A Nostalgic Trip Down Memory Lane!

Since I was very young, I have always loved listening to music - long before we had a T.V. The 'wireless' was the only form of musical entertainment we had in those days.

Back in 1957, when I was living in Essex, in the U.K., I remember our very first gramophone. It was in a suitcase-style box, and it sat on a dresser in my bedroom. You would have to use the winding handle frequently to tighten the spring so the turntable would work. It was similar to this one:

Sometimes, I would deliberately let the spring run down so that I could listen to the strange groans of slowed-down voices!

It played only records at a speed of 78 revolutions per minute (78 r.p.m.) and were commonly called, 78's. You had to change the needle for each and every record you played. Needles could be bought in boxes of 100.

The records, themselves, were usually made of shellac, which made them very brittle. Usually, they were about 10 inches in diameter. (Classical music records could sometimes be 12 inches in diameter). They came in paper sleeves with a hole in the middle to expose the label, but the sleeves were fairly plain. The label would give information about the title and artist, the record company which produced it, and the serial number of the disc.

These would be worth quite a lot, nowadays. Unfortunately, as a kid, I used them (foolishly) as Frisbees once I no longer had any use for them.

This 12" 78 of the 'Italian Symphony in A Major was the one which I played the most

Charles Penrose' song, 'The Laughing Policeman' was my Dad's favourite. We played it so often that you could hardly hear the words above the crackling of the worn grooves. I was delighted when I discoverd it on YouTube. Here's the link:

The Laughing Policeman, by Charles Penrose

Then, in the early 60's, we were given a record player that had 4 speeds - 78 r.p.m, 33 and 1/3 r.p.m. (for long playing records, or LP's as we used to call them), 45 r.p.m. for (single play records, or singles, and 16 r.p.m. (though I never found out what that slow speed was used for!) The advantage was that you could play up to 8 singles, consecutively, because you could stack them on the centre stacking spindle and they would be held in place by an overarm.

It was similar to this:

You could stack up to 8 singles on the spindle. LP's could only play one at a time as they would slide upon one another.

We used to buy singles every week, and occasionally would splash out for an 12 inch L.P. Imagine being able to listen to 6 songs before having to turn it over to hear the other side!!! Another choice was an E.P. (extended play) which was the same size as a single, but had two songs on each side.

This record was produced to hilight the 'new' stereo sound. When working at W.H. Smith, I used about 40 of these LP covers to create a window display, which won an award!

EP's would have two songs on each side.

People would line up to buy the latest single from their favourite artist or group

When I was 14, I started a Saturday job at Gilbert's Pianos, in Southend, on their record department. I was in my element, and loved every moment. I still remember some of the serial numbers of those mid-60's hits, even today!

When I first worked in a record department, the manager filed all records under their serial numbers. The sleeves were put out on racks, and when a customer brought the sleeve, we would match the number with the record on our shelves. It became easier, and faster, to memorize the numbers. I can remember some of them to this day!

When I left school, I started work on the record department of W.H. Smith, in Basildon. I remember those crazy days when the line ups (queues) would be crazy as people waited to buy the latest releases. Just after Christmas, EMI released the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album. We had pre-ordered 150 mono versions, and 100 stereo. EMI had mistakenly tripled the order. All 750 records were sold within the first hour!

The first edition batch of Magical Mystery Tour sold out within the first hour

When my sister and her husband came home from Germany for a couple of weeks, they gave me their tape recorder before leaving for their next destination. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven and, to be quite honest, they were my favourite mode of listening to music (and they still would be). I haven't quite recaptured the joy of feeding the tape through the machine from one spool to another, and watching it move through the tape reader while enjoying the clear sound that it produced.

Courtesy of https://www.alamy.com/

I became a member of the World Record Club, and would look forward to each month's choice, ordering a range of classical, pop, and movie soundtracks. I would also purchase (from record stores) 'pre-recorded' tapes of my favourite artists - e.g. Cilla Black, The Beatles, and the Yardbirds.

Another fun thing to do was to record our own stuff on blank tapes. This was wonderful for us, as it was the first time we were able to do such a thing. It came in handy when we were able to record messages for family members living in far away places like Cyprus or Canada. It must be remembered that, in those days, there was no internet and the only way to communicate, verbally, was through the telephone, which could be quite expensive at the time. To receive a tape from loved ones was something which we looked forward to and the whole family would gather round to hear the voices of those we hadn't seen for years. Such events would,inevitably, be peppered with both laughter, and tears.

Blank tape spool would come in various sizes. For messages, we would use the small, 3" diameter spool.

By the early 70's the reel to reel tape recorders were seen as outdated due to the advent of the cassette recorders. These were smaller, and the cassettes were easier to store and transport. Some were also portable, so you could continue listening while you were walking. I'm sure that many of our readers will remember the joy of owning a 'Sony Walkman'!

Once again, I found myself buying lots of cassettes of pop singers and groups who were hitting the airwaves at the time.

Cassettes were easier to play as they just fit into the player. However, I missed the physical action of threading the tape.

Sometimes, the tape inside the cassette would work loose and we used a pencil to reel it back in. Does anyone remember doing this?

In 1989, I emigrated to Canada. Apart from a load of books (from my days at University, and my first school, in the U.K.) I made sure that I shipped all of my old vinyl singles, LP's, and cassette tapes over to my new homeland. Looking back, I'm sure that this was one way to hold onto the familiar, while exploring my new country. It was relatively cheap to buy a new cassette player, but it would have to wait until the early 1990's until I bought a turntable. By this time, I had met Mark, and when we moved in together, he brought his collection of cassettes and vinyl records with him.

Our first 'modern' turntable looked a lot like this

Unfortunately, when we moved to Elliot Lake, back in 2013, we held a garage sale. Again, foolishly, we sold our complete collection of vinyl (about 350 LP's and a few singles) to a purchase for just $50.00. Who knew that vinyl would make a comeback, and that we could have been a few hundred dollars richer - or still have been in possession of these treasures!! (I'm betting that the buyer knew this!!!)

Around 1994, we moved to Etobicoke, just north east of Toronto, and we purchased our first CD player. It was remarkable to hear the clearest sound in recorded music that we had so far encountered. We went mad and bought CD's left, right, and centre! Some replaced our favourite older vinyls, but they became our main vehicle for enjoying music for many years to come. It was great when they included CD players (as well as cassette players) in the car, as this made our journeys even more enjoyable.

This was the very first CD we purchased!

This is probably the CD we listened to the most

We still have our collection of CD's, stacked in two cabinets. Occasionally, we'll listen to one in our car, though this is becoming less frequent than it used to be.

Just a few years ago, I remember friends of ours, Danna and Rob, telling us that they had downloaded about 12 hours of music to an ipod so that they could listen to their choice of music while traveling across the country. I couldn't believe it! How was such a thing possible? We never took the ipod route, but we did find out how to download music to a flash drive, though with shorter playback times than the ipod.

At this point in time, Mark and I have moved on to Spotify, which - for a small monthy fee - allows us to download from a huge variety of music and listen to them whenever we have a wifi connection, in the places we stay, and in the car. I have been able to download a lot of music which we previously had on our various modes of listening through the years.