Flatscreen You dialled 888 on your remote controller and lo and behold, words appeared in a black strip beneath the picture, spelling out what the actors were saying; and if you were slightly deaf like my Mum and liked watching films it was a great help.
Only then my Mum got a video recorder, and recorded those films, because they were on late at night and what she really enjoyed was sitting in front of the fire and telly and watching them during long winter afternoons - which, let's face it, is one of the great secret pleasures in life, and one that you don't have to feel guilty about when you feel in need of a comfort day. Trouble was, when she recorded those late-night films on her video recorder, lo and behold (or rather not behold), the subtitles wouldn't record on it. You cannot record Teletext subtitles in any easy way. Without words, half the pleasure of those afternoons was lost.
That was in the old days - oh, three years ago now I think, so we are talking pre-history as far as technology goes. There was no way that my Mum was going to pay for Sky or cable, or satellite; but she did catch up with something called Freeview. A little box on top of the telly costs all of £25 and, as long as your aerial is quite good, you can get dozens of extra channels, some showing films, and the better ones showing films with subtitling. She didn't realise it - she got her Freeview for the extra channels - but what she was actually getting was digital television thrown in. It is different from analogue, and the subtitles work on a quite different system: not through Teletext and dialing 888 at all, but just by pressing a button marked 'subtitles' on your new Freeview box remote. They tend to be smarter, easier to read, and rather quicker to appear as well.
And the subtitles on digital television can be recorded at will. More or less any recording system - even the now old-fashioned video recorders - will capture them. Modern recording machines (they call them Personal Video Recorders) don't bother with video tape: they record onto hard drive instead. Posh ones, like the Humax PVR9200T, let you dispense with the Freeview box altogether and have twin tuners that will let you record say, Coronation Street with subtitles, while you are watching EastEnders, with subtitles, on the other channel. (Or, in my mother's case, In Which We Serve, with John Mills and subtitles, while you are watching Some Like It Hot, with Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, also with subtitles).
You may picture the scene. The wind is howling outside, the fire is on, and Jack Lemmon utters his immortal last line ‘Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! I'm a man!’ - which words appear on the screen, clearly and legibly, at about the same time, more or less, as he is speaking them. Heaven, provided by technology.
* Humax PVR9200T, available from Connevans, www.connevans.com, who have many aids for the hard of hearing, £189 VAT. Also from high street stores such as Currys.