Epiphany Groove
Herself gave me a new radio for Christmas, a Roberts’ Revival, a retro set that is meant to look like one of the transistor radios from the 1960s. I turned it on, half in hope of hearing Tony Blackburn or Jimmy Savile. Didn’t Jimmy Savile have his Old Record Club every Sunday lunchtime? Then there used to be Annie Nightingale’s programme which used to begin with a song called ‘Lazy Sunday Afternoon’, or something like that.
I pondered the radio, it is the second one Herself has given me. I still have the last one. The tuner doesn’t work very well and I meant to get it fixed. I haven’t had it very long. I got it for Christmas in 1982. I remember getting a packet of Staedtler pencils from her as a ‘stocking-filler’, I’m not sure if any of the pencils have survived, but the packet is around somewhere, I kept it, for sentimental reasons.
It suddenly struck me that twenty-five years was not very long. It was the last Christmas before we were married. We were both still students in England, Herself in Manchester University and I at the London School of Economics. I had turned 22 a couple of months previously, Herself was 21.
There are no memories of Christmas but Herself came for New Year. We went to Salisbury on the train on New Year’s Day, a big Southern Region locomotive pulled the train from Yeovil Junction. I bought Philip Toynbee’s “Part of a Journey”, it is still on my bookshelf, it does not seem twenty-five years since I read of his recovery from depression. It was an important book for me.
I never did do all the things I had planned, the world slipped by before I had time. But I have my radio and the BBC and my copy of Philip Toynbee and for a moment God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.
Do any of us ever do all we planned?
My Grandmother had a saying ‘Man proposes and God disposes!’
Alan Freeman with ‘Pick of The Pops’ followed at 7.00pm by Cliff Adams and the Adams Singers with ‘Sing something Simple’circa ’69
Grannymar,
I think there was a fair amount of time wasting on my part as well!
Les,
Do you remember when “Fluff” used to do a rock programme on Saturday afternoons and still said “Greeetings Pop Pickers?”
Ian, yes, wasn’t it an oldies chart run down similar to the one Jimmy Saville did?
Checked Wikipedia, the Saturday afternoon programme was “The Rock Show”, though I’m sure Fluff still said “Greetings, Pop Pickers”!
Didn’t realise he worked until 1993 (when he was 66), when his sacking and that of others took Radio 1 into its long-term decline. Nor did I realize he was dead, you miss stuff living in a foreign country!
Yes unfortunately ‘Fluff’ passed away a couple of years ago now, maybe its a sign of getting old but I have not listened to Radio 1 for years now, I listen to ‘Gold’its on 666 AM and plays loads of 70’s records
Hahaha . . 666AM – The Devils Radio Station!
It’s a bugger growing old. I remember Jimmy Saville on the TV when I was a teen. Annoying little sod that he was used to wave a large cigar around from memory . . you won’t see that on telly any more!
Who’s old, Baino?
Les and I are 47 going on 17!
Baino
Never thought of that but when I was a teenager the older people said it was Devils music maybe thats why its on that frequency now!!!!
The music of your youth, sadly not my youth, Les I seemed to remember that you used to enjoy Billy Ocean
Peter There was a Billy Ocean number (Red light) that was great, I also was a great fan of Slade. I learnt all my spellin from thayr song titles!!!!