Turn It Up Or Turn It Off

We had a radiogram when I was a kid. Dad said it was a niece piece of furniture and even went as far as placing a pot plant on the top to demonstrate the point. I think it was an African violet. The leatherette settee was a nice example of furniture too and they both had similar sound reproduction characteristics

Of course, it was behind the sliding dark wooden doors that the magic lay.

To the left, the record player- 331/3, 45 and don’t forget them 78’s mouldering up in the loft, just flick the needle over, select the required rpm and transport yourself back to before the war with a little Glen Miller crackling up from the shellac.

The cream-enameled, pressed-metal deck bounced like a trampolinist on speed if you did much more than look at it, whilst the tone arm resembled something left over from the construction of the Forth Bridge. It was mated at the sharp end with the bastard offspring of a darning needle that was determined to follow its own path through life and plough its own furrow in any vinyl surfaces it came up against.

Moving swiftly across to the right was the radio, or as the traditionalists would insist on calling it, the wireless. Then, if you weren't a bit swift on your feet, they would give you an unwanted history of cat whiskers and valves and trench warfare.

But anyway, back to the modern world.

Push in the correct brown plastic switch, select the band, SW, LW, MW or FM and slowly rotate the saucer sized dial to locate the invisible incoming signals whilst studying the illuminated glass panel with gold writing denoting long gone stations, cities and countries.  Hilversum, Light, Third.

 Steady now, easy does it. Watch the two red horizontal bars move towards each other, turning green as they almost touch and signify a high quality signal. Turn a little more and they begin to retract allowing an assortment of snap, crackle and pops to appear. The Rolling Stones, Fading Away on Luxemburg. Johnny Kidd, Shaking All Over the Pirate radio airwaves.

Slap bang in the middle, in pride of place, hidden behind a nicotine coloured-or possibly nicotine stained piece of cloth was the speaker. It gave a wonderfully plumy sound to both voices and instruments alike. 

This contraption was where we set our controls to the centre of the sun, this was where we used to spin some sounds, this was where we threw some shapes.

This is where we got an education.

The posh kids from the new estate would turn up their noses with disdain. Their parents had signed up on the never never for the glamour of the stereogram. Acres of smooth, clean, modern looking blond wood, pine or ash, featuring inbuilt record storage space and speakers hidden behind lattice work. Yes, speakers, with an ‘s’. Two of them for Full Scale Stereophonic Reproduction. No sliding doors either, just a large hinged top with the record deck and radio underneath. Designed to fit right into their semi-detached suburban Shangri-La.

No need to get down on your knees every three minutes to change records, but on the other hand, no room for an African violet either.

I hated them then, as I hate them still. The bastards.

Christ, how those kids reckoned themselves, but you know what? People inexplicably bang on about pride coming before a fall, and well, simply by the laws of averages, it’s got to be that way once in a while.

Before their parents were even halfway through the hire-purchase agreements an influx of black fascias swept away everything in its path.

Black fascias, aluminium buttons and long, thin, chromium legs.

They rolled into the high street and annexed Radio Rentals, exposing themselves under soft lighting to window shoppers and whispering their insidious mantra.

“Cassette, Cassette, Cassette”.