I used to hate Carole Hersee in the 1970s.  I couldn’t stand it every time she would appear on the TV.  And she was on such a lot.  Practically all the time some days.  I hated her long, golden hair; and I hated her pretty, simpering smile; and her annoying clown, Bubbles.

Of course, at the time, I didn’t know her name was Carole Hersee.  I only knew her as the face of the BBC Test Card.

What the BBC Test Card represented for me was my favourite TV programmes off air and, at a time when transmission was prone to more technical glitches than it is today, this was a fairly regular occurrence, and so out would be wheeled Carole, still smiling away, accompanied by a whiny background sound of static interference, until such time as normal service was resumed.

On the very few occasions that I tuned to BBC2, Carole appeared an almost constant fixture; her omnipresence only broken by the occasional intrusion of something even worse: a programme from the Open University.

© Beery Sue

Berry Sue reckons there’s not much to this Test Card gig.