TNPV 66 GRAND FINAL! [LIVE] (under construction)

July 2nd On This Day 1967 When a girl and a clown ruled the airwaves.

With the advent of colour television, the most iconic of images - The Test Card - is seen on our screens for the first time.

The brilliant thing about the test card was its unflinching dependability.

Flick on daytime BBC2 back in the 1970's and you knew what you were getting.

It was a reflection of simpler times when our screens were not filled with round-the-clock magazine programmes, but the more wholesome spectacle of a young girl playing noughts and crosses on a blackboard.

With a toy clown.

That border of confusing patterns and meaningless lines; the girl's cold, pretty eyes; the carnival clown's sinister smile; the macabre, master-and-servant dynamic the couple seemed to share.

The #testcard was designed by BBC engineer George Hersee to enable the transition to colour broadcasting.

Fusing his technical expertise with a surreal imagination, he conjured the idea of photographing his eight-year-old daughter, Carole, embroiled in a futile puzzle match against an inanimate toy.

The toy - 'Bubbles' - belonged to Carole but was re-clothed by her father so that its colour scheme would fit in with his technical requirements.

Carole's image was used on a daily basis until 1998 and she can make claim to have had more screen time – around 70,000 hours – than anyone else in British TV history.

Eventually, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of Records as having appeared on more television screens around the world than any other individual.