Ten-Four You Copy?

It's amazing just what a good number of decades can do when we moved from the era of the red or grey phonebox on every other street corner or set by prominent buildings such as post offices or community halls to having everything at the end of a wafer thin device at the end of your hand.

Amazingly it is 43 years in the uk that Citizen's Band radio was legalized after a few years of wide spread illegal use, protests and marches whose banners made little sense to those who weren't into radio.

I had one and did operate illegally in my mid teens which bearing in mind dad's work was a bit akward to say the least as he knew people who looked into complaints about illegal usage but in a way it was the internet of it's day where you' put a out a call "For a copy" and you'd move to another channel for a conversation generally with other boys and girls about various interests and places you might meet up at.

While it was never really a part of what the hobby was supposed to be about I did work a couple of stations in Italy who were using really high power although I almost got outed when my transmission interferred with my older brother's tape recorder playback putting a loud hum and click on it.

In time I got one of the new "approved" hand held transmitter recievers and used that during the winter months after school  for several years.

Today with your smartphone, the world is your oyster pretty much.

The mid 80's and moving back in time

From where all of this life came is by no means a bad question to ask when you think about it.

Some clearly was routed in the period of official childhood, the memories of what you did, how things and indeed how you looked plus as I got into into my early teens I did start regressing not that it was a word I knew then.

We've looked at bits from the past on this blog  but the next phase started a few years later and it's that we'll talk about this week.

The mid nineteen eighties were quite an important point in modern British history as institutions changed, and there was much bitter conflict not least here in the North Staffordshire coalfield that has only recently began to heal.

By this period, I was out of school  and its routines and in the world of work after a period of stops and starts getting a job which was difficult back then but it was the first indication that really I was growing apart from my peers who were thinking more about things like savings, getting into things like marriage and they seemed to see each other as adults.

I just didn't feel remotely that way.

While many of my age then went on Club 18-30 holidays, I was still on hols with Mum and Dad looking superficially in my teens visiting places together, spending hours on the beach exploring  and even making sandcastles.

Things like scouting  still had an appeal as much as I knew in my head there was no way I could drop right back to where I felt I belonged and indeed as I found a good decade and a bit later in another context I couldn't stop myself from involuntarily dropping into that child so really it wouldn't of worked out well to had got an adult role either.

At home one brother had got married and left and another was going through a period of girlfriends who needless to say came over from time to time so stuff at home was changing from when I was i my last year of school.

I did start exploring and revisiting the places nearby where I played and met up with as that young boy with a view to at least acknowleging the pull all of that had over me even if they like time itself had moved on.

Given how things turned out in 1980 where some of my old cubs stuff got removed, I knew I had to be careful about how often I'd attempt to dress more as I saw myself as clearly Mum felt then you didn't "need" them and seemed to more into trying to make me look look like a pint sized dad even if what was within was anything but.

I did work on trying to get a more younger look by stealth,  helped by fitting more in bigger teens clothing as my body shape wasn't as well developed as most adults and indeed my arms remain no wider than a child's even now.

I just knew I needed to look more as I saw me even if of necessity the more schoolboyish look had to be hidden.