Waiting breathlessly for the opening tune of a favourite radio series, be it a sitcom, thriller, crime, romance, horror, or whatever genre, would be unimaginable for many people today, as there was nothing to see, so what was all the excitement about?
Photo by Nacho Carretero Molero on Unsplash
Sound was the only medium used - voices, and sound effects. The producers and actors of radio shows did an excellent job of making the story come alive and kept us, the listeners, enthralled.
We saw the story in our mind's eye by listening to the dialogue and using our imagination; no actor looked the same as we all formed a picture in our own minds. The scenes were made realistic with the use of sound effects - suitable background noise; music - from dramatic, scary, and romantic; footsteps, doors slamming or knocking on doors, car sirens and tyres screeching, bikes, trucks, trains chugging along, steam engines, planes taking off, animal noises, weather sounds like rain or thunder, a fire crackling...the list goes on and on.
Here in South Africa, our favourite radio station was Springbok Radio.
There were programs for pre-schoolers in the morning - very few creches existed back in the day; a woman's place was in the home after all, or as a popular phrase went - barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. Many radio programs were aimed at women during the day. My Mom had a small portable radio and if it was time for her serial or series as we call them, she would not let that stop her chores - she'd walk down to the washline with the radio safely tucked under her arm, so as not to miss the action!
The news was read at various times during the day, and there were many music programs as well.
Every night at 8, the whole family would gather around the radiogram to listen to the Radio Theatre.
The radiogram took pride of place in the livingroom - it was a wooden cabinet of sorts with a radio and turntable built into it.
My brothers loved action shows, but my favourite was The Creaking Door, which were paranormal stories; the kind Stephen King would write.
One horror story I will never forget, and which made me frightened of dolls, was when a walking doll became evil and went around killing people at night. I was young and impressionable and my vivid imagination made that story even more frightening. I was terrified walking down the passage in the dark and would end up running to my room while looking over my shoulder! I would bribe one of my brothers to sleep at my feet by giving them 5 cents, which could buy them a handful of toffees at the local cafe ;)
I gave all my dolls away and preferred paper dolls after that horror story; they did not look so spooky as the dolls with their glassy eyes, and I did not think paper dolls would get up in the middle of the night and try to strangle me!
Photo by Pablo Arenas on Unsplash
As the song by Mary Hopkin went -
Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end....
Good memories of a time gone by!
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Carl Sagan
This has been my ineligible entry for the Silver Bloggers Blog of the Month:
Things, or memories, from (y)our youth that today's youth will not understand or have seen.
Deadline: Tuesday 19 July, midnight, UTC
I hope you enjoyed reading my memories of yonder year, that many of today's youth sitting around the radio and letting my imagination run away with me.
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