So many choices, so many programmes I didn’t see. I remember little about television from when I was a child, and have had to duck out of countless conversations: Dangermouse or Top Cat? Bill and Ben or Mary, Mungo and Midge?

I can remember programmes which I never enjoyed all that much: Doctor Who (too scary, and I didn’t understand it), The Muppets (annoying frog, silly pig), Rhubarb and Custard – pink cat and yellow dog? Or vice versa? Who cared? Even at the age of 5 I knew that was rubbish. Still watched it, though.

Captain Pugwash was violent and rough, The Magic Roundabout baffling. Blue Peter? Too worthy, too much sticking of things, although I liked the part where the garden got trashed. That silly programme where the man in a plane chased a dog who chased a pigeon. Now what was that about? I came across it again in the United States recently: Dastardly and Mutley. “Stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon” – it plunged me straight back into uncomfortable afternoons squatting on the floor (a sort of puritanism dictated that television should never be comfortable in our house).

And that mostly sums up my childhood viewing experiences: if it wasn’t absolutely obvious what it was, and not frightening, I wasn’t really seeing it, even if I was technically watching it. The world seemed a sufficiently confusing place without it being confused further by television.

So I liked the programme where they read you a story, Jackanory – that was clear. I liked The Wombles, although I’m not sure whether that’s because I liked the programme or because we went to an optician in Wimbledon, so I could keep an eye out for Uncle Bulgaria there.

I liked Basil Brush, because my first boyfriend, Misha, and I, aged 6, managed to get ourselves handcuffed together at his house and fall off the sofa on top of one another when the fox fell off the sofa laughing.

And I loved Grange Hill – all those kids beating one another up and disrespecting their teachers. Coming home from my strict convent school where the girls actually curtsied to the nuns, Grange Hill seemed to offer a glimpse into what the rest of the world was like, the world which occasionally flashed at me on the streets when my skateboard was nicked by the local boys. The streetwise Tucker, and Trish, and Benny, and McClusky: these were characters showing me the real world, where kids bunked off school and stood on tables.

Which brings me to the really embarrassing bit, after which my colleagues may never speak to me again. Even as a child I didn’t admit to liking this one. But it keeps coming back to me, the music pulsing in from somewhere in my outer consciousness, calling: John Craven’s Newsround – everything going on Out There. Now there was something worth watching: actual, real stuff, for a child to dream about.

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