We all become cavemen
I was chatting with my folks earlier today, the usual sort of meandering chit-chat about nothing in particular, when somehow my dad got onto the subject of old radios. He recounted having to go to a local shop to buy (or re-fill, I never quite determined which) something called an accumulator. This was some sort of container that was filled with acid and valves and such like and it had to be charged at aforementioned shop as they had no electricity at home. The accumulator was a necessary, if dangerous, component of radios in those days without which there would be no chance of being able to tune in to Dick Barton (I think Dick Barton was some sort of special agent who had a show on radio back then, but again I can’t be sure because dad drops in such details as if I’m supposed to know them intuitively). Accumulator connected they would then all gather around the gigantic walnut-veneered casket which served as a radio in the 1940’s and listen to posh BBC accents all day long.
There was no TV in my grandparent’s house, or indeed much of anything else such as food or decent shoes or optimism: They were poor. My mum found this out on her first visit to the house for dinner. Mum came from a comfortable home, not wealthy but comfortable. She was used to carpets and mains electricity and other such decadence. It was quite a cultural shock for her to be confronted with linoleum scraps and chickens scratching about under the dining room table. My grandmother fried her some eggs, asking about her prospects in life, whilst sheltering under an umbrella from the rain that dripped onto the cooker from a leaky roof.
… I seem to have gone off on a tangent – where was I? Oh yes …
I left my folks house shaking my head in wonder at the primitive standards endured – even accepted as the norm – by working class families in those post-war years. But then I started thinking back to my halcyon days. My Young Free and Stupid years spanned the late seventies and the early eighties and, casting my mind back, I suddenly saw how archaic those days would seem to a teenager of today. Here are a few common devices and activities that now label me forever as belonging to a generation of cave-dwellers.
– Recording music on ribbons of flimsy tape that chewed up with monotonous regularity and only allowed you 90 minutes of recording on each side (which frustratingly was less than the running length of many albums – the dilemma was always ‘which track do I leave out?). The sheer hard work of creating a mix-tape for that girl you had a crush on, delivered with a casual ‘Here – did this for you’ between Maths and Humanities.
– Video games that loaded from said cassette tapes; a long and fraught process where you sat anxiously listening to the strangled-budgie noises coming from the tape player, wondering if the game would decide to quit at the very point it was about to present you with those awful graphics and terrible computer-jangly audio effects.
– Telephones with dial disks which made you curse anyone who had digits between 6 and 0 in their telephone numbers.
– Denim after-shave
– Massive TV cabinets that took up half the lounge and were operated by manual push-buttons if you needed to change channel. We did have a remote control for a few years – at least that’s what my dad seemed to think I was whenever he told me to get up and put BBC1 on. Oh yes – and just three channels to choose from.
– Cameras that had to be loaded with film, then the negatives had to be taken to a developer, then you got them all back with stickers on them telling you that A. You had wasted your money and B. You were the world’s worst photographer.
– Blue Stratos after-shave.
– Parka coats that you were forced to wear during the winter which gave you tunnel vision and always seemed two sizes too big. And after a few months the fur-lined hood went mangy and smelt all funky (thinking about it, this might just have been me).
– Really dangerous ‘toys’ like clackers. If you don’t know about clackers they were all the rage for a year or two circa 1973. Basically they were two hard balls of plastic, about the size of tangerines, threaded onto a length of thick string with a plastic tab attached at mid-point. The skill was to hold the tab and make a waggling motion from the wrist persuading the two balls to bounce together and fly apart with ever greater arcs until you switched your wrist action (the tricky part) to make the balls fly over your wrist, connect, and fly back down to connect again. If you got it right you could make those balls fly up and down at terrifying speed, a blur of kinetic energy, making a loud clacking sound that would carry for miles. That was it – the sum total of entertainment these clackers provided – but if you could make that racket last for more than twenty seconds you were the cool kid on the block. And then you went off to casualty to have your wrist set in plaster.
I could go on here … but I’m sure you have lists of your own.
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An Accumulator was a battery. It contained acid because to recharge a battery you needed acid and plates just like a car battery today.
As far as the TV goes, well what luxury you had. THREE entire channels? And you’re complaining? When I first saw TV there was only one channel and that was good old Auntie
I can remember growing up in a pub (my Dad’s) and not having electricity.
We had a radio running from a huge battery and an accumulator.Gas mantles flickered and popped and their light was faint and fitful.I vaguely remember listening to ‘Journey Into Space’ on the radio,I was about 5 and didn’t understand much but I loved the special effects.I played out in the surrounding fields all day of the summer holidays, climbed trees,fished,played cricket,I was a tomboy and there never was any fear or thoughts of ‘stranger danger’…….everyone knew everyone else, parents looked out for all the kids.
Then we moved to a more modern pub……and we had ‘the electric’…TV…a fridge….toaster…..Dad bought a scooter then a little car, all ‘mod cons’.I still remember when I was a kid and every day of the summer holidays was sunny,every Christmas was crisp and white…….thanks for your memories,Owl……they sparked mine!
I complained more about being the surrogate remote control. Three channels yes, but I suppose we had three quality channels (relative to the times) as opposed to 103 channels of dross.
The TV’s WERE massive though 🙂
You’re welcome Maize.
In later years my dad had a Honda moped (a C-something) until he got knocked off it in the city centre. He replaced it with our first car, a Bond three wheeler made of aluminum with a motorcycle engine. Not those orange Bond Bugs that were around back then but an older model with rear seats. It went like a rocket but could be dented just by leaning on it.
This got posted in the wrong plcae Waylander.
I complained more about being the surrogate remote control. Three channels yes, but I suppose we had three quality channels (relative to the times) as opposed to 103 channels of dross.
The TV’s WERE massive though 🙂
DARKFARMOWL, Your blog is very interesting. I don’t remember ever seeing a battery radio. We had electricity since I can remember and we got a tv when I was about 13 and we had 4 or 5 channels. The cities got tv earlier. Nobody felt like a remote because we were accustomed to doing exactly what we were told and we had never heard of a remote. I am now wondering when did remote controls became in common use. Times change. My hip flared up so I am very happy with my remote.
Hi Rose. Dad was brought up in Birmingham but was from a family that had very little. The place they lived in was just above slum dwelling. He and his siblings seemed to have a happy childhood nonetheless – he looks back with amusement these days. Shooting mice with potato guns, being able to reach through warped door frames and open the doors from the inside, sleeping under army surplus coats as blankets. A totally different world to the one I grew up in.
As for remotes – good question. I seem to remember the first ‘remotes’ were actually attached to the TV via a long plug-in cable (so not exactly remote after all) but it was probably the early eighties when they started to become common place.
Has that all happen before WW2nd?
Hi vonMichael – how are you?
My dad’s memories are post WW2 – he was born in ’38 so was around 7 when it was over. I think Europe was pretty broken at that point and life for many was at subsistence level, although his memories are largely happy ones despite his poverty.
Hi Owl, that’s a nice blog of yours. Well if it hasn’t happen before WW.2
than your memories fell into time of the early 50ths? in a time GB
was on its way to optimism, shortly after rationing books had been
given back cos they weren’t needed any longer.
Even than you must have been a tiny little boy and you may have missed
the early times of tubles tires, new kitchen gadgets as well as the
new furniture from sliding doors to electrical beds. You rere definitely
to young to follow the coronation ceremony of your Queen Elizabeth and
the landing of the first English jet plane the Havilland Comet.
You may have never walked to school when GB was covered with frog and you
must have been to little for being kissed by a girl wearing a hi-fi lipstick and who brought freshness to her body in summertime using a MUM rollett?
It was a time when Elvis first came to England and Rock’n Roll was the
sound that has fascinated the entire teenage generation of this time.
A time when teenage shops came into fashion and water lilies was the
most modern shampoo on the market to buy.
I’m not going to mention the time of industrialization when assembly lines
produced cars, tape recorder, household equipment and killed so many jobs
on the right and left hand side of the production.
Years we all have gone through and we all have found our little niche for
fun, sex, love and entertainment. I won’t miss it even if it was not that easy.
As you say in England, life isn’t always bowl of cherries, is it?
Yes, I remember the ware years well – I ws sitting with my parents enjoying the summer sunshine when was declared.
As a child I really had no appreciation of just how serious it
was – I remember my father digging an air raid shelter in the garden and I was made to sleep under the stairs during raids.
I remember to the awesome sights as the battle of Britain
was fought almost overhead.
I remember too what was to become known as Dads army was formed – the men used broomsticks or whatever they could lay their hands on for training, but I won’t go on so many people of described the ongoing events far better than I can hope too.
Drummer
I was born in the early sixties so I missed all of the fifties and barely remember the sixties. The seventies was really my formative decade and a lot of the optimism from the two previous decades had begun to fade.
My fathers childhood was the forties and all I have ever learned about the post-war years i learned from him.
My father traded in a red and white 1956 Chevy Belair convertible for a Ford Falcon
I never forgave him.
Although I am not familiar with English homes and the names for things and I was not expose to ravage of wars in Italy where I born, but I can easily picture what you are talkin’ about – and I do remember those clackers that I practically knock my self out with…… what a foolish toy that is…ridiculous really. : }
Thank you for sharing you very nice memories for us. You should write professionally for syndications! Big thumb ups! 🙂 From Gia