My Mother loved her radio. It was extremely old dating from the earliest part of the 20th century. She had inherited it from her father who in turn had inherited it from his own father. My mother worshipped her father and this radio was his prize possession as it was now hers.
It really was an ancient device. A polished walnut box with 2 nobs, a speaker and tuner and a few scratches acquired over the years in busy houses. It was full of valves, knobs and wires but to us kids it was wonderful. Turning the nob took you on a magical mystery tour of squeaks and hums and strange languages emanating from far off and exotic places like Hilversum, Bruxelles and Luxembourg.
Despite its antiquity, the radio had a marvellous sound. In an age when transistor radios and earplugs were delivering tinny, crackling noises, my Mum’s radio delivered a warm, smooth, creamy sound that seemed to wrap around you like a warm, cosy blanket.
My mother was what was known as a “housewife”, a type of woman rarely found nowadays. She spent her days washing, ironing , cooking and making beds for her large family and her radio was her soul mate throughout the lonely hours of toil. First up was Jimmy Young on Radio 2 and it was an absolute imperative that my Mother wrote down his daily recipe many of which were translated in to delicious meals for us kids when we got home from school. Later in the day, Frank Skerret would indulge us with some old Scottish favourites and my Mother would sing along to tunes like “Bonny Strathyre” and the “Skye Boat Song”. Sidney Devine had a later spot before the radio version of Late Call ended the days listening.
My Dad was less enthusiastic about the radio and maintained that it’s first owner was Noah who had dumped it overboard for being so outdated. He was a mechanical engineer to trade and a technocrat by nature; a man who loved gadgets and anything new, mechanical or electrical. To him the radio was something he was forever repairing with makeshift parts sourced from places only a man with a mechanical mind like him would think of. He had long yearned to have the latest piece of home musical technology – a music centre - and to this end he bought my Mother one for her Christmas. He was horrified to come home a few days later to find my mother listening to her old radio whilst the “new fangled” music centre sat idle on the shelf he had built for it. A similar fate had become of the automatic “wash day just forget it” washing machine which, much to my father’s frustration, lay unused whilst the old and much trusted twin tub slopped and gurgled away next to the sink. Ditto the microwave oven which my Mother said was radioactive. My mother was a luddite in my Father’s technocratic dreams.
That radio was part of my life and that of my family throughout childhood. We all came to associate it with our family and our Mother and my siblings and I often recollect some of the happy times we spent around the radio
When my Mother died, the radio lay silent as the music centre took over. An old wooden box with a big speaker and 2 nobs that looked so little but meant so much. My father and I tried to put it on several months later only to find it was once again broken, “and broken it will stay” my father said as he deposited it at the back of a deep cupboard and, like my childhood, it was never to be seen again.