I have watched LOTSW from the Pilot (when I was 12-years-old) right through to "How Not to Cry at Weddings" and never missed an episode. In the days before we got a video recorder in late 1985, I used to record the TV soundtracks with my cassette tape recorder. I feel the show was at it's best in the 1970's and 1980's. It was never the same after Bill Owen passed away and died a slow painful death over several series.
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I got into watching the series when I was 11, back in the late 1980's after my sister saw an episode and found it amusing. It was just a short while before they broadcast series one of First of the Summer Wine which we liked even more so I am very fond of the characters and the settings.
I agree that it was at its best in the the first two decades - I have only just managed to watch up every single episode over the last year or so due to catching the repeats on the Yesterday channel. I stopped watching it in the late 90's as I really didn't want to bother after Bill Owen/Compo died, but viewing the episodes after that as I have lately, they are reasonably watchable.
I do think it is remarkable how LotSW lasted for nearly 40 years. Especially considering the initial cast were not young 'uns when it started!
I'm a baby! I remember first seeing the show in the late '90s on American public TV when I was little. In those days, they were showing later Foggy and early Truly (pre-Compo's death) episodes. I've since gone back and watched the earlier episodes, gradually working my way up to the ones I remember from the '90s as they've all come out on DVD (a multi-region DVD player helps to speed up this process, since the American DVDs are lagging behind the British ones in chronology!). I also watched several series after Compo, up to about 2004 and then my family stopped following it, knowing when it was on, or having time--or some mixture of the above factors. It was still funny in my opinion after Compo died but it was different and they lost more characters as time went on, and those characters are all missed. But they did have some newer characters I liked, like Entwhistle.
'Irregardless' is not a word