Here we are listening to the radio while on holiday at the caravan, probably in the late 1950s. This was a novelty for us as this was the first time we could take a radio with us and the cars then didn't have one installed! It was quite a substantial piece of equipment made of solid polished wood and weighing quite heavily.
I remember the excitement of opening this big parcel one Christmas and finding it. I immediately carted it off up to my bedroom for private listening. Previously, the only wireless, as we called it, was in the kitchen and was powered by an acid filled accumulator which had to be taken away to be charged every so often and it also had a table knife blade behind one of the tuning dials. Apparently this had some essential function, but don't ask me what it was!
"Portable" is probably a bit of a euphemism as it took me all my time to carry my new radio, with its large dry battery, up the two flights of stairs to my private quarters but it was wonderful being able to listen to the Hit Parade on Radio Luxembourg which was never allowed downstairs!
Things in the radio world have certainly moved on quite a bit since then.
For more memories take a look at this site.
8 comments:
And the children listen to this memory with wide-eyed wonder since they have never seen such a big radio!
Haha, imagine carting that along when going jogging. Thanks god for the ipod!
I remember we had a big radio too, and the wood was beautiful. I wonder what happened to it.
I don't remember my first radio. But like Evelyn said, thank goodness for the iPod. Makes it so much easier to listen to music.
Thanks for sharing in the RW meme this week!
Oh, I did enjoy reading this and looking at your 'portable' radio! When you think of the size of an iPod these days, and how much music you can load on to one, and then look back at this giant! I can just imagine your excitement when you opened it all those years ago!
Janice.
What a big portable radio! I only remember the little transistor radios that didn't work very well, but we walked around with them up to our ear anyway.
I remember my first portable radio, a hand-held transistor radio. Oh, I felt so cool listening to the local pop music station, KMEN in San Bernardino (CA) in 1962 or 63, on that little radio. I didn't realize the first portables were so large!
I did enjoy reading about your transistor radio. It brought back lovely memories of listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes late at night on a tiny transistor in 1960. We weren't allowed to have it on the big wireless either.
Please can I copy your radio photo and story on my blog?
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