Writer's Notebook

Entering the museum Lupak felt a little guilty. Was this really going to interest his son. For him it would be a welcome trip down memory lane. As a kid he had spent days on end in this museum. A stranger might have wondered how that was possible. It only had two rooms and the cellar, fitted out to look like an old kitchen. That, of course, was the museum's secret. He remembered the first time he's visited it with his aunt. She was helping out after his parents had moved to this new town. There was so much to do, the three children had been packed off to stay with her for a few days. And today they had all tumbled into her old Hillman imp and up the valley, over the top and down into Morfen. They'd all had lunch in the new house but before returning Auntie Aggie had promised him something special... the museum.

To be perfectly honest, it had not caught his imagination, at first. Not until, they had descended the staircase and seen the kitchen. Auntie Aggie couldn't contain her excitement. It's just like the place your Mam and I grew up in. And off she went on her own trip down memory lane. By the time they had finished the small crowd that had gathered in the meantime, applauded discretely. But Lupak hadn't finished yet. He wanted to know more, and he bombarded her with questions.

And now, here he was with his own son. Would the magic wear off on him? What sort of questions would he ask. Obviously, the museum would have changed. New exhibits, old ones vanished. Yes, there was the old Penny Farthing and Simon's eyes gleamed as Lupak explained to him how he had once taken part in a Penny Farthing rally. But apart from that, Simon hadn't said much. They went down to the kitchen but even that didn't really awaken his interest. Then he saw it. An old wooden box with something like a spiralling loudspeaker on top.

"What's that Dad?"

"Well now, that's something quite special. It's one of the first record players they ever made."

"And what's a record player?"
This week Sunday Scribblings asked to write about "The Good Old Days" and provoked this trip down Memory Lane.

The question took him aback. Of course, Simon was barely old enough to remember cassette tapes. How on earth could he be expected to know what a record player was. He began to explain. Not only the mechanics of the thing, but all about the evenings spent around the fire, listening, laughing singing. The dances they used to have, treading softly so as not to cause the needle to jump and force from them three steps at once. And, of course, the one time when he had gone into the recording studio himself and made a record with his four idols.

"Jim fixed it for me," he said, telling Simon about that old television programme that made young children's dreams come true.

When they went back upstairs, they realised it was already getting dark. And the elderly museum attendant was slumbering away in his rocking chair. Some things never change he thought.