Big Brother is watching (over) you

In an earlier instalment, I highlighted how the golden music of the 1960s provided the background for nearly all of my teenage years. What an era! Apart from the soundtrack, we had a fantastic opportunity to witness first-hand the seismic social changes occurring in that decade, undoubtedly, revolution rather than evolution. I was not only lucky enough to be born when I was, but I also had the amazing good fortune to have a caring brother, Phil, five years older, who enabled me to take full advantage of my experiences.

He left school, a couple of weeks shy of his 16th birthday, beginning an apprenticeship. I started senior school a few months later. He had always taken his 'big brother' responsibilities seriously, but at 11, I was probably just emerging from my 'annoying little twerp' stage. Then, within a few years, we had grown very close, friends as well as brothers, spending a lot of time together and sharing many interests.

My follow-up to 'Thank you, Ellie' is called 'Thank you, Grace' and concludes the story for now. It will be published in the spring. One element I have developed is the relationship between Grace and her older brother, Tommy. I describe how Grace recognises a quality in her connection with Tommy that is absent from her friends and their older siblings. 'Write about what you know'! I have because my relationship with Phil differed markedly from those between my friends and their older brothers. I know this to be a fact because they told me and often remarked how much they enjoyed his company. I met their older brothers and saw why they scored Phil so highly. In the second half of the sixties, he enabled me in so many different ways. In terms of music, where do I start?

He gave me an old transistor radio to listen to the pirate stations broadcasting from ships. Radio Caroline was my favourite, and I often heard the muffled tones of Johnny Walker seeping through my pillow as I tuned in to his '10 o clock turn-on time'. Phil loved 'The Beatles', so naturally, I did too. He immediately bought copies as they released a succession of albums, 'Beatles for Sale', 'Rubber Soul', 'Help', 'Revolver' then Sgt Peppers'. My parents also worked full-time, so I was a 'latch-key kid', letting myself into the house when I got home from school around 4.00pm. I didn't mind; in fact, I preferred it that way. I had the time and space to play the current album on the radiogram my dad made as I tried concentrating on my homework.

Then Phil indirectly widened my musical exposure considerably. He and his friend, Rick, recognised they needed to supplement their meagre apprenticeship wages of a few pounds per week. In true entrepreneurial style, they had noticed the growing popularity of discos, so they decided to set themselves up as a mobile variety. They bought some sound equipment, made other items, such as a light show and began investing in a collection of 45s. This soon grew to hundreds, and Phil made three cabinets to house them. Between weekend gigs, they were often stored at our house, and he was happy for me to browse through them and play whatever I fancied.

There was a great selection of classic labels, including Parlophone (The Beatles), Decca (The Rolling Stones) and EMI. My love of soul music grew as artists on the Tamla Motown, Atlantic and Stax labels, to name but a few, featured in a maximum of ten singles that could be loaded onto the turntable's stem with the clever release mechanism. It saved having to replace each record as they finished, but as every slight warp in the vinyl accumulated in the growing pile of records, the final disc rolled up and down like a ship on a stormy day.

Of course, as my tastes in music developed, my homework suffered!

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