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 Big video recorders and smelly carpets!
I remember this period in particular as if it was yesterday. Andrew’s parents had a typically mid-1980’s video recorder, which if my memory serves me correctly was a Ferguson Videostar. When tapes were playing or recording on the machine, the motors within made a fairly intrusive sound which would be totally unacceptable in any video recorder of this day and age. I remember the noise vividly, and it can clearly be heard on our early audio recordings of Doctor Who soundtracks that were made via a microphone rather than through a direct cable connection. Unfortunately - and I’m sure I will get no thanks from his parents for recalling this fact - the noise also reminds me of the smell of their lounge carpet. This statement is not quite as bizarre as it sounds; Andrew’s family had at the time a young kitten called Charlene (not after Kylie Minogue’s character in Neighbours I was told, but a character in the US TV detective series Matlock), who was yet to be properly house-trained, and also an elderly cat called Brandy who I understand was maltreated in her younger years and so was very timid and somewhat incontinent (not an ideal combination, you must admit), so they both used to have impromptu accidents without warning. I remember on one occasion Andrew and his brothers and I were sitting in their lounge, and his youngest brother Stephen was playing a game of throw-it-in-the-air-and-catch-it with a satsuma. After several successful catches of the satsuma, he suddenly missed it on its way down and it landed on poor Brandy’s head! I can’t quite recall if this particular event triggered one of her trademark bladder-emptying demonstrations, but she certainly didn’t wait for a repeat injury and sped off faster than her elderly legs would normally have carried her. The regularity of these occurrences meant that the carpet was beyond redemption, and thus at close range the pungent odour remained. Most of the time we would watch Doctor Who videos whilst sitting or lying on the lounge carpet in front of the television, thus my association of the smell with the noise of the video recorder. A strange anecdote, I admit, but just one of those odd things which sticks in my mind. Next Episode: Even BIGGER video recorders – and Chipmunk Timelords!
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During
these few weeks we were sometimes joined by another of our school friends,
Leonard Buckley. On one of the occasions that Leonard was with us at
Andrew’s house, he deliberately dropped Andrew’s BBC Video copy of
Revenge of the Cybermen down the stairs, albeit still in its case. He
then decided to put the empty case under the fountain that Andrew’s dad
had installed in their pond in the back garden, but fortunately once it
had been dried off it had not been damaged. Leonard was not stupid or a
vandal as may be deduced from his actions, but he was rather eccentric. He
also possessed a great sense of humour and was a very talented artist, as
was demonstrated on one occasion when Andrew had lent him his copy of
The Horns of Nimon Target novel. As a practical joke, Leonard went to
the trouble of creating by hand a brilliant facsimile of the book cover,
which must have taken him ages as it was accurate down to the last detail,
and he then tried to burn it round the edges to make it appear that
Andrew’s book had in fact gone up in flames. However, he accidentally
obliterated almost all of the cover, and all that was left was the top of
Tom Baker’s head and some of the diamond logo! I remember falling about
laughing when Leonard presented Andrew with the phoney cover, both before
and after I had realised it was a joke, but naturally Andrew was not quite
so amused.