Early 1970

 Early 1970 or perhaps the transition between 1969 and 1970 is the earliest period I have clear childhood memories of from playing near the railway line at the back of our house and with the wood louse near the trees between our garden and the busy road we were told never to cross on our own.

There were comics like Sparky that my Nan who lived two houses away bought me and I'd watch with my brothers Crackajack, play school at weekends as by that point I was in Infants and Blue Peter on the hazy black and bluey-white tv that stuggled in our area a to get a good enough BBC 2.

Another show we tended to watch together and this continued for quite a period after we moved was Top Of The Pops which would be followed up on the radio on Sunday evening by the official chart rundown.

Musically it was a cross over as we had still hits from the likes of Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five and the Beach Boys although a group with connections to the Beatles being on their label Badfinger had their first hit, Come And Get It that sounded very much like a Paul McCartney song.

Indeed it near lt fooled me.

There were two records by new artists that make lasting earworm memory with me the first being Love Grows by the Edison Lighthouse.

The other was The Same Old Feeling by Pickettywitch.

Observant eyes will have spotted they were both written Tony Macaulay but with different co writers.

Perhaps the biggest suprise from that year was as we moved into it Two Little Boys performed by Rolf Harris got to the number one spot a tale of long lived boyhood friendship and as we left that year into 1971 Grandad by Clive Dunn who we all new from Dad's Army, the WW2 Home Guard based comedy show on BBC1.

It too was a song with enduring theme and message and that was sharing past events and lessons he'd learned along the way, valuing what older people had to offer in society and how that can help us grow so perhaps this image of an older Top Of The Pops audience sat around listening to him isn't so surprising as that's what as younger boys and girls we did around our own.

Just imagine what the nations grandads felt about mini skirts and hot pants!

It also was the era of the open season with me and my many Cap guns playing cowboys and indians with the smell of burned mini capsules on a roll having been fired following me in fairly short short trousers.

Back then boys playing in the garden or your own street with silver cap guns was less an issue as was going around with a pen knife.

Perhaps inadvertantly my folks had discovered the secret of getting me more mallible???

Odd ideas and no need fors

This is being put together on fly during the storms having had to pop outdoors to rescue the refuse bin that had blown over from the kerbside where it was put out for collection just before I got to sleep after eleven last night.

Things are moving ahead with this time away fairly well other than this cryptic comment to say that a person one was picking up enroute had apparently stipulated that one wasn't to wear shorts as in that area you'd stand out and could lead to comments and that.

Instead they suggested wearing long trousers or a kilt.

It's rather less that being in a development of relatively low level flats with shared garden that one might be mindful for having a high likelihood of having mothers with school age children of wearing school uniform entering and leaving their place.

One is obliged pretty much to read the room when it comes to shared public spaces such as parks but on the face of it it a kilt in  home counties of England would stand out and in any event shorts is a broad term.

For instance while I do have school short trousers in various shades of grey, I do have blue cordoroy ones that next to nobody would associate with school and a pair of cream long cargo shorts that go just above the knee that in this area many men wear all year around.

You'd think the latter would of been acceptable as casualwear or are there torchlight swaying in the night mobs that would create scenes that see men in shorts as a threat to their children running the corridors in that area?

Given I've no long trousers that fit given there is no need in my life for them, to accommodate  this individual I'll wear a pair of black Puma trackpants which ironically when worn with a baseball jacket, cap and trainers only saw me attempted to be framed for a crime I didn't commit and told by the police in Cheshire that if I didn't wish to be be on the end any unwanted attention I was to present differently in their area.

That same look was never an issue in London or Surrey.

The end of the line?

The last few days has seen a double whammy of news around something that was a part of my childhood that I expected to continue on largely unaltered.

Model Railways was a boyhood thing from the first plastic set that run wide gauge track from batteries that dad bought me to the first layouts and a thing I saw across the generations as cousins of both sexes visited and played with them.

Their offspring have a interest in railways.

Yet it was announced this weekend that the legendary Hatton's originally of Liverpool are to shut up shop and the Warley Railway Show that has been held for many years at the N.E.C., Brum is postponed indefinately.

What's that all about?

One thing is costs business rates, rents and freeholds have all contributed to reducing high street shopping as has online sales from the likes of Amazon.

Exhibition centre fees are quite high and caused issues in another hobby of mine Ham radio where overnight costs shut up and many moved or stopped operating.

The NEC charges around £20-25 per person admission, parking can be expensive as are the captive catering unless you take the train to Birmingham International which makes attending for a day a dear do.

Then there's hobby expenses.

The modern loco has digital control systems with sound effects and often is well over £130 so the days of simple dc control with controllers are long gone.

It may be more realistic but the entry point to the hobby is very step today which makes a hard sell to boys (and for that matter girls) who still love playing but have less opportunities to build up a great layout even if card models and scenery is still affordable.

Then that leaves fewer people to get involved in clubs working on the club layout to show off at shows with stores both shops and bring and buys which draw more in as was the case post war and even into the 70's and 80's as a young lad.

Recollecting in 2024

One common theme across a number of years has been around the purpose and nature of my record collection because across the decades music has been issued in a variety of formats and it's fair to say that from the mid 1980's there has been a strong push towards getting new recordings on the compact disc.

With me while classical music was a early boyhood like, the nature of it means generally once you have aquired what you consider to be  great recording of a particular work, then that is generally it so your collection is generally static with just a few additions across the year.

Popular music being drawn from mainly new songs or tunes is ongoing and additions tend to based upon what you what like in the current charts or anything from the past you have just discovered in either album or single form.

Like many I gathered quantities of lp records in the eighties and early nineties and either part exchanged or otherwise replaced them for compact discs as they were seen as more durable, better sounding and well more modern that having a needle go along a groove cut in vinyl.

As time has gone by a number of things happened of which ones some records left but never were replaced and the other was that actually provided you cleaned them, actually those records for a variety of reasons actually sounded better than the compact disc!

That's different than the whole thing around the more tactile nature of records, the better potential for album art, reading notes and whatnot in a larger but thinner form.

Thus I have being buying back a number and while there are less outstanding from when the first wave started around 2011, in 2024 I do see a number returning.

The other area has been the buying of new albums, and while some modern trends in popular music don't do anything for me, I have been buying a number of albums for the first time on vinyl and these do include some compilations that take me back to my earlier years.

Handling including the placing of the record on the turntable and lowering of the arm all take me back to those days where many of us that's how we listened on our record players so music of that era in that form really pulls emotionally and nostalgically.

New year edition

So it is twenty Twenty Four and some people talk about New Year resolutions but to me just go off with just making an pronouncement seems to miss the point behind them which is that there is something around you and your life you wish to change for the forseeable feature.

If there's anything about change it is nothing is permanent but existance of change itself is and in any meaningful change you need to consider how you will achieve  it, the steps you will take and how that fits the measure of success.

With me continuing progress in getting my life back on track after last years upheavals and my health issues of previous year, making the most of any and all opportunities to spend time away, with others of a similar more littles bent.

While not quite in the same category, to go on trips organized more for adults in the wider community as my little self is one persuing interests making the most of whats available.

Continuing with the wider matter of dressing the age I feel both casually and uniformed establishing a variety of looks and options to resemble on the outside the Boy I am, keeping my shorts lengths more fitting of the era I grew up in so there can no question as to what I am.

Leaving all but the most necessary grown up things proved to be so liberating to me, concentrating instead on just being a responsible, dependable boy.