For some, these events have undoubtedly become as much a high point in the TV calendar as the double issue Christmas Radio Times or the return of Blue Peter from its Summer Expedition. This was the third time BBC Parliament had used the occasion of the party conference season to turn over its weekend to an unfettered slab of glorious telly history, and as ever it didn’t disappoint. Viewers were able to re-live minute by minute the return match of precisely what the channel broadcast 12 months ago: the same faces, the same issues, and no less grave an atmosphere. If anything things seemed to have got worse, judging by the way Alastair announced, “this is an hour of greatest importance to our country – our futures depend on it.”

Despite reports, the Beeb kept the scenery from the February Election ’74 in storage ready for a speedy return to the hustings, what we got here was a somewhat re-modelled set, albeit decked out in grey tones and operating on the usual vast number of different levels and platforms. There were nicely British Telecom-esque fonts everywhere, Bob had an entire wall of charts to play with (though his swingometer was again relegated to the status of a half-hearted deskbound toy) while Robin had been awarded perhaps his largest “pod” to date: nothing less than an entire flank of the studio, shamelessly constructed higher up than everybody else, blessed with its own staff in the shape of a silhouetted long-haired woman who shuffled papers mysteriously. Alastair helmed everything in front of a giant scoreboard, with David on his left and Bob on his right. Brilliantly, each had their own bank of black and white monitors.

The long wait for the first result afforded plenty of opportunity for our hosts to set out their stall. For Alastair this meant an obsession with checking his watch but never telling us the time, and referring to the election as if it were a horse race, repeatedly talking about “form”, checking the latest from the bookies (“You have to put five pounds down to win one pound”) or handing over to Julian Wilson at William Hill for the odds. While this was initially mildly diverting, the business with the watch quickly became irritating, especially as Alastair continued to do it right through the night and the following morning, as if he couldn’t wait to be somewhere else and was thoroughly sick of how long it was all taking. The talk about betting was then later taken up by Robin who joked with Ian Mikardo MP about running “the worst odds in the business” and even offered union boss Clive Jenkins “three to one in favour of our staying in the Common Market.”

Away from the studio, a battery of reporters were perched on assorted balconies overlooking assembly halls around the country. Esther Rantzen waited at Guildford for the “nimble and dexterous” counters to ensure they were the first to declare. Michael Charlton, our “indicator” in Huyton as Alastair put it, brought news of Harold Wilson’s red rosette “glowing like a traffic light”. Some, like Philip Tibenham in Lincoln and Jake Kelly in Blyth, were still in black and white, a reminder of how all the Beeb’s colour cameras were deployed in areas presumably deemed more important. One of them was in Trafalgar Square, where we found, as usual, Desmond Wilcox, “as much a part of the scene as Nelson and the lions,” claimed Alastair. “Very funny,” Desmond sniffed, recalling how in February the power cuts had meant the place was in darkness. “At least we can now see how uncomfortable we are.” 40 seconds later he was gone, and bizarrely we never saw him again. His future missus, however, still had far more to say. Guildford was now “getting a bit hot … suspense-full and perspiring.”

One other character completed the line-up: ERIC, the resident results processing machine, which, with “staggering” speed, prepared on-screen breakdowns of declarations in 45 seconds. To prove this, a very glossy short film fronted by Sue Lawley followed ERIC, or Electronic Results Instant Computer, on a test run. “There’s no time for hellos,” underlined Sue as an assistant took a call from a reporter, read out some numbers and “another girl called a runner” found the relevant paperwork. The clock ticked, fantastic tension-building music played, and sure enough the result was on screen within the deadline, at which point we saw Tam Fry, the results editor, blowing Sue a kiss.

ERIC more than deserved such a build up, as when the results did start coming in there were no major gaffes, delays or technical breakdowns. Instead it would be the prediction, rather than the presentation, of information that became the team’s bugbear. “I think it’s a good idea that we keep it open,” muttered Alastair pointlessly, before moaning about how Bernard Levin had criticised him for saying “it’s all to play for” too much during the February transmission. He then asked Bob to explain “differential floatback.” Unsurprisingly it was ERIC, not Alastair, who was being namechecked when we glimpsed foreign journalists transmitting to their own countries.

Guildford won the race to declare, with Esther suitably agog: “We are the first!” Julian Pettifer seemed less confident about things in Cheltenham, conceding it had been a Tory seat “as far back as I’ve been able to check,” while Brian Ash was more preoccupied by the “nubile young ladies carrying bits of paper” around the Wolverhampton count. The familiar collection of befuddled returning officers began to struggle in the heat of the moment, one barking into his microphone “Is this working? Come over here. Can I have quiet please? Quiet please!” and another protesting, “Can I have a little bit of order … oooh, wait a minute!” A very young-looking Margaret Jackson (later Beckett) won a monochrome Lincoln, and Brian Walden was announced the victor of Birmingham Ladywood to a room full of people chatting.

By now the talk in the studio couldn’t avoid the reality that, as Bob observed, smiling to himself, “the polls are having a bad night.” Forecasts of a hundred seat Labour win were hastily revised downwards. Graham Pyatt wielded the same scroll of coloured paper he’d brandished in February to demonstrate how nobody was sure if anyone would have a majority. But while Bob and David were clearly enthralled by the tense situation, Alastair just looked increasingly annoyed, lapsing into oddly partial comments (one Liberal MP was out of the Commons “only temporarily”, another was lucky to not have “so many nutcases” as challengers) and referring to results from safe seats with a terse “nothing much to say about these” and “none of them particularly interesting”. Robin, meanwhile, ploughed on regardless, quizzing an endless procession of ancient peers, and effortlessly dealing with David Steel chiding him about getting his name wrong: “I was very tired that night, and I had got three pictures on a monitor at once … what was your name again?!”

Once Wilson and Heath had won their seats, the latter being welcomed to the declaration – according to David Dimbleby – with a cry of “hello, sailor!”, both gave long interviews that merely fuelled the sense of everything being in limbo until some point the following afternoon. So began a long slog of speculation that persisted to the end of the night. Bob aired his trademark feelings about the hopelessness of the British electoral system – “grossly unfair” – and the importance of proportional representation, before using toddler’s building bricks to show how a “tiny ripple” of change had run across the country. A Warhol-styled mural of multiple Harold Wilson faces appeared on the wall. Given he’d clearly been looking forward to it for so long, it was ironic Alastair bungled his sign-off at 4am by announcing, “we say good morning – we’ll be back with a breakfast programme later.”

For BBC Parliament this meant a jump to 7.30am, and the welcome sight of a relaxed, amiable Michael Barratt at the main desk. Although already halfway through his stint in charge, there was still a fine 90 minutes of his company to go, and it proved a refreshing diversion from Alastair’s pomposity and the general air of despondency. Aside from Mike’s Nationwide-style “dashing” around numerous OBs, including an encounter with a dog covered in Plaid Cymru stickers, various lighter-side-of-the-election features ensued. These included Brian Widlake’s encounter with Katina the astrologist (“It’s not a crystal ball – I study the patterns of planets”) who predicted a Liberal Government as early as 1980 and observed how Jeremy Thorpe’s star chart explained “why he likes the ladies so much”. Kenneth Kendall read the news (“In Northern Ireland, a night of violence”), Michael Fish summarised the weather, Sue Lawley ran through some notable lost deposits (including Dr Una Kroll, a Women’s Rights candidate, “a very brave lady”), and we saw a tantalising glimpse of Richard Stilgoe sitting at a huge white grand piano. Sadly his moment for a suitably wry song or two must have already come and gone.

Esther was back, though, out and about in “the city” attracting a band of curious OAPs as if doing a That’s Life! vox pop. “This lady works in the city,” she explained. “I’m in charge of the lady cleaners,” her subject clarified, “I’d like to see the city a bit happier.” “You get tired of all these sad faces?” noted Esther neutrally. “Very.” Keith Graves at Transport House was less ebullient, proclaiming, “anyone with any sense is still in bed.” The mood shifted again come 9am, when Mike had to “gather up all my rubbish from this desk” to make way for Alastair once more, who we saw loitering in an ungainly fashion to one side, as if desperate to sit down.

Another very long wait for results was in order, encouraging Bob to cut loose – “It’s going to be a hard day’s night!” – and David, who’d been there ever since 6am, to reminisce about his time monitoring the recent election in Australia. We glimpsed Michael Charlton on the steps of the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, commenting on Wilson’s departure. “He’s had about three hours sleep,” Michael noted, at which point Wilson leaned over and added, “I don’t think you’ve had that much more, Michael!” Back in London Robin seemed to be in the same condition, arriving in an extremely tetchy mood (“You said some of the things I was hoping to say Alastair, but no matter”) then, having “been sitting here rather impatiently”, launching into an attack on the opinion polls. “You’re getting a little tired,” mocked Bob. “You’re not talking to your students now,” snapped Robin.

The argument that followed was all somewhat incongruous – imagine David Dimbleby, Peter Snow and Andrew Marr shouting at each other – and Alastair singularly failed to keep matters under control. It was difficult, though, to have any sympathy for him. By this point it was clear he held the title for the most unimpressive election anchor the Beeb have ever employed, if only because of his inability to project the same infectious enthusiasm and obvious passion for his task that was so palpable in Cliff Michelmore and both Richard and David Dimbleby. But then, at the very moment results started coming in again, BBC Parliament was pulled off the air by the Telewest network (a regular occurrence), meaning at least one viewer was unable to see the outcome and had to go and look it up in a book. In case you missed it, Labour won.

The story of the coverage had been a dramatic shift in expectation, from David’s talk of “three-figure majorities” to whether Labour would retain a lead at all. The speed at which everyone forgot their initial grandstanding was notable – an early “how did you vote?” poll turned out to be so inaccurate it was simply never mentioned again. But the fact we’d had the chance to watch other archive results programmes meant the constant talk of similarities with February 1974, and of 1964, had that much more resonance and meaning.

All this was genuinely gripping, but the main fascination lay, as it has always done during these glimpses into another TV age, in the detail: the gossipy asides and laconic observations from the presenters, reporters and guests; the attempts at jokes or whimsy; the things that go wrong – in short, that which must have been ordinary to viewers then, but which seems extraordinary to us now. People smoking on camera, the sound of jangling telephones cutting across Alastair or David mid-flow, Bob munching a chicken drumstick: this is what we wait for in the BBC’s archive results programmes, and fortunately once again the gang delivered.

So next up came the poll of 28 February 1974. This was a rather different programme to the 1970 results service, though, and perhaps one of the most unusual election nights of all. The most obvious change came with the presenter, as Cliff Michelmore had retired from current affairs to enjoy the more relaxing surroundings of Holiday. In his place came Alastair Burnet – a rare chance to see the distinguished ITV newsman during his short spell at the BBC. Alastair was, unsurprisingly, rather less whimsical than Cliff, but certainly had gravitas and was able to make some sense of the night’s more confusing aspects.

Another unusual aspect of this poll was that boundary changes had meant many constituencies had completely changed since 1970. This led to such situations as the sitting MPs for Brentford and Isleworth both fighting it out to win the newly-merged constituency of Brentford And Isleworth. Therefore analysis was more complex than usual; rather than being told that the parties had held a seat, we were often told they had “held” them – that is, compared to what the results would have been had the 1970 poll been held with the same constituencies. As the night went out, this complicated a confusing situation still further.

But the most unusual aspect was that this was a very low-key election. Polling was carried out to a backdrop of industrial unrest, with regulations forcing TV to close down at 10.30pm only just having been lifted. With a miners’ strike still going on, Ted Heath had called the election to gain “a vote of confidence” from the public to his policies. Given this backdrop, it was unsurprising that the whole coverage was rather more serious than 1970 – less whimsy and less silliness, with all aware that the night’s events could have a huge effect on the state of the nation. There was certainly no room for the election night disco this time round.

Still, it all got off to an exciting start – Fanfare For The Common Man heralding a zoom around the studio, with the scoreboards whirring round and the legend “CON LAB LIB?” emblazoned across the screen. The set was much smaller, though – that said, given the size of the 1970 set, an aircraft hangar would have been “much smaller” by comparison – with Bob McKenzie’s swingometer sitting on his desk like an executive toy, and other graphics being picked up from the floor where they sat at his feet. Alastair set the scene by announcing that tonight we’d find out who would be running the country for at least “the next few weeks” – given that the polls had suggested that this would be one of the closest elections for many years.

There was still time for a bit of fun, though – most notably thanks to Mike Yarwood, live in the studio to recite monologues in the guise of Harold Wilson and Ted Heath. These were accompanied by gales of laughter from the crew, and shots of Alastair awkwardly laughing, but made rather less sense three decades on. Meanwhile Desmond Wilcox found himself among the thronging masses in Trafalgar Square again, and he was having fun, at one point grabbing some punters to speak and quipping, “I’ve handled more people tonight than Bruce Forsyth!” Yet some of this seemed at odds with the more serious aspects of the first hour, such as Tom Mangold at a Miners’ Welfare Club – “I’m sure they won’t mind me calling them the most militant and bloody-minded miners in the country” – overseeing an extended bout of shouting (“If I can come in here, Mr Interviewer, you’re quite wrong”) and finger-waggling.

This was an impressive effort for the era, with Alastair boasting that they had 76 camera crews out in the field, the most ever. As with last week’s replay there was picture interference throughout – though it’s a tribute to BBC Parliament that they assumed the viewers had the intelligence to ignore this – and some parts of the country were still staggering on in black and white. There was also more editing – around 90 minutes were chopped out around 1am, meaning we lost the declarations of all three party leaders, and again we lost the breakfast programme as we leapt straight from just after 4am to 10am. The biggest disappointment about that, perhaps, was that Alan Watson, who co-presented the early shift with Michael Barratt, therefore only appeared reporting from Conservative Central Office. A shame, given his obvious star quality in 1970, and that this was his last BBC election – next time round he was standing as a Liberal candidate. Perhaps Barratt’s agent demands huge repeat fees?

There were many eye-opening moments during the replay. During the early part of the programme we paid a number of visits to Ladbrokes for news of the latest odds – reported on by none other than BBC racing presenter Julian Wilson. Meanwhile Magnus Magnusson was anchoring proceedings in Glasgow, and at 4am, Esther Rantzen attempted some vox-pops in Covent Garden with a number of pissed-off market traders (“Do you have a message for Robin Day?” “Not really.” “Do you have a message for Alastair Burnet?” “Not really.”) Esther showed up again the following morning in Chelmsford, partaking in some rather unpleasant toadying while interviewing Norman St John Stevas.

There were also some prime cock-ups. During the traditional scoot around the seats hoping to declare first, Alastair talked all over Guildford correspondent Paul Griffiths (the race was a bit of a damp squib this time, though, with Cheltenham and Newcastle both losing ballot boxes and Guildford running away with it). A crappy slide of Labour gains saw Alastair announce that “I’m not sure the spelling’s all that good, so sorry about that”. Meanwhile an attempt to speak to Michael Charlton (sadly underused here) in Huyton on the phone had to be abandoned, though 10 minutes later we did get him in vision (Charlton’s opening – “What?”) Robin Day didn’t show up for over an hour, and spent most of the time coughing, while Alastair repeatedly messed up the Moray and Nairn result, taking three goes to confirm the SNP had won it.

Yet as the replay went on, the crude presentation and archaic chat began to become less noticeable as you realised that what you were seeing here was a huge news story developing. Almost from the off, everyone involved knew that the result was going to be tight – the Tories and Labour were neck and neck, the Liberals were making huge gains, and the other parties all had support. David Butler suggested that it was going to be a “long hard night”, which came true when even five hours in they still weren’t able to predict a winner. After a while it looked as if Labour would be the biggest single party (contrary to the opinion polls, as usual), but even then nobody knew if they’d be able to govern. By 12.30am, Alastair was already placing bets on them all coming back for another election quite soon, to which David replied, “Good, I enjoy them, though I don’t know if the viewers do!”

When it became obvious that the vote was going to produce a complete stalemate, Alastair wondered aloud if we were heading for “one of the most serious crises of our time”. With the miners’ strike continuing, David Butler despaired as there was apparently only two weeks worth of coal left – though this was later disputed by the energy minister, who claimed that there was enough to keep the country going until April. Robin even asked one of his guests, “Are we not in an economic 1940?”

The other big story of the night saw Bob McKenzie continually point out that while the Liberals were getting half as many votes as the two main parties, they were only winning a handful of seats. One lecture on the injustice of this saw Alastair announce, “That was a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Robert McKenzie campaign for proportional representation”.

As we entered the small hours, things were getting tougher, with an atmosphere unlike virtually any other results show. The odd gag – such as Alastair asking Bob if he could come back next week for another election – was normally followed by everyone looking glum and saying “Of course, this is a very serious situation”. Everyone was at it; some banter between Graham Pyatt and Bob McKenzie as to whether the computer had been more accurate than Bob’s arithmetic was followed by Robin telling everyone to stop arsing about. Desmond Wilcox had a different take on it – “It’s a score draw, and a replay at Aston Villa next Wednesday!”

If the night itself was grim, the following day was even worse, with everyone now resigned to a tie with no overall winner. Worse still, nobody had a clue what the result actually meant, nor what would happen next. There was still time for a bit of whimsy, such as Robin interviewing cartoonist “Jak”, or David Lomax standing around outside Jeremy Thorpe’s garden gate hoping for an interview, which he eventually got, but only after Thorpe’s mother had told him to go away. We also got what some of us had been waiting for – Alastair announcing that the children’s programmes had been moved to BBC2, something that every BBC current affairs presenter has to do at least once.

For the most part, though, this was a time for serious discussion. David Butler was blaming Enoch Powell for the result – he’d withdrawn from the race telling everyone to vote Labour, and around his constituency in the West Midlands, 11 seats had gone to Labour with much larger swings than average, thus creating the deadlock. Butler quipped that “Isn’t it ironic we’ve now renamed the Black Country, Powell Country?” Bob McKenzie was still rallying against the electoral system, though Alastair assumed there’d probably be “one more election” under the current one. Robin thought the UK might be “right on the edge of a ghastly disaster”, while David said that the entire country had, given the chance to vote, all opted for “don’t know”.

As the coverage continued into the early evening, there was still utter confusion over what would happen next. Alastair summarised that, “All can claim to have won, but not all can claim any prizes”. David Butler called it an “irreconcilable situation”, while Alastair felt a climate of “doubt, indecision, maybe fear”, and that the results were “the end of the beginning”. David Dimbleby was watching cabinet minsters show up in Downing Street while Ted Heath was trying to work out what to do. Nobody knew whether he would try and carry on as Prime Minister, set up a coalition, or resign. At 6.45pm, Alastair signed off. “We will return at 9.25 with a programme called ‘Back To Work’, although it should perhaps be called ‘Carry On Worrying’ or ‘Carry On Voting’. This is the indecisive General Election of 1974″.

The 1974 replay hadn’t been as entertaining as 1970, but in its own way it made for equally compelling viewing. It was fascinating to see a news event unfold in real time, with a general feeling of chaos and uncertainty gripping both the studio, and the nation as a whole. Seeing a political situation unlike nothing we experience now was particularly eye-opening. Well done to BBC Parliament for providing a riveting history lesson.