Inflation. A sign of our times. What in days gone by could be bought for a penny, now you need at least 50 pence. Coins exist for a few more years but their fate is sealed. This week, my 50p got me a 7-inch single from 1973. A flash of memory. Top of the Pops with Alvin Stardust[1] appeared like magic. It was in an unregarded box in the corner of a high street charity shop. What a delight to pick up such an important historic artifact for only 50p. A relic from my past.
With a typically glam pop music title, “My Coo Ca Choo” gave Alvin Stardust a Christmas hit in the 70s. On TV, he dressed in black leather like an imaginary Gene Vincent. Mind you, most of us kids of 1973 had no idea about 1950s rocker Gene Vincent. So, Stardust carried it off, acting out a rock-a-billy character to the delight Christmas audiences. He’ not remembered the way that Slade are remembered. To me there a connection that unique.
These threads. These recollections centre around brief and happy moments. The formidable farmhouse of my youth had more rooms than we ever used. Downstairs at the front of the house were the two square living rooms. Both with tall sash windows looking out to the South. On the one side was our everyday living room. On the other was a room that was kept for special occasions. High days and holidays. Oddly that room was called by us “New Room”.
We all decamped into the New Room for Christmas. That’s where the Christmas tree sat. That’s where the decorations went up. It took a while to get the room into a comfortable, liveable state. Most of the year it was relatively neglected. After the fireplace had been stoked up, bringing warmth, and drying out the damp outside walls, the room became the centre of our Christmas days. The “nice” sofa was pulled up to get the most warmth from the compact fireplace. Still there was plenty of space to litter the room with games, toys and torn wrapping paper.
It was the Philips company that introduced the first compact cassette recorder[2]. Until I looked it up, I didn’t know that it was as early as 1963 that the cassette first appeared. Cassettes dropped in a world dominated by vinyl records. So, the ability to record sound, without spending a pile on a reel-to-reel tape machine, was a great novelty and a lot of fun.
At first, I thought this Christmas memory was from 1973 but it couldn’t have been. It must have been 1974. That’s me at 14. Already at that age, I had a strong interest in electronic bits and pieces. My hobby was finding out how things worked. Often testing them to destruction. Living on a working farm there was plenty of opportunity to get to know about mechanics, hydraulics, and electrics. A little of chemistry too. However, for me circuits, valves and transistors had a particular fascination.
Christmas present in 1974? Well, it was a classic Philips compact cassette recorder and a K-tel compilation cassette called “Dynamite”. I must have had some blank cassette tapes too. What a compilation tape that was! Mud, Wizzard, Suzi Quatro, Mungo Jerry, Nazareth, Steeleye Span, Alice Cooper and, you guessed it, Alvin Stardust. 70s glam pop at its hight.
My flash of memory was sitting on the carpet to the left of the tiled fireplace engrossed in 1974’s Christmas present. I still have K-Tel’s Dynamite in a box somewhere. From yesterday, I have at least got a 7-inch single, in good condition from that distant era.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/23/alvin-stardust
[2] https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co465542/philips-portable-tape-recorder-tape-recorder
John Vincent 