[Robert Grant]

British channel 14 (which, I now gather, may have never actually been used) was VHF-High, directly above their channel 13 (all of their channels were totally different from those in the USA, the audio was AM, 3.5 mc below the video, channels 1 and 2 were both below our channel 2, and their channels 3, 4 and 5 were all below 70 mc).

Britain never officially used UHF for 405 line transmissions.

Britain did what could be called an "analog transition" in the 1960's, with new 625-line FM audio transmitters entirely on UHF. The first transmitters were for the new BBC 2 service, then later ones for the existing BBC 1 and ITV services in PAL colour, 625 line, again all on UHF. For a decade and a half, BBC 1 and ITV ran two separate networks of TV transmitters - VHF 405 line monochrome for people with existing/old sets, and UHF 625 line colour for newer sets (for a brief time, there were dual-standard sets like the one shown in the aforementioned movie).

If your set was a 405 line and you did not purchase a new TV set by the beginning of 1985, you lost your access to TV. (There was no converter box subsidy scheme. The electronics were more expensive back then, retailers made no effort to keep UHF sets out of the marketplace, and the transition period was much longer, so nearly everyone had a UHF 625 line set by 1984).

As a side note, the Brits may deserve credit for inventing another icon of our digital transition, the virtual channel.

From some point in the 1970's onward, most UK sets, now UHF only, were equipped with four push buttons instead of a dial. The actual tuning of the four presets was only done as a setup, after which one just pressed a button for the desired channel, 1 (BBC 1), 2 (BBC 2), 3 (Local ITV franchisee) or 4 (4, which only arrived in 1982) (Those of us in The States who used a VCR before the mid 1980's may get the idea). So, the viewer of Tyne Tees TV in Newcastle and the bloke watching Thames in London both thought they were simply watching Channel 3, and had no idea one was actually tuned to channel 61, and the other to 23.