Burnt Books

It might be 50 years ago since Bill’s homemade stereo spontaneously combusted, singeing my books and diaries on the shelf above but, as he’s my brother I’ve never let him forget it!

I still remember the thrill of first hearing familiar records in stereo for the first time. The track I particularly remember was ‘The Shirt Event from Olympia’ by the Bonzo Dog Band. Going from mono to stereo was the equivalent of switching from 2D to 3D. The surprise was that we could tap into this sophisticated technology with Bill’s concoction of bits of old amps from a record player and radio wired together and held in place with tacks hammered into an offcut of plywood. Initially the speakers weren’t even in boxes, they were just lying there on the floor next to makeshift amplifier.

We now know that attaching a transformer to a piece of wood isn’t a good idea.

Here’s just one of the casualties amongst our treasured records, books and diaries on the metal shelf unit above. I got our local printer Mr Chappell to trim off the worst of the charred edges from my copy of Coyler & Hammond’s Flies of the British Isles. Still readable but hardly a pleasure to use, so naturally when I spotted a pristine copy amongst the secondhand books in the cafe at the National Trust’s Wentworth Castle I went for it.

Nor could I resist Guide to Microlife by Rainis and Russell, Animals under logs and stones by Wheater and Read and Small Freshwater Creatures by Olsen, Sunesen and Pedersen.