2 January (Part 2) - Where has 50 years gone?
I can clearly remember always being the youngest of every group I was in
until I was at least 30 years old. Always the youngest in every school class,
youngest member of a camera club I joined after leaving school and youngest
manager of a City telephone exchange. Now, without noticing any intermediate
stage, I am constantly reminded that the reverse is true. Today the radio news keeps
rubbing that in by reminding me that it’s fifty years since 66 fans died at the Ibrox football ground.
I remember it well. One of the fans leaving the ground tripped on Stairway 13
and caused a fatal crush as those immediately behind him stopped.
I
was at home in Fleet, Hampshire with my home made FM radio set and a massive
rotatable aerial. No one would believe it now but with the FM airwaves
relatively empty and very little frequency sharing, long distance listening was
not impossible given reasonable atmospheric conditions. I was a regular listener
to the fresh fish prices broadcast by BBC Radio Humberside but Clydebank was a bit of a stretch.
Trying and probably failing to impress a Glaswegian wife I relayed the grim news
to her as it happened while the reception faded in and out.
I had got into soldering valves and resistors together some 14 years earlier
when in an early sign of approaching nerdiness I spent eight shillings and sixpence on
the Mullard Valve Company’s book of amplifier designs and put together a record player for my
sister who was in to Elvis Presley with a bit of Alma Cogan mixed in. The player worked first time and I progressed to FM
radios or VHF as it was called back then.
The British FM designs were rubbish because there was basically just three radio stations
repeated all over the country. I used to be able to recite the frequency of
every single one of the main transmitters but there was no incentive to tune in to
distant stations, they all broadcast the same programme.
American tuners were a different kettle of fish altogether as enthusiasts there
were keen to listen to what was broadcast from the next city half a state away.
Hence me listening live to the unfolding Ibrox disaster. I can remember exactly
which chair I was sitting in and in which part of the room even now.
Yes, very definitely getting old.