Hi Fabian Foo,
Thanks for sharing your stories with us. I enjoyed reading them and the stories brought back some fond memories to me as well. The "threat" to terminate the Rediffusion audio service sounds really familiar. We have to live with "threats" all the time during our younger days.
Wow! Never knew you were such a good student. Being "first boy" is way out for me. Never thought of achieving it as I know it is beyond me! Ha-ha! My granddaughter, who did her Primary One at St Nick's, told me she was "fifth girl" and I told myself that was better than your grandfather ever did. Then I realized she was "fifth girl" in the entire Primary One cohort! Quite embarrassing!
Anyway, I remember fiddling around with my Rediffusion set [image above] and added an extra speaker to the system. It was very loud and sounded "shiok". The only problem was that I cannot control the volume! And therefore, it was a real nuisance to everyone at home. So I was "threatened" to get rid of my "invention", or the service will be disconnected!
Your recollection about saving pennies and dimes to buy records was familiar too. One record I purchased through this method was His Latest Flame by Elvis. I remember a place selling vinyl record too but for a different reason. A friend of mine shared with me that when he was in secondary school, he was giving tuition to one of the daughters of the company. He told me that she was really pretty, and he would have willingly gave her tuition for free!
By the time other record companies came into the scene, my interest was looking for old movies, rather than music CDs. One of my prized collections was a four set Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan classic. The titles were Tarzan Finds A Son, Tarzan's Secret Treasure, Tarzan's New York Adventure and Tarzan the Ape-man. It costs $200! Two Westerns I was always looking for were The Proud Ones and Warlock but never found them there.
Keep your stories coming Fabian!
Cheers!
AUTHOR: JOHN CHER.
2ND DECEMBER 2015.
Comments are always welcome.
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