The earliest recordings

This friday I thought I'd rewind back to when I'd of been six and three quarters and when it was that for Christmas I was bought my very own pocket tape recorder.

You may well scoff at the thought of "pocket" being deployed to describe it but in the era we are talking about most people had recorders that took various sized reels of tape that reflected how portability mattered to you, Dad had a larger home machine that took five and three quarter inch spools but also a Sharp RT303 portable recorder that used batteries and three and a third sized spools that by that point I could 'borrow' when remembering not to place fingers on the tape when fast winding as it would act like a band saw!  

That picture is tiny and I haven't found another of the model I had which was like that except the case was turquoise blue  but the Prinzsound TR6 was the one I had with a pull up lid you placed and pushed the cassettes down into.

That place and push in action was easier for me and I suspect probably why I was bought a cassette machine

This is a later one but it's easier to explain with it on the far right you had the playback volume control for the speaker or earphone keys for fast wind and fast reverse on mine pressing both acted as a stop button but on this later one it had a separate button and on the far left with a coloured marker was the record button with you pressed followed by play to record things.

With it came some tapes and they were these which to be honest were cheap although a little later on I had some EMI "Sound Hog" ones with a hippo design on the label.

I recorded things like songs from Top of the Pops although dad had made a lead up so I could record direct from the radio, and things like parties being a  kind of sound record which given I wasn't good at writing helped keeping memories.

In 1975 I used it to record the Christmas Bay City Rollers BBC Radio One special with interviews and music.

This is a good a spot to drop in that Ian Mitchell who was during 1976 a member of the Bay City Rollers around the period of the Dedication album replacing Alan Longmuir during that period died aged 62 and who outside of the BCR was a important part of the group Rosetta Stone.

He was the first Roller to come from outside of Scotland, in his instance Northern Ireland.

Although as I got older I had recorder that used big reels cos they just sounded a lot better then, I kept it until I acquired a ITT Studio 73 portable stereo cassette deck for use in boarding school as the schools music centre was not something that you really wanted to listen to being a cheap Fidelity model.

By that point both cassette decks and especially the blank tapes were improving so they sounded closer to home reel based recorders that took the larger five and three quarter or seven inch reels

I have a Technics stereo cassette deck in my stereo system that still sees considerable usage and a large stash of high quality blank tapes for it.