museum. It was damaged during the blitz on the city in the Second World War and later demolished.
Where the blue shop blind can be seen is the corner of Pembroke Road and just this side of it the Dolphin Hotel which, as we know, is still trading to this day.
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Hide AdIn the far distance would be the George Hotel where Lord Nelson spent his last hours before leaving for Trafalgar.
The tram would have been horse-drawn so we can date the photograph to not later than 1903.
'¢Â Do you remember when having a radiogram made you the envy of your neighbours?
These fine pieces of furniture really were the thing to be had in your front room, even better if it was a stereogram. Imagine, music emanating from two speakers!
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Hide AdThese were of course the upmarket versions of the old gramophone which our grandparents might have had several decades before.
The version in the centre of the photograph with the lifted lid is just like the one in our house in the mid-1960s. LPs and 45rpm singles could be stored in the sides where the lids lifted as well.
In the background is something younger generations would find archaic if not barbaric '“ a television without a remote control.
This meant you had to actually get out of your chair and walk across the room to change channels. Mind you, there were only three to choose from, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, not the hundreds available today.
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Hide AdThe furniture here was made at the ULTRA factory in Gosport and comes from the booklet Memories of ULTRA.
'¢Â And so to the picture of the houses. Seen some time at the turn of the last century this is Trevis Road, Portsmouth, when the far end of Locksway Road, Milton, was being developed. This block of terraced houses was built on land to the north of the Portsmouth-Arundel canal. Since then of course, the other side of the road has been developed.
'¢Â If anyone today saw a Portsmouth bus with its destination board stating '˜Floating Bridge' I am sure they would imagine some magnificent structure.
It was, of course, simply the vessel that carried cars and lorries from Point, Old Portsmouth, across the harbour to Gosport. When the '˜bridge' ceased to run in 1959 the bus destination changed to Point.