But the cold war and nuclear nightmares have melted away. Nikita and John might as well be a million miles away, as far away as Monday morning and school. It’s Saturday.
It’s Saturday. A day for doing stuff. A day for doing stuff with Dad. Hot sweet tea in earthenware mugs; and biscuits; swimming followed by cooked breakfast laced with the smell of chlorine; and then into town.
Our first stop is the delicatessen in Cromwell Road, across the road from the car park and dangerously close to school. The air is thick with the pungent tang of cured meat and cheeses and the chocolaty warm aroma of the coffee beans roasting in the window. Mr Bennett is the proprietor. He has a rug on his head which is such a poor fit and colour match. It fascinates me. What is he thinking? Why doesn’t someone tell him? We buy French bread covered with poppy seeds; Kenya Blue Mountain coffee beans; Canadian Black Diamond cheddar and garlic sausage. At the end of Ladbroke Road we visit the only tobacconist in town that sells Philip Morris - American cigarettes in soft packets. Then, as we come back along Station Road, this Saturday, we turn into Rhythm.
There is no form of music without Rhythm. It is the only shop in town which sells records.
I know Woolworth’s sells records. But only cut price cover versions on their own “Embassy” label by their own stable of “artists”. Who buys them? All the current chart groups are covered by the Typhoons – their albums are titled “A Tribute to the Four Seasons”; “A Tribute to the Tornados”; “A Tribute to the Springfields”. Unlike today’s more limited tribute bands, the Typhoons can play and sound like anyone. I long to produce “A Tribute to the Typhoons”.
Rhythm is, I guess, an old family business. It’s certainly old. Not quite Grace Brothers but they are all doing very well. The rotund grey pin striped Mr Toad-like patriarch scurries around limping. Large horn rimmed spectacles make his eyes appear disproportionately huge for his bald dome with a half halo of fluffy cotton wool hair slung round the back of his head from ear to ear. The second generation is a bit brown, bulgy and business like. The new generation is mutating into a clammy-long-legged high-waisted tie-tucked-into-PVC-belted sharp-angle-jointed pin-prick-eyed and set-square-nosed stick insect.
There is a glass counter along the left hand side of the shop like the ones they used to have in gentlemen’s outfitters full of handkerchiefs and socks. But this one, over which the stick insect presides, contains shelves of harmonicas, capos, jaws harps, reeds, pitch pipes, tuning forks, metronomes, rosin, strings and all sorts of musical accessories. Opposite are serried racks of sheet music and LP records. Walls are hung with hangable instruments. At the back to the left formed of glass partitions is the sofa’d listening room where the privileged classes may sample vinyl for themselves on Garrard decks with cedar wood plinths. To the right a corridor with wall mounted cowl shaped booths – like the phone booths they have in hospitals and police stations. Here the ham fisted hereditary vinyl abusers may have their chosen tracks relayed for listening pleasure. Beyond the stairs are small rooms for instrument tuition. And up the three broad wooden flights of stairs, on the first floor, is the piano showroom. Nobody knows why? There is no lift.
My father only very occasionally buys records. Why are we here this week? We go our separate ways inside the shop.
Playing - at quite a respectable volume for such an establishment, at such a time in history - from the album With the Beatles, is George Harrison’s first recorded song. He takes lead vocal. I am mesmerised by the guitar sound – dull, thick, deeper and mellower than any I have heard; the descending riff at the end of each line, slightly melancholic; the sultry accent; and the coolness.
I start saving the 32 shillings and sixpence I need. My first album.
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