Beat box

A box of singles came into our possession recently via Mr SDS' uncle. It was this uncle who, as a 19-year old, first introduced the very young Mr SDS to music and his copies of Melody Maker around 1965. But that's Mr SDS' story, not mine, and may one day be told in more detail in another blog if I could ever convince him to write one, which seems unlikely.

Is this a tantalising image, though? Are you perhaps eager to know what gems might be in here? Feeling the anticipation, even from that distance? Enlarging the photo and straining to identify each record company sleeve, teasing yourself with the thought of what it might contain? (Maybe you're the kind who notices that there's a CD rack in the background of a scene on a TV programme and turns their head sideways to try and read the spines?)

I was reminded of those responses on reading a post over at the excellent blog Feel It which took me back to the days when we used to go to Record Fairs quite frequently. Flicking through this box of old 45s brought it all back too.

It seemed like it was every weekend in the early '80s that we'd take the train down to London for a Record Fair but I think that's my memory taking liberties. Anyway, we went to quite a few. I grew tired of it long before Mr SDS did, but it probably didn't help when I started a full-time job in a record shop, seguing my work time and leisure time just a little too much (as well as working every Saturday). Still, for a while they were exciting. I remember how resilient we had to be, prepared to search through every suitable box and crate, tirelessly and hopefully. Frequently the promise was matched only by the disappointment, but you had to keep looking – how could you pass by a box of singles and not look?!

The Record Fairs we went to always seemed to be held in somewhat downmarket hotels - maybe they still are; I wouldn't know. But I can picture them now: large function rooms with burgundy patterned carpets, scuffed woodchip walls... smoke and dust caught in rays of sunshine coming through a window in the dingy bar area... that particular breed of dealer with the greasy comb-over wearing a conker-brown cardigan, resting his not-insubstantial beer belly against the trestle table. We got to know the good ones and the not-so-good, the pleasant and the patronising. We got used to rifling through crates of albums in dusty plastic outer sleeves with corners that cut our fingers. The hand-written indices and barely decipherable price stickers. That smell - the smell of vinyl! Cigarette smoke too... body odour... coffee... mildew... fried breakfasts. Fried breakfasts? I don't know why I'm getting this memory of the smell of egg and bacon, but it's there nonetheless. And punters all but salivating... over boxes and boxes and boxes of vinyl.

Anyway, what was in the uncle's box? I'm sure you're dying to find out.

Well, it was just the usual Elvis, Beatles and the Rolling Stones....etcetera...