Television came to Newfoundland in September of 1955. Everyone in our school in St. John’s was talking about it. It changed everything. My introduction to television in our west end home would come later for me because we didn’t have a television for the same reason we didn’t have a car. We didn’t have the money. My dad worked on Water Street for a weekly salary of forty-eight dollars.

Just down the road from us on Pleasant Street where Atlantic Avenue branched off there was a man who lived there named Pat Wadden. He was in the early business of TV repair. That usually in those salad days of TV meant mostly replacing vacuum tubes. I don’t think there is so much TV repair these days. When it breaks down you fire the old set out the door and get a new one. These days if you talk to people about vacuum tubes, they may not know what you are talking about at all. Pat Wadden had a television. It was the first in our neighbourhood.

The first place I actually saw a working television is a good neighbourhood tale. The Great Eastern Oil was an old Newfoundland Water Street company that among other thing sold television sets. Obviously, they must have sold stove oil as well, but I am not familiar with their “articles of incorporation.” When I was putting together Afterwords Bookstore our “articles of incorporation’’ included the right to be ship’s chandlers. That means that besides selling books we could also supply ships in the St. John’s harbour. That is what chandlers do.

The Great Easter Oil Company on Water Street put a television set in their showroom window and had an outdoor speaker. It attracted attention. It attracted me. In the evenings sometimes I would make my way down Pleasant Street into the “harder” part of town. I would walk east up New Gower past places like The Belmont Tavern and Mammy Goss’s Tavern. Then I would turn down Waldegrave Street to Water Street. There I would watch television at the Great Eastern Oil. I would have been around eleven years old.

There would be a small crowd watching TV through the window at Great Eastern. I remember a lot of the watchers were Portuguese fishermen from the famous white fleet that came to St. John’s Harbour for refuge from the storm of the Atlantic or for supplies. *See above ‘ships chandlers’ * There would also be a few children like me. I stood among them and watched that miracle of the 1950s, television.
I can’t for certain name a television show I saw in front of Great Eastern Oil, but I can guess that I Love Lucy or The Millionaire or Ed Sullivan was on the list. Maybe December Bride or China Smith or Seven League Boots were part of the lineup.

A final note on this tale of my introduction to television. My dad, who sold shoes for a living at Parkers West End store was something of an unofficial translator of Portuguese. When fishermen came in for shoes they went to dad. We even had a Portuguese /English dictionary in our home. I’ll bet you have never seen one of those.

Once dad and I were even down by invitation on board the Portuguese hospital ship of the fleet the Gil Eannes for supper. I don’t know if that is why I felt comfortable watching TV through a store window on Water Street with a bunch of fishermen speaking a strange language. There is nobody left to ask. All the people are gone. The white fleet is gone. The Great Eastern Oil is gone. Television remains.

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]