Christmas special

When Dad sang in church he often had to suddenly drop or rise an octave so that the hymn was within his range. The most notable example of this came in Christians Awake, Salute the Happy Morn, usually the opening carol at Park on Christmas Day, during which he would turn to wink and/or nod his head at us. I always think of him at carol services.

And now to the main point of this posting ...

If you thought the previous sound clip was timewarp-tastic then wait until you click on this one. The recordings came about as I received a tape recorder for Christmas in 1977 (a second-hand Grundig from Sirrell's second-hand shop on the Oxford Road). I let it run at one or two points during the big day without anyone knowing - and here's what resulted. Editing the surviving clips has been a labour of love (and something of a learning curve). I apologise for leaving in my "mongy" interjection at the start of Act IV but I couldn't be bothered to edit it out:

first class

These two words preceded anything for which dad wanted to give approval - "That was absolutely first class!" Although of course someone could also be "a first class ruddy bore, between you and me" (eg Ken Curtis)

More parental violence

ALso has anyone already logged the not very tender sounding "I'll brain you!" yet?

Grace.... short version

this is a bit delayed following previous grace-themed blogs, but it came to me just the other day: "Shall we just thank the Lord and carry on?" (Dad's nose fully in the trough at this stage!)

BTW - LOVE LOVE the auctioneering tape - you are a techno-whizzard Paul - very evocative - although dad's price incrementation (?) sounded a bit dodgy. Nice bell-ringing, John too!

Two more Dadisms - and a sound clip

A couple for you:

1. "Gently, Bentley" - as I said while edging the car down a snowy lane.
2. "You make my blood boil!".

Clip of the day:

All I will say about this is that I discovered it on a tape of old radio recordings, I've no idea how it came to be recorded and it's astonishing to listen to after all these years. (The pic is from a Dales auction mart which Beck, Mads, the kids and I visited in 2007). Hope you appreciate the technical accomplishment of getting this online! There are more clips where this comes from.