Old (in) New York

60 years ago today - the fifth of my annual birthday portraits in front of the family radiogram.

This morning you find your roving reporter at the front end of a 10 day stay with my cousin and her family in New York. Interestingly, a couple of things will have changed forever by the time I return to Old Blighty next week. 1) All future visits to my barber on a Monday or Tuesday will be £5 cheaper than previously, and, of even greater significance, 2) My local pub will apparently give me a 10% discount every Thursday. The reason? Today I turn  65....sixty bloody five! Like the t-shirt says, it's weird being the same age as old people, but at least those are two somewhat positive points of my extreme dotage.

I'm obviously writing this ahead of time, but my cousin has already let it slip that they've made plans for my, ahem, big day, even though I will only just have flown into the country and will therefore probably be a complete mess. I can barely make it past 8pm when I'm on home turf these days, so attempting to stay awake, alert and coherent late into the evening of my first day in a different time zone is going to be something of a challenge, to say the least. In a restaurant on the first evening of a New York trip about 20 years ago, after being awake for 24 hours, I momentarily forgot to open my eyes again when blinking and very nearly ended up face first in my meal. I'll let you know how I get on this time round.

Our old pal Brian pointed me in the direction of Community Radio's 'Look Now You're Cursed' nine long years ago and I still spin it regularly. This one seemed appropriate today.

Community Radio - Old New York

The Radiogram Years...slight return

On this day, a couple of years ago, I shared a handful of childhood photos of yours truly, plonked in front of the family radiogram (original post here). As I explained at the time, the birthday snapshot was an annual family tradition, which, as far as I recalled, came to an abrupt end in 1976. At the time of that post, I'd found eight photos in the archives and was trying to locate the rest to complete the set.

Two years on, I can exclusively reveal that, not for the first time, my memory wasn't serving me well. I have indeed unearthed more radiogram shots and unexpectedly these include three taken after 1976. (Just yesterday evening, at the end of an undeveloped strip of negatives, I found one from the dreaded moustache period.) It now appears that the very last Radiogram photo was actually taken in 1981, on my 21st birthday. There are still gaps to be plugged though, so there may well be further updates to come, somewhere down the line.

Meanwhile, here I am 50 years ago today, wearing a fetching bow tie & shorts combo and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. I got a good haul for my 4th birthday, including a basketball, my first big-boy's bike (stabilisers hidden behind the jigsaw puzzle) and, crucially, a transistor radio. My very own personal source of music. Life would never be quite the same again.

(Great song, sorry about the shocking clip!)

The Radiogram Years

From the ages of 1 (in 1961) to 15 my parents took a birthday photo of me in front of our radiogram, a family tradition only broken by my teenage attitude and refusal to play along by the time it came to 1976. Why the radiogram? I've no idea, other than it stayed the same size as I grew. Also, Dad sold 'Hi-Fi' equipment for most of his working life - I guess the radiogram was cutting edge technology in 1961, although it had certainly seen better days by the mid-70s.

(1961)

I have many boxes of photos, slides & negatives to plough through, but one day I'd like to get all fifteen birthday shots together in one place for the first time. I've found eight so far. Attached is a sampling from when I still had a modicum of cuteness!

(1963)

Today is my 52nd birthday. Mum, Dad and the radiogram are all gone. I just wish I hadn't been quite so stroppy in 1976.

(1965)