wendy house

Berkshire Records Office Receptionist (BROR):What are you looking for?

Wendy: Um….history… …nothing in particular… …just browsing….  …um…….what have you got that’s good?

BROR: We’ve got lots of maps, even before the Ordnance Survey started

Wendy: Oh! that sounds good, I like maps, I’ll look at the maps

Large filing cabinates skirt the windows of the records office. Microfiche’s mount rows of dustless, grey, formica tables against the windowless walls. A large table holds the map-drawers down in the middle of the room. Can you tell I was getting a bit excited by it all?

At University in 1983 we had to book time using one of the 3 Microfiche machines – grubbied from thousands of sparingly washed students fingers.  Here there are sparkling rows of them, unused! My gleeful gawping was quickly interrupted

BRO librarian: what are you looking for?

Wendy: I’d like to just browse, your colleague suggested maps…   ….Reading’s Quaker history is interesting too…

The librarian looked disconcerted, I was getting disconcerted. He latched onto my Quaker suggestion and pointed me to the local records subject index filing cabinates. The drawer made a pleasing, heavy, swish sound as he opened it. He suggested looking under “Q” for Quakers or “S” for Society of friends. No hint of my ancient PhD on finding files in electronic filing systems had seeped into this librarians awareness. I smiled and resisted the urge to raise his awareness.

PAPER INDEX CARDS!

!!!!SQUWALLUP!!!!!

(The sound of my brain spasming within my cranium confines)

Index cards. Hand-typed in courier-font. Lined cards where the typing didn’t sit on the lines. Cards where one card is the index for multiple items – so it’s expensive to add new stuff in the right order. Thrilling!  The colour returned to my face with a big smile.   I didn’t need to find anything, this card system was enough to keep me happy for hours, days, possibly years if they don’t upgrade it. I wonder if they have any part time or volunteer jobs…..

The librarian noticed my smile and politely took his leave to help another lady, who was clutching a handful of cards.  I tucked into the “S“s – Settlement, Scutage, Sheriffs, Slavery, Suffragettes…

The Librarian returned about an hour later.  My hands still deep in the yellowing index cards

BRO librarian: are you doing ok?

Wendy: Oh yes! YES! I’ve found out lots of lovely stuff. I’d never heard of Scutage, Quietus or Lugg before now!

He beamed a lovely smile and grew quietly animated as he showed me how to use the index card reference numbers to track down the physical location of an item in a herd of big folders. To practice I picked a card titled “Services, Personal” where in 1396 a married couple had sold themselves in return for the things they needed to live – a home and a place to keep their sheep

The afternoon slip-slided away on paper cards labelled with “S”

An adult version of Sesame Street “S”exploration

The snow is disappearing to the sound of modern English’s optimistic little ditty.   This  song came to my attention on a compilation  audio tape cassette that Bambi used as part of his courting ritual.  

Modern English sang I melt with you

I have old lady

• shoes (ecco)
• no-sholderpads (apparently the 80′s are back)
•  bras -because banana bras are back in fashion
• wrinkles
• natural arctic blonde highlights
• smile at babies reflex
• living arrangements (with two cats)

I wonder what comes  next…

In  the 80′s  I used to  cut the shoulderpads out from new clothes.   This fashion-subversive act enabled  me  to avoid looking like a cast extra from  Dynasty, Falconcrest, Dallas, or an aspiring  USA football team member.    

Apparantly the shoulder-pad  look is returning.   There are rumours that The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) haberdashery department has recently sold-out of shoulder pads.    

I didn’t purchase them.

In my day,   before personal cell phones,   there would be one phone in any household, if you were Lucky.   All incoming calls came through this one, shared, phone.    In our house the parents answered the phone until, as teenagers, our friends  started to call us (rather than their parents calling our parents).  

Shared phone

Skillfullly avoiding parental or sibling interview of people calling-in  was tricky.   It is a skill today’s youngsters have not had to learn.       The role of  phone sanitizers has also been reduced by the relative lack of phone sharing.   I can’t remember the last time I called a number then asked ‘Is [name] there?‘

Department S sang Is Vic there?

Due to temporary failure of satelite connections the BBC announced that they were sorry for the interuption in our reception of thier programming.

In my day the BBC used a collection of strangely engaging short media clips to entertain viewers during program interruption,   called ‘interludes’, accompanied by classical music.   These media clips included watching a potter potting,   a spinner spinning (wool,   not exercise) and the slightly more cute kitten-playing:

This week I passed a threshold.   The ‘in my day’ threshold.   In my day…

• Phones were connected by cables to walls in the hallways of homes or in red-boxes on the street.
• Televisions had a dial with 4 positions on it,   one for each of the known channels and one spare channel

And much much more or less

In December 1981 most of the 1000 or so pupils turned up at my school during the snowy week,   only a few teachers managed to get to school.  

SLACKERS!      

The story was very similar to the current snow-stopped-school.     Except that the current snow brings the country to a standstill crisis because parents are having to stay at home to look after their kids,   in 1981 the kids stayed at the closed school and thrashed the proverbial ski-pants of each other.

In 1981 the few, local,  teachers who turned-up organised mass snowball fights between academic years.   In this photo the 3rd year students on the right hand side are advancing on the 2nd year students who are bravely running away to the left.  

RUNAWAY!  

The third year won thier foray.   I was in the 6th form.   The 5th year thoroughly squished snow down our necks, up our not insubstantial noses  and in our pants,   jolly good fun it was too.   Hot scrumpy all round,   Hoorah!

In 1978 I was witnessing the dramatic emotional rollercoasters and soap operas stories of my friends while they discovered ‘going out’ with each other. Fascinating. Tearful toilet consultations, betrayals in the school playground, ambushing at the school gates, but worst of all for me – underwear became important. One girlfriend took me aside to provide worldly advice on behalf of my concerned girlfriends. The advice was:

Wendy, you really should wear a bra, they look a disaster

At home I asked mum ˜can I have a bra?, ˜yes dear, if you want. Gosh that was easy. We went to the local M&S   where they measured the relevant pasts of my body and I tried on several   ˜training” bras. Training because evidently I needed to practice bra wearing skills. Even the smallest training bra was less that half empty on me. It seemed silly, mum and I persisted in this pubescently significant purchase, neither of us overtly questioning the need. I wore the elasticated mini-monstrosity to school. At school the straps were twanged by all sundry as we moved between classes. I didn’t wear it again. Disaster was a less painful experience than strap-twang-burns Ever since then I have regularly failed carefully provided training-to-be-female exercises.

Jilted John sang Jilted John the side was going steady (with Susan)

The small ceremony of playing a vinyl Long Playing (LP) record has been temporarily lost from the Wendy House. Below are the Dr. Wendy recommended steps taken to play a vinyl LP*:

1. select the record, review the cover-art and song listing for each side.  
2. select a side to play based on personal taste or consultation with people in the room
3. Tip the album cover slightly with one hand to slide the LP from the cover into the other hand
4. Place the cover on a surface near the record deck
5. Slide the record from its protective sleeve taking particular care not to touch the grooves
6. Place the sleeve on top of the record cover
7. hold the LP up to the light and check there are no large visible scratches that might interfere with the quality of your listening experience
8. Place the LP on the turn-table with the side to be played facing the ceiling, the hole in the centre of the vinyl over the peg in the centre of the turntable
9. select the turntable speed by turning the switch to the slowest speed, 3rd position, 33rpm, the switch should make a pleasing clunking noise with any position change
10. Postion your body so that you have a good view of the position of the expensive diamond needle above the outside grooves of the record
11. Lift the record-player arm and move it towards the record edge it where it can gently drop onto the outside rim or the record, or between tracks if not playing the whole side
12. Pick-up the LP, album, cover and sleeve to review and admire their art work and content
13. Start bouncing around, waving your arms and singing
14. Laugh as any nearby cats run for cover

There is a risk that I may purchase a turntable this year in order to recapture this meditatively pleasurable ceremony wth my small collection of 200 or so pre-1986, rarely played, vinyls.

* Singles and 78’s both have subtle yet significant variations on the above ceremony.