As I'm doing mundane stuff around the house and in the garden I spend a whole load of my time trying to think of obscure nuggets of things that I remember from when I was little.
Not the most obvious stuff... that just doesn't have it (whatever "it" is). But the leftfield stuff which we've probably all almost forgotten about...
That's the stuff that triggers the "oh yes, I remember that" reaction which is solid gold.
I was thinking about television, as I frequently do.
Saturdays.
Swap Shop and Tiswas...
Grandstand and Dickie Davis (with his silver hair streak) on World of Sport...
Followed by the Wrestling (always made me giggle how worked up the people in the front row became when Mick McManus (a baddie) did something naughty behind the "referee" in the stipey shirt's back , especially the 1970s aunties with their handbags and Dick Emery glasses)...
Basil Brush + this week's sidekick (he went through loads of them)...
Doctor Who (Jon Pertwee... super scary... still gives me the shivers)...
And then, my topic for today.
A genre of television programme and films that we just couldn't escape back in the 1970s. But which is about as common as rocking horse whatsit today...
Whatever happened to Westerns? They were everywhere...
Every Saturday seemed to have an episode of the Virginian. Ring any bells?
I'm not going to cheat by looking it up on Google (that's cheating) but I remember a character called Trampas (quite why I remember that I don't know, or the fact that he was played by Doug McClure who looked like Alan Tracy - who piloted Thunderbird 3) and that the Virginian (whoever he was) seemed to always wear black (like Garry Player the golfer), Sketchy memories, as you can tell, but it was always, always on...
And then "Saturday Night at the Movies".
Would it be a war film? They showed a lot of those too back then.
That, for me, was probably the least worst option. Because if it wasn't a war film it would invariably be...
John Wayne...
in another flipping Western!
Had the BBC just bought a job lot of the things? Or have tastes changed completely?
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As I'm doing mundane stuff around the house and in the garden I spend a whole load of my time trying to think of obscure nuggets of things that I remember from when I was little. 
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