Malvern's Hazel Sherlock was among the guests this week at a party marking the 50th birthday of ITV.

Hazel, who worked on the very first broadcast by Associated Rediffusion in September 1955,

met up with former colleagues in London yesterday (Thursday).

Recalling the those early days and some of the people she met, she said: "Television was very different back then. It was all so new and we felt privileged to be involved."

Hazel, 73, worked as a production assistant and remembers what a mixed lot her colleagues were, from public schoolboys and theatre types to experienced cameramen and producers poached from the BBC.

"I'm sure some people just bluffed their way in. Television was so new, there just weren't that many people with experience around," she said.

Hazel had secretarial skills and had worked as an assistant stage manager in the theatre before becoming secretary, then production assistant with the new TV company in 1955.

"It was an exciting time but it could be quite hectic because everything was live. There was no video tape, so you couldn't make mistakes."

Hazel remembers people going rigid with fear on air and unofficially her job could involve anything from going shopping for the right kind of coffee for Orson Wells, calming an excitable Spike Milligan to coaxing a tearful and temperamental American actress out of the toilet.

She remembers working on a daytime magazine programme for women and the shock when a lady discussing deportment and posture used the words "bottoms and bosoms" live on air.

She also worked with people no-one had ever heard of at the time, like Rolf Harris.

"A nice man in a battered little Morris full of musical instruments," she recalled.

Working on plays by unknown playwrights like Harold Pinter was another part of her job.

One guest in those early days was the famous and diminutive British missionary Gladys Alward.

"She couldn't understand why Ingrid Bergman, a beautiful, tall blonde, had been cast as her in the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness," said Hazel.

Hazel remembers the enthusiasm of everyone involved with ITV in the 1950s.

"The BBC regarded us with contempt because so many of us weren't properly trained, but it was an amazing time. Half of London wanted the jobs we had," she said.

Hazel left television after starting a family, but said she would not have missed those early years for anything.