John Brown of Kianga “can remember my brothers getting a Lan-Choo [C8] rugby ball with 450 packet ends. They kept countless people, with 50 packet ends for tea towels, waiting impatiently while they were counted. They collected them from friends and family. There was a rumour that you could get a car if you had enough, but that might’ve been a story for a gullible 10-year-old.” Or that might’ve been a Matchbox car. It seems the Brits got better value, as Susan Bradley of Eltham (Vic) can attest: “Without wishing to one-up Lan-Choo tea rewards, I’m still using a meat mincer redeemed in approximately 1969 from Guards Gift Parade. Guards as in Guards cigarettes. The mincer is as good as new. And I believe the heavy steel ironing board that I still use was redeemed in 1968 with Green Shield stamps. Yes, we even brought the ironing board when we emigrated.” While Deni McKenzie of Armidale says, “the first time I watched colour TV [C8], I was shocked at Richard Morecroft’s choice of tie!“, the experience of Col Burns of Lugarno was even more shattering: “My first colour TV experience was wasted watching St George lose the 1975 Grand Final 38 to nil. To this day, I have only monochrome memories of Graeme Langlands’ outrageous (for the era) white boots and a consuming black mood that lasted for days.” “My grandson, born in the Philippines, was used to TV programs dubbed in Tagalog,” says Barry Riley of Woy Woy. “Soon after moving to Sydney, he rushed up to his mother, shouting ‘Mummy, the Teletubbies can speak English!’” “In February, 1977, I had my first trip to the UK,” writes John Loveridge of Tewantin (Qld). “After watching shows like Coronation Street on a black-and-white TV, I fully expected London to look like that. It was winter, it was dreary, and it did.”