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Rob Dempster
'Allo 'Allo Gardens! (AAG) Howick (uMngeni) Die Draadloos 9 August 2026 |
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My first recollection of the 'Draadloos' was when I was four or five years old. My parents bought a radio/recrd player that was mounted in a rather large (for the purpose of containment) cabinet. It The (valve) radio, record turn table, and speaker where in the central part of the cabinet. That central part was flanked on both sides by display cabinets that had curved door frames containing curved glass. These cabinets containg my Grandmother's Tea and Coffee services and several Delft ornaments.
When the Transistor Radio arrived on the scene there was no longer a need for the radio and record player. I removed the radio and record player and in doing so, replaced them with shelves. The record player ws scrapped. The radio found a new home in a cabinet that I constructed for it, and it went into my garage. The radio had an Amplitude Modulated (AM) channel and several Short Wave (SW) channels.
When Cheryl's husband Pierre saw it he rater liked it and so it dissapeared from my garage destined for the Witwatersrand. I have never enquired as to what happened to it. I do know that it did not accompany them to Cork in Ireland and Perth in Western Australia. If it is still lying around somewhere and is not really wanted, i would gladly take it back.
Well since its departure the Music in MyGarage Died.
However that has now changed, I once again do have a radio in my garage. Edith recently scrapped the Clock/Radio that we have had in our bedroom, and it is now in my garage. It can be seen in the two photographs included below.
There was another radio, my Dad's first Transister Radio. It was enclosed in a plastic box and was as large as a size ten shoe box. The radio was still working when the plastic box had reached it' lifespan. So I resued the Printed Circuit Board that contained the electronics and mounted switches and dials, and attached it to a suitable wooden board.
When I returned to Grey College for my Standard Nine yea in Leith House, it accompanied me. It was suitably installed on my Prep Table which was below a window that afforded a view of Murray House some 100 yards away. To improve the reception of the Shortwave Band and the Sunday evening Lorenzo Marques Hit Parade, I instakked an arial that ran from the window to a Gum Tree on the side of Murray House.
One evening when we were preparing fo the Mid-Year Examinations, it start to SNOW in Bloemfontein. Prep was abandonedand the next morning when I looked out of the window, the world was white. A foot (12 inches /39 centimeters) of snow had fallen. Bloemfontein was at a stand-still.
... and it had coated my radio&alos;s arial until the coating was too heavy. At that point it fell off the arail wire and landed in the snow below producing a perfectly straight line in the snow below from below my windowto the Gum Tree. A site I will never forget. The rest of the day was bedlam with one of the teachers arriving on a horse.
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