we didn't have any sort of record player at home when I was growing up until quite late into the 1960's. I have a feeling that there was an ancient gramophone of some sort, probably only capable of playing 78's, but not a modern one capable of playing modern L.P.s and 45s. We eventually got a small portable machine when my great aunt died and there were heaps of Greenshield Stamps which were converted into this new player. If you remember Greenshield stamps, you used to 'earn' them when you bought things at certain retailers, such as Tesco, so many stamps when you shopped and then stuck them into books. I suppose the equivalent today would be Tesco Clubcard points, or Nectar points, although these are collected on a card, electronically saved and then 'spent' when you have sufficient, either on your grocery bill or on other items such as free tickets for places such as Alton Towers or Sealife World, Warwick Castle or Madam Tussaud's. This record player was eventually replaced by a far better player which my brother Sandy and I shared. I remember my mother deciding that we needed a decent record player as she like to hear the occasional bit of classical music. We went to Weatherhead's, a local electrical retailer which had a large shop at the corner of Bedford High Street and Dame Alice Street. It's long since gone, replaced at the last time I visited Bedford by a pub. A shame really, as it was an independent company. Anyway, we went there to choose a record player, one of those semi-portable machines, only playing records, but one with a device in it which was the height of technological wizardry which enabled you to stack a pile of 45 r.p.m. discs on this system which allowed you to play these records one after the other without having to get up and do it manually. My brother was more into pop music than I was. I became interested in classical music and began my own collection of LPs of standard classical repertoire. I also became interested in recording using a tape-recorder, as a result of being influenced by a teacher at Rushmoor School who used a tape-recorder in some of his classes to record our voices, reading poetry and prose. Later on, when I moved to Abbey Secondary Modern School, I bought a Grundig tape-recorder from one of the teachers. I know Sandy used to record pop music off the radio (as did everyone else during this period) and be was (and probably still is.) obsessed by motor sport, and in particular, Grand Prix races. Was it called Formula 1 in those days? I don't know, but he used to record the radio commentaries on a tape recorder. I eventually replaced my tape-recorder with an early Philips cassette recorder.
Although quite good for recording from the radio, the occasional bit of voice work and listening to music, cassettes had their limitations. For a start, you couldn't edit them. The tape was extremely tin and had a tendency to stretch. You could never find specific points on a tape, for example, the beginning of a piece of music. Eventually pre-recorded cassettes were introduced, as a sort of replacement for LPs, but the technical quality of cassettes wasn't up to much. It took a long time to re-wind a cassette and, because the tape was very thin it could get caught up in the mechanism of the machine as well as stretching and this eventually lead to them not functioning. In-car players were eventually introduced, some with built-in radios, but if you kept your collection of cassettes in your car, they could become damaged if there was warm weather, as heat seemed to cause all sorts of problems to the tape. My brother Sandy had an 8-track player at one point, I think perhaps it was a birthday present. The cassettes were bulky and not as good as cassettes, and I recall he had all sorts of problems with the machine which constantly got jammed. The tape was far wider than a Philips cassette, but eventually he gave up on the thing and the whole system was eventually abandoned by the manufacturers.
A friend of mine when I was at Mander College, John Gregory, introduced me to The Goon Show. His father had recorded the original episodes off the radio and onto reel-to-reel tape. John allowed me to record many of the episodes onto cassette when he used to visit me at home over several Saturday afternoons. I am still an ardent fan of The Goons and listen to some of the episodes which are broadcast regularly on the digital radio channel, BBC Radio4 Extra. Not just The Goons, but I also enjoyed many other BBC comedy shows, such as I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, Round The Horne, The Navy Lark as well as The Men From The Ministry. All re-broadcast on BBC Radio4 Extra. I, and probably loads of other people, recorded from the radio using a microphone, but I eventually managed to find a way to link the tape recorder to my transistor radio by using a lead from the tape recorder fixed to the loudspeaker, linking to the soldered points inside the radio. It worked! Which meant I could get a far better recording as there was no background interference as you would get if you used a microphone set up in front of the radio, for example, cars going past or people talking in the room.
My interest in tape-recording and recording in general was a very useful skill because when I worked in stage management I was sometimes called upon to operate the sound desk at several of the theatres I worked at, having to make up the various sound effects tapes and I learned how to edit and splice tape. In those days it was physically cut, using a special splicing machine and sticky tape. No doubt today all this would be done digitally and saved onto either a CD-ROM or at least on a computer hard drive.
Although quite good for recording from the radio, the occasional bit of voice work and listening to music, cassettes had their limitations. For a start, you couldn't edit them. The tape was extremely tin and had a tendency to stretch. You could never find specific points on a tape, for example, the beginning of a piece of music. Eventually pre-recorded cassettes were introduced, as a sort of replacement for LPs, but the technical quality of cassettes wasn't up to much. It took a long time to re-wind a cassette and, because the tape was very thin it could get caught up in the mechanism of the machine as well as stretching and this eventually lead to them not functioning. In-car players were eventually introduced, some with built-in radios, but if you kept your collection of cassettes in your car, they could become damaged if there was warm weather, as heat seemed to cause all sorts of problems to the tape. My brother Sandy had an 8-track player at one point, I think perhaps it was a birthday present. The cassettes were bulky and not as good as cassettes, and I recall he had all sorts of problems with the machine which constantly got jammed. The tape was far wider than a Philips cassette, but eventually he gave up on the thing and the whole system was eventually abandoned by the manufacturers.
A friend of mine when I was at Mander College, John Gregory, introduced me to The Goon Show. His father had recorded the original episodes off the radio and onto reel-to-reel tape. John allowed me to record many of the episodes onto cassette when he used to visit me at home over several Saturday afternoons. I am still an ardent fan of The Goons and listen to some of the episodes which are broadcast regularly on the digital radio channel, BBC Radio4 Extra. Not just The Goons, but I also enjoyed many other BBC comedy shows, such as I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, Round The Horne, The Navy Lark as well as The Men From The Ministry. All re-broadcast on BBC Radio4 Extra. I, and probably loads of other people, recorded from the radio using a microphone, but I eventually managed to find a way to link the tape recorder to my transistor radio by using a lead from the tape recorder fixed to the loudspeaker, linking to the soldered points inside the radio. It worked! Which meant I could get a far better recording as there was no background interference as you would get if you used a microphone set up in front of the radio, for example, cars going past or people talking in the room.
My interest in tape-recording and recording in general was a very useful skill because when I worked in stage management I was sometimes called upon to operate the sound desk at several of the theatres I worked at, having to make up the various sound effects tapes and I learned how to edit and splice tape. In those days it was physically cut, using a special splicing machine and sticky tape. No doubt today all this would be done digitally and saved onto either a CD-ROM or at least on a computer hard drive.
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