My very own music producer (From Gazette & Herald)

My very own music producer

MY interest in gramophones goes back to schooldays, pre-war of course, when my elder brother bought himself an HMV portable which created much excitement. Ultimately, when working at Boulton & Cooper's in Newbiggin at about 15-years-old, I was able to purchase my very own music producer. This was a unique Cliftophone, bought from Annie Johnson's second-hand shop, next to Malton's GPO in Wheelgate, for the princely sum of 9pence (about 4p). I was earning 12/6d a week then (62p) and, if I remember rightly, had 9d for myself, the rest going to my mum, so I must have 'blued the lot' in that week. Unless it was a birthday.

Some time before war broke out, my parents had electricity installed in our house in Newbiggin (or the landlord did), and this set me off thinking how to get away from the constant rewinding of the gramophone spring. Somehow I came across a 6-volt transformer and an old bicycle dynamo which, by experiment, I found could be made to operate as a synchronous motor by connecting it to the mains, and giving the dynamo pulley a quick twist. Half-way there!

Another scrap gramophone from somewhere (I wasn't cannibalising the Cliftophone) came into use, installed in an unwanted outdoor meat safe. It was modified by the fixing of a bracket, to mount the bicycle dynamo, so that its pulley, with a rubber ring round it (from the screw top of a lemonade bottle), pressed against the rim of the turntable. Duly connected to the transformer and the mains, and with some adjustments to the size of the drive pulley to get near enough 78 rpm, we had an electric gramophone. It would even play records backwards which wasn't a lot of use though!

That was the start. Eventually, a magnetic pick-up came to hand and, by experiment, I was able to find a point on the hand-made domestic wireless where the record would reproduce - and there we were, a radio-gram. This would be about 1937 or so, and I suppose other things, like girls, took over from where the gramophone left off, but the fascination remained nevertheless.

Last week I was handed a book by a local author, Eric C Blake, of Low Hutton, with the title, Wars, Dictators and the Gramophone - 1898-1945. Now this is the most fascinating history book you'll ever come across, for it includes all those three subjects mentioned in its title. The research which has gone into its 300-plus pages must have been tremendous, and I can't hope to touch on all the aspects covered, but believe me, they're all there, with history interspersed with the songs and artistes of the day. As a reference book, it is going to be invaluable, and I am quite enthusiastic about recommending it as a new kind of history book for students of world events and music. Do read this, it's a 'must'.

Another book came to hand this week, namely the Town Guide to Filey, and perhaps one of the most interesting town guides I have ever read - in fact another history book. Included in the story about the inauguration of Filey Gas Works is a letter from Mr Henry Tobey, of Malton, dated January 29, 1906, giving modernisation recommendations. Mr Tobey was, at the time, chairman of Malton Urban District Council and lived in Middlecave Road. His daughter (I assume) still lived there in the late 30s and 40s, as I can recall my father doing jobs in her garden for her in those days.

Amongst it all is a statement which pulled me up, still on the subject of gas. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that my friend Don Pickett, of Park Road, showed me his father's wireless set in the mid-thirties, which ran on a huge set of Lecanche cells, which avoided the regular purchase of expensive dry batteries, for those who didn't have electricity. Ideal for those people who only had gas. Thus I mistook him to suggest that it was a gas wireless. This was a mystery to me, at 12 or13 years old, and remained so ever after. Now, full circle, comes a mention in this Filey Town Guide, telling of Filey's gas manager using rechargeable batteries for his wireless when he could have had a gas wireless. Quote "They did exist". Is some knowledgeable reader going to put us all wise as to how this was accomplished please. Another book recommendation!

I had a note from Nick, the archivist at Eden Camp, last week, enclosing a fascinating copy of the outer pages of an internment camp magazine by the name of Ruhleben Camp Magazine. This was dated Christmas 1916, and was produced by internees of this camp on the racecourse in Berlin, where it held around 4,500 British civilian internees during the First World War. This situation had never crossed my mind before, but judging by their obvious wit, they were full of excellent spirits. Of interest to me, which was why Nick sent it, was a full page picture cartoon of Sunny Jim trying to escape over a barbed wire-topped fence, featuring a poster with the words: "High o'er the wall climbs Sunny Jim, but Force alas waits there for him". Force in this event being a spiked-helmeted German soldier beckoning Jim back into camp.

Over the course of several Town Talks, we included anecdotes of Force and Sunny Jim. The cereal is still available from several shops around Ryedale - this is another piece of local history - now originating from Nestle at York.

Just a thought: "There is nothing new in the world, except the history you do not know." Harry S Truman, US President (1884-1972).

Updated: 11:46 Wednesday, April 07, 2004