TV ads are not what they used to be

SORRY, but does anyone else agree with me that some TV adverts have gone too far?

- JUDI SPIERS

It was 70 years ago, on September 22, 1955, at 7.15pm, that a new era in British broad-casting began when Associated-Rediffusion, the franchise responsible for London’s weekday broadcasts, launched the UK’s first commercial television network.

At last, we were offered an alternative ending the BBC’s monopoly. Less than an hour later, we saw our first-ever advert - for Gibbs SR toothpaste. This was no ordinary toothpaste. Oh no, it offered us “the tingling fresh toothpaste that does your gums good”.

We had to wait until 1969 for the first colour commercial, which invited us to “Come Home to BirdsEye country” and featured a beautiful little girl wandering through the fields, picking peas. Not Patsy Kensit. She came four years later, when BirdsEye decided their peas were “fresh as the moment when the pod went pop!”