MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS

The music you hear as life goes on becomes the soundtrack to your own memories. My first recollection was on a warm summer night, I was ten. In 1956 the street where I lived hardly had any through traffic, and I don’t think I can remember anyone living there having a car. So on this night, a window was opened; a record player was passed out put on a chair, the door opened and a figure appeared with a stack of 78rpm records under his arm.

The first disc was placed on the turntable; the arm came across, paused over the record then descended. The next seconds would change my life, for the better. ‘Well since my baby left me, I’ve found a new place to dwell, down at the end of lonely street at Heartbreak Hotel’… still gives me shivers to this day. That night there really was dancing in the street, that night I heard for the first time Jerry Lee Lewis (pictured, right), Fats Domino, Little Richard and Elvis Presley.

I have been told that the person playing the records was a merchant seaman home on leave, which would explain why we had never heard sounds like this before. God bless him. Slowly I saved pocket money and finally got the local record shop in town to order for me the records they had never heard of. When you’re only ten people don’t listen. That Christmas I got my heart’s desire, a record player, and a nice batch of 78s.

Three records for under a pound! Sounds unreal now, but every time I managed to get that much cash it was down to the record store. I’m 61 now, with a record collection that I’m proud of, the soundtrack of my life so far. I have used your magazine for many years in my quests for ‘Stuff’, spent way too much some would say, but not this Collector.

by Geoff Harris
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