Musical Memories

Category: Miscellaneous | Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:49 am

Moving house always ends up with stuff still packed away in boxes months after the move.
As you come to need something you know you have somewhere, it's back to the search routine through a whole stack of garaged cartons.
Now where on earth did I put that?
In looking for something in particular, I found my old Philips record player at last. I knew it was somewhere.

This is a lovely old 1950's job - still working perfectly, and found on eBay a couple of years ago.
But the magic of this bit of consumer kit is that it's exactly the model my family used to have 50 years ago.
Whenever I play it, it reminds me of fond memories of when I was about 8, and we'd settle down of a winter's evening by the fire, and play the few 78's we'd collected.
There were grand marches, skiffle, and ballads - quite a mixture.
Unfortunately a large proportion of our small collection was left stacked on a seat.
You guessed it.
It was my father who happened to crush them, reducing our choice of programme by 75%.
Never mind. It was not long before more robust plastic 45's were in the shops.
I derive a lot of pleasure now from playing some of the old 78's I've managed to collect in job lots.
But I shrugged off what was dangerously becoming an anorak situation as far as record players go - not content with one Philips Disc Jockey Major, I had three...plus about six other models most of which needed repair work.
My collection has now been sensibly reduced to three different playable models, and two windup gramophones (one with a big brass horn - but sadly just a replica version).

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Yesterday on the news it was confirmed that Devon is among one of the ten most visited areas OF THE WORLD for vacations.
I got that right then.

Last edited: Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:05 am

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eileen wrote on Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:51 am:

Oh I used to soooo enjoy playing 'real' records. I still have a collection in a window seat so I must get them out and play them again. We still have a turntable record player too.

Gardenstew wrote on Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:40 pm:

That's quite a nifty piece of kit Pete.

>>> Whenever I play it, it reminds me of fond memories of when I was about 8, and we'd settle down of a winter's evening by the fire, and play the few 78's we'd collected. <<<

I love reliving memories from childhood, I'm guessing this player is the next nearest thing to a time machine for you.

>>>Yesterday on the news it was confirmed that Devon is among one of the ten most visited areas OF THE WORLD for vacations.
I got that right then. <<<

A while back Ireland was voted the happiest place to the world to live in. Which IMO isn't true but Devon sure looks great.

pondlady wrote on Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:12 pm:

Pete, that is the same player I had as a child. Aren't they just great! And we had a real HI FI set-up about the same time. That must have been around 1956ish.

I have not visited Devon. I shall plan my next trip soonest.

devonpete wrote on Sat Feb 10, 2007 3:43 pm:

I know I may appear to be crazy at times, but to me that Philips player is a 'thing of beauty' - so down to earth, without a lot of aesthetic twaddle. I love it.
Silly, I know, but it's one of my most treasured state of the art 50's possessions now.

muddybob wrote on Tue Feb 13, 2007 3:33 am:

I love the old players.
I was working at a barn the other day where there is a rotary phone. There was a young guest there who saw that phone and said she would have no idea how to use it. When my client (who is retired from the phone company) explained to us all the problems they had when people had to start dialling directly to whom they wanted to speak rather than just ringing up the operator, this girl just shrieked with laughter. She said that we probably listened to those old records on those things that spun them around. She did not know the word "turntable". Then my client pulled out an old 8 track tape that he still plays every stinking time I am there. She was dumbstruck. She'd never seen one.

muddy