Sweet and Tender Eulogy

In the summer of 1982, while the rest of the world attended to their daily business, I lay sweltering in a little brown tent, sometimes shaded by a young apple tree, with just a radio for company. I was profoundly moved.

At the tender age of 10, freely dozing, I found myself indelibly marked by Don McLean's 'Vincent', Robert Wyatt's 'Ship Building' and Leonard Cohen's 'Suzanne'. Wearing trousers, that unintentionally ended a centimetre above my socks, I discovered that misery in music makes for magnificent company. File alongside joyous memories of bounding recklessly to 'The Yellow Submarine' and Disney’s ‘Winnie the Pooh’, and much might be explained.

In later life, my sister took custody of the radio and I the tent. The tent, boasting a cream curtain, patterned with circles of many shades of brown, eventually graduated from hosting radio transmissions to accommodating festival revellers. One day, when the zip could be sewn no more, I was saddened to say goodbye. Years later, when the radio joined the tent in the land of things we once loved, my sister called to let me know.

This is a eulogy to a black portable radio and a brown ridge tent. Without them my life would lack a certain richness, one which endlessly gladdens my heat. If you’ve lost your faith in love and music, oh the end won't be long. My faith began in 1982, and not just in music.

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Now, I wonder what happened to my 7" of this:
Download MP3: Disney Chorus - Winnie the Pooh (courtesy of lair2000.net)



My version had a Winnie the Pooh voice at the end, which we all used to shout along too. "I got my paw stuck in a honey pot!" (I think!)