‘At 6pm every evening the screen went blank’: the outlandish tale of the UK’s TV blackout

It's 65 years today since television sets had to stop broadcasting to allow parents to put children to bed. How did it ever seem like a good idea?

In 1953, when Norma Young was seven, her family became the first in their Glasgow tenement to get a TV set. It was a big deal - the Youngs had had to choose between a car or a TV. They opted for a 14in Ekco TV as deep as it was wide - and Norma was opened up to the world of The Woodentops and Andy Pandy, two shows that rapidly became her favourites. But at 6pm every evening the screen went blank, and Norma's viewing was at an end.

This wasn't her parents regulating her TV time - it was the state. Abolished 65 years ago on Wednesday, the break in programming between 6pm and 7pm every night was a government policy, known colloquially as the toddlers' truce.