This is the Reel Story
I’ve been struggling lately trying to decide on a memory that I wish to write about. Not that I’ve exhausted the childhood ones but some of the later ones from early adulthood are pulling heavily at me.
This past
weekend tipped that decision over the edge.
The adult members of the family sat around listening to reel to reel
audio tapes that LB had made fifty years ago!
Yes, that’s 50 – a big five – oh.
It was marvelous!
The quality was
not what we have become used to in this technological age we live in but that
did not detract from the emotional impact.
Now that you
know the “when” you might be wondering about “what” was on the tapes and “how
and why” does LB still have them! The “how”
is easy – he retrieved them from my mother’s belongings at the time of her
death. As for the rest - well here’s a bit of background:
As the
eldest of the Covey of Cockneys, I, along with my better half arrived in Canada
in 1954. I did and do love Canada but I
missed my “Covey”. You can’t have a “Covey”
of one. Happily for me, the other
members arrived over the following years.
Of course while this was “happily for me” it meant that our mother was
now alone!
So what
could we do to keep in touch?
Telephone
calls? Certainly. However, these were extremely expensive and with
the time constraints – never very satisfactory.
Letter
writing? Yes, that was where all the
finer details of daily living were spelled out.
Mum liked it
best when we were all together: laughing
and singing, all talking over each other.
In other words she loved having her noisy family all around her. Telephone
calls and letter writing didn’t quite cut the mustard.
So began the
birth of the “reel to reel” tapes.
Remember, in
this time period there was nothing digital available, even cassette tapes, eight
track, and Walkman had not yet been invented.
You wanted sound you went BIG. So
LB went big. He bought a reel to
reel. It was explained to Mum that she
would need to rent a machine in order to hear the recordings. Not to be out done she also bought a
machine!
 |
| Similar but not the same as LB's |
Now we are really committed to
making family recordings!
Weekly
gatherings of our little Covey and our very understanding partners took place.
LB and LLB
would sing accompanied by their guitars while a cacophony of the rest of our
voices provided background atmosphere.
We did “off the cuff” skits long before Second City even existed. One
I remember was based on a ballroom dancing competition similar to shows seen on
British Television. Another took place
on an imaginary London bus. Naturally the participants were all Covey members.
My personal
favourites always involved the children especially when LB used his interviewing
skills.
I could tell
lots more about that time, but then, these are my memories and truly: “You had
to be there”. And that’s why this past
weekend was like a little bit of magic because once again I heard voices that
can no longer be heard as I was transported “there”.
