Saturday 21 March 2009

the mystery of the plaid sofa

While staining the new gates dark brown (and it's amazing how your mind will wander on a job like that) I was remembering my dad taking me in about 1971 to see the new wonder of the electronics division there at the British Steel Company, a video recorder.

The thing was the size of a fridge and recorded about half an hour of program (just long enough for last nights Top Of The Pops) on 1" tape held on 10" open reels, in black and white.

Of course, hard as it is to remember, we only had a black and white television. They might have broadcast colour but we certainly didn't have it. (I have a feeling Carolyn something or other down the road had a set which they always watched with the colour control turned to the max, but they were loaded, and weird, and he always used to mow the lawn wearing a jacket shirt and tie, and she was an only child.... )

The POINT of all this faffing about is, although I remember it in colour, I must have seen McM&W in black and white, which is why I remember the sofas as cream (I'm sure the second one will turn up eventually) and why the yellow kitchen units were a bit of a shock and that gorgeous brown fridge......

Like I said, painting gates makes your mind wander, and mine certainly likes a holiday. One day it won't come back..

3 comments:

  1. Yah - well I wondered what you were talking about with the 'two' sofas. I thought it was me - not remembering.

    Wandering minds always come back, Graham. Even when we don't wish it so...lol.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, what wonderful musings.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gosh, now that I think back, I saw it in black and white, too.
    My kids grew up thinking Sesame Street's Cookie Monster was a sort of large groundhog or marmot. They didn't find out he was *BLUE* until they were in high school (in the 1980s).

    ReplyDelete