Most of us will be familiar with the iconic ‘test card’ that features a child playing a game of noughts and crosses with a puppet clown named Bubbles.
Placed inside a series of colours and rigid squares, the picture became known as Test Card F, as well as J, W and X. A technicolour frame, the picture was regularly plaid when there was no programmes being broadcast live on-air.
The girl in the photo was Carole Hersee, aged 8 at the time the picture was taken. The picture she starred in was by far one of the most well-known images in the world, making Carole the person with the longest-running screen time in British TV history.
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But since then, Carole has grown up and now looks completely unrecognisable to her former self. Carole, now aged 64, is now the proud owner of the title of the person with the most airplay in the country, with a massive 70,000 hours of screen time under her belt – the equivalent of eight continuous years of being on the airwaves.
(Image: PA)
And Hersee has continued to stay in the limelight, even since the Test Cards were eventually pulled from the air in 1998, with the arrival of 24-hour programming. In 2022, Carole appeared on the BBC’s hit panel show QI to talk about her time on the set.
Surrey-born Carole became the centrepiece for the iconic picture after her father, an engineer at the station, brought her in to the studio. She was paid £100 for her time, but few would know how legendary the picture would go on to be.
As a teenager, Hersee then was inundated with fan mail as she was regularly put in contact with media outlets. However, uncomfortable at the level of fame she had attained, she regularly denied the chance to be interviewed.
Speaking to host Sandi Toksvig, Carole explained that her good pal Bubbles was a labour of love for her, as she had made the toy herself. “He was a kit and I made him,” she explained.
(Image: PA)
When Danish presenter Sandi asked about her father George’s role at the BBC, she said that his job was to design the iconic test cards. “It was just decided that a child would be better than an adult because there’d be no fashion, no make-up to worry about,” she added.
Continuing on, she said: “And it just happened to be that dad had sent him some pictures of my sister and I, and the committee decided, ‘well, we might as well stick with his children’.” But despite her record-breaking time on-air, she has no award to signify this.
When Sandi asked whether she had been given a Guinness World Record, she said she had not. When asked why, Carole quipped: “Because it’s not something that’s achievable to be beaten.”
(Image: REX/Shutterstock)
Since her small stint, Carole has kept her head down, preferring to stay out of the limelight – for good reason, as she admitted she does not feel the need to have more screen time. Instead, she is now a costume designer for a theatre company, working on West End productions as well as Hollywood blockbusters including Flash Gordon.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
