My Bush Record Player

My first two record players were second hand. We moved to Braintree in Essex in the summer of 1959 and in the autumn we acquired an old wind up machine that only played 78's. So the first two singles John and I bought (I believe that Nanan provided the funds) were Cliff's "Living Doll" and "Travelling Light", both on 78rpm!

 

Sometime in 1961, I managed to get hold of a tiny record player that actually could play 45's and LP's. The latter were wider than the player. The sound quality was pretty poor, but my jazz records from the twenties and thirties sounded fine.

 

By the spring of 1963, I had saved enough from my paper round (and borrowed the rest from Mum) to purchase my first proper brand new record player. I had been looking at the beautiful Bush machine in the shop for some time. Still only playing in mono, it was at least portable. Listening to The Beatles' second album "With The Beatles" in my digs in Barnes was pretty unforgettable. The photos are exactly like the one that I owned. Perhaps not as iconic as the Dansette, it was still a brilliant piece of kit for it's time.