The magic music box

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33077, 18 November 1972, Page 11

The magic music box

(By LAVINIA DERWENT)

Playing the gramophone was our favourite pastime in the remote farmhouse where I spent my childhood. Indeed, it was our only form of entertainment, especially during the long winter evenings when we were shut off from the outside world by a snowstorm.

We could make music ourselves — of a kind — on the old parlour piano, but my rendering of “The Bluebells of Scotland” (with variations) was hardly to be compared with the brilliance of Paderewski who never struck a wrong note on the gramophone. It was a friendly old machine with an immense fluted horn, inside which I used to stick my head when I wanted to get closer to Caruso or Harry Lauder. Sometimes I stuffed my doll there, too, or used the horn as a secret place for hidden treasure. My elders and betters could always tell from the muffled sound if ’‘that bairn” had been at it again. I knew every tune insideout and upside-down and was word-perfect with every song. Not that there were many. The records had been played so often that they bore many scars and scratches. I knew the exact spot at which the needle would stick, and sat on the table beside the gramophone ready to pick up the arm and lift it safely over the obstacle. Otherwise, there tvould be a dreadful din as Melba repeated herself over and over again, till even the cat was nearly driven mad and rushed out of the house. A rousing tune I liked a good-going band with a rousing tune, and would often play the best bits over and over again, by shifting the needle back to the “cheery place.” Playing the gramophone was anything but a passive performance. Indeed, it entailed a great deal of hard labour, but it was well worth it. To me it was truly a magic music box. First, the unwieldy machine had to be lifted on to the table, a job far beyond my capacity. I had to coax Jessie, the odd-job woman, to leave her scrubbing and lend me her aid. She pretended to protest. “Hoots, lassie, can ye no’ let’s have some peace an’ quiet?” But she always gave in, for Jessie was partial to music while she worked, and some-

times even tried to sing a duet with the “man in the grammyphone.” When it was safely on the table, I could take over.

I hunted through the small pile of records till I found a favourite, put it on the turntable and inserted a new needle, if there were any left in the wee box. Then came the cranking up. Sometimes I was forced to call Jessie from her tasks to help me turn the handle. (“Ye need mair porridge, lassie.’’) If not, the record would run down half-way through, with a disembodied voice groaning to a standstill. . .

It was fun having such power over the musicians, so that I could stop them and start them, or make them go faster and slower. Poor things! They were all sadly overworked. No wonder the voices sounded wheezy, as if they had all sung themselves hoarse, for I gave them little rest and never got over the thrill of watching the records spinning round and round.

It was a great event when we had a new record—a rare event—and a terrible tragedy when we broke one—not so rare when I was handling them. “Butter-fingers!” Jessie used to call me. Sometimes, when we were snowed-in, we ran out of needles and had to fall back on any old rusty ones we could find. Anything to keep the gramophone going.

One sad day it gave up the ghost altogether. Not a wheeze nor a cough could we get out of it. What was to be done? Send for the plumber, the joiner, the electrician? But they were seven miles away, the telephone-wires were down, and the road blocked with snow.

It was the shepherd who came to our rescue. He took the magic box to pieces and put it together again. After a few false starts it spun round as merrily as before, and even Melba seemed to be in better voice after the operation. When we had visitors we sometimes held a kitchen dance, with the faithful gramophone providing music for reels, schottisches, strathspeys and waltzes. I liked the “Blue Danube” best, and would twirl round the kitchen to its strains, partnered by a giant fanner in tackety boots.

The magic box was my first and favourite toy, and the tunes of my childhood are fixed for ever in my memory. Today, when I hear an orchestra playing one of the familiar pieces, I wait for ■them to stick at the “scratchy bit” and am surprised when they sail safely on without waiting for me to help them over the hurdle.