sent for you yesterday

Earlier this week I put in an E-bay bid for an elderly Bush record player capable of playing 78rpm records at roughly the correct speed. It was never going to be an exquisite piece of furniture. But it had a multiple changing arm and classic early 1960’s design in ‘vintage’ plastic and Formica. It would be a perfect fit in the nascent music room-cum-workshop-cum-model trainset yard-cum-craft workshop-cum shed.


Mine was the sole bid. I opened with a fair margin above the starting price and kept a close watch on proceedings. Then, at the critical moment, I had a lapse of memory and discovered too late that another auctionee had leapt in at the last minute and trounced me by 50p. I lost my treasure to somebody named “Bidder 2.”


This means I still have a few shellac 78rpm disks waiting to be played for the first time. Two actually: a George Webb rendition of “South” and a Mugsy Spanier version of “Dipper Mouth Blues” the latter of which is disconcertingly described as a fox trot. Both are protected from 21st century dust by their original sleeves of thin card, printed with the retailers’ names. George Webb was first sold by C.H. Irwin of 78 Bedford Street, North Shields – slogan: ‘Try Irwin’s First!’ Mugsy Spanier’s sleeve advertises Sydney Scarborough of Under the City Hall, Hull – slogan: ‘Let us play them over for you!’ They knew how to use a good exclamation mark in those days, even if the advertising messages were a little less than zippy.


I wonder if anyone remembers C. H. Irwin of North Shields. Is it possible Sid Scarborough is still buried under the City Hall at Hull? Did he get to know Philip Larkin? So many questions; so few answers!


A German radiogram has come up for auction. It has 1957 art-deco renaissance blue period shiny avant garde blackness about it. I rather like it. I’ve come to the conclusion that to heighten the pleasure of our listening experience we should listen to recordings on equipment manufactured at the same time as the recording was made. Such congruence is the only way to achieve true and faithful euphony. Mrs Dodman said a rude word and tucked herself into her MP3 player for the night.


We’re refurbishing the old workshop. Progress could move with a little more alacrity if only the plasterer and electrician would actually do as they say they will. In Norfolk we discovered that the locals taught Spaniards the meaning of manana. But they are mere whippersnappers compared with Lincolnshire trades’ people. Here the words “I’ll give you a call with a starting date” should be interpreted with a timescale measured in years rather than days. If I press for something a little more specific, he’ll stroke his chin and say “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” But he won’t! See – I know how to use an exclamation mark as well. I didn’t before we moved to Lincolnshire. The old workshop, by the way, is where the record player will go, in case you wondered about the relevance.

strollin'

Blankney Wood marks one of the western boundaries of the Fens. A couple of hundred yards away, at the foot of the hill, flows an ancient waterway known as Car Dyke. It could be a Roman canal stretching from Lincoln to Cambridge; it could be a boundary. Some believe it to be nothing more than an early catchwater for rivers drizzling from higher ground. A few are convinced it could be one of the first sea walls, or perhaps have some military significance. Probably they’re all correct.



The area was once dominated by RAF Metheringham. The runways are now roads; the paths to pilots’ quarters now hidden tracks in the grass. Most of the base is beneath a plough of beans, winter wheat and sundry other cash crops. Here at the top of the hill is not quite factory farming, but from the nearby low ridge we look over mile after mile of vast plain-like fields. They vanish towards the horizon and the next outcrop of high ground. The Wolds are about 10 bee-line miles away. For all the world knows, I could be standing on the site where Troy once stood.

Signs warned us to keep out of the woods, although landowners have given permission for ramblers to follow footpaths providing the usual litany of rules is observed. We met only one human in the 3 ½ miles’ circular walk on a fine early-spring morning. He was friendly, like his old black lab. In fact, all cottage dogs along the way were vociferous but not bellicose. As we walked, ‘Perdido’ kept whistling softly in my mind. I was told to stop hissing.

Lunch was taken at the Royal Oak in nearby Scopwick. It’s the cleanest pub for miles around. If the food is not haute cuisine, it is at least good value for money and the young staff smiled and treated us as if we’re not senile old farts.


The camera had mysteriously switched itself to monochrome, so all photographs were a somewhat well-washed black and white. And I thought I’d learnt all the right buttons to press. Mrs Dodman sees irony in that final phrase. I don’t know why.