SHELLACS - DON’T DO IT Th e Fr o m e Fo s s i l
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ast week we got rid of our old gramophone. And I mean old – with a crank handle and a baize turntable and a tin of blunt needles for the horn. Thus ended an exercise in nostalgia. When we were kids, a wind-up gramophone had kept us happy for hours. We had shuffled through our dad’s venerable Satchmo and Ellington and Rudy Vallee records, plus a few modern hits like “Last Train to San Fernando” and “Diana”. The fragile shellac discs crackled and fizzed round at 78 rpm, and we sang along. But then we got a radiogram and vinyl 45s, and that was that. Buying an antique wind-up years later was an indulgence. And it didn’t really work – the sound was tinny and scratchy and seemed to come from the bottom of a mineshaft. The magic had gone. The only person who got any fun out of it was our grandson, who put toy cars on the turntable and spun it at max speed to make them fly off. So we advertised it online, and within an astonishingly short time it had been snapped up at the asking price. Two days later, the buyers flogged all the way from Dorset to pick it up, clutching a fistful of fivers. They were a woebegone, pair who looked as though they’d been poured into their clothes and left to congeal. They stared glumly at the gramophone while I rotated the turntable and wound the handle. She handed over the cash, now rather warm, and he bent down to pick up the bulky cabinet. Refusing my offer of help, he staggered off towards their car. “One vital point,” I called after him. “It’s got to be kept upright. If you tip it over, the mechanism falls apart.” He grunted in acknowledgement.
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THE LIST FROME
Fo s s i l o n F r o m e
The wife, in a sudden burst of confidence, began to tell me why they were buying it. “We don’t know anything about records,” she said, “but that thing will look very nice in our hotel. Used to be the Sheridan. We’re refurbing it. You know – it’s going to have a 1920s theme – all old stuff, curtains, furniture and that. Noel Coward kind of thing.” She leaned closer. “The old folk will love it..” I could think of no worthy reply to this. Then I was distracted by her husband, who was very carefully loading the gramophone. On its side.
