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Christmas 1994 brought me the usual gifts from my family, among which was a present of a record token that I later exchanged for a CD, which would give me hours of pleasure, remembers Archie Greenshields. A far cry from my childhood when any music in the home was from a horn-amplified wind-up gramophone, this was all my parents could afford.
Archie was born in 1920 and lived, along with 7 siblings, in a small house in Tower Street, Chichester. Archie's father was a woodman for the local timber merchants, and his parents had a very hard time trying to provide for their children. Archie remembers his first pleasures in listening to music:
When Dad had eaten his dinner, his only hot meal of the day, he might begin the various tasks that needed his attention. Of course the ferrets would have to be fed, as did the rabbits being fattened for Christmas, someone's boots might need mending; even someone's hair might have to be cut.
Mum would also have things to do too, washing up our tea things and Dad's dinner plate and dishes, which she did in a bowl of soda water on the oil-clothed covered kitchen table.
The evenings were an important time to complete the more pressing tasks that often might occupy the whole of an evening. There was still the wood to be chopped for the next day's fire and if it was wet, dried off in the kitchen range oven. This often caused the damp to run out and stain Mum's black-leaded grate which she constantly polished with 'Zebo', applied with a brush. When this happened and it frequently did, there would be a cry of annoyance, 'Oh Tom, look what you've done!'
It was then that we children might be lucky to get the treat we had hoped for and be able to enjoy the rest of the evening listening to music.
The prized gramophone would be taken from a cupboard in the front room, and given pride of place on the kitchen table. Then, with its large trumpet horn adjusted into position and a collection of shellac records by the side, we would cry out to be the first to choose from such musical gems. 'The Whistler and His Dog', 'Ain't it Grand to be Bloomin' well Dead!' 'Bells Across the Meadow' or 'That was a Cute Little Rhyme' and even 'Albert and Wallace the Lion'.
But first there was the ritualistic winding of the handle and a search for the sharpest needle, which needed to be fixed tightly by a screw into the sound box. After the clockwork motor was started, the sound box arm was swivelled to the beginning groove of the chosen record.
There could be no choice of speeds on that type of instrument, for EP's and LP's had not been invented. It depended on the age of the record and the sharpness of the needle as to the quality of the sound it produced, but to us children, who cared? The frequent playing of favourites ensured word perfect recitation of old comic monologues, such as the story of the little lad and his stick with the horse's head handle, that he poked in Wallace the Lion's ear.
Whatever was played and how often, tended to delay our bedtime until Mum, clearly fed up, cried, 'That's enough, this is the last one tonight!' Then it was the lick and promise of a wash, goodnights all round, candles lit and up to bed. But perhaps there might be an assurance of two more; 'If you are quiet, mind, once you are in bed.'
My brothers and I considered we were unlucky, for our bedroom was in the attic and any choice of ours would therefore, have needed sharp hearing to be able to enjoy the music. We often implored Mum, with shouts from our bed, 'Open the downstairs' door wider!' or perhaps, 'Turn the horn towards the door, please!' If our pleas became too often or too loud, perhaps a reply would quickly come back, 'I'll turn the damn thing off if you don't keep quiet!'
Like all mechanical things, some have a habit of going wrong if they are overworked, and sadly, on one of the musical evenings there was a snapping noise from within the gramophone's works, accompanied by an ominous whirring and grinding sound. Dad tried winding its handle when the turntable came to a stop. 'The bloomin' spring's broke', he said, 'another job for me I'spose!'
It was put away again for a time when he might not be so busy. When he did decide to have a 'go' at it, out came his tool box (an old biscuit tin which contained an assortment for most of his limited requirements). He would borrow one of Mum's kitchen knives to use as a screwdriver.
My young sister, Joyce, took the opportunity to look inside to try and see the persons who sang, and the bands that played so wonderfully. She was obviously bitterly disappointed from then on, in her disillusionment by discovering there were only cogs and springs inside.
In the meantime Dad had managed to extricate the main spring, now in two parts, from the rest of the 'works'. Somehow he was able to bend a new end to the largest of the two broken pieces of the spring and get the whole of the machine back together again. From then on each record that was played needed an extra wind to the motor, or one would find that, on listening to a soprano, you might hear her singing bass or, at least sounding decidedly drunk, and much more fun to us children.
Eventually our interest faded and the musical evenings became less and less. Within another year or two our family was rehoused and enjoyed electrical power for the first time, with Mum and Dad becoming the proud owners of a wireless set.
Thank goodness, it was one that did not need the huge battery and or accumulator that many were powered with. I guessed that, had that been the case, I would have been chosen to take and fetch the dangerous glass container with its dreaded acid, that could burn and dissolve, every time it needed re-charging. A very far cry from the mini hi-fi I now own.
For me now, no time is spent purchasing tins of needles, with the need to sharpen them with a file when blunt, as my Dad was often forced to do, to satisfy his children sixty years earlier. Lucky me and thanks be to progress and an upbringing to appreciate it.
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