TO EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON...

I probably didn't buy my first single 45 rpm record until 1974, and I think it was SEASONS IN THE SUN by TERRY JACKS (don't shoot me).  Over the years, I bought many more, even some earlier singles which predated 'Seasons'.  Many records were available for years after their first release, and could be ordered, brand-new, from a back catalogue kept by record shops and departments.  Some were exactly as they'd first appeared, others had a different B side, but they were pretty readily to hand if you wanted to order a particular single to fill a gap in your collection.

Eventually, I gave them all to my brother, who hardly ever played them - though when he did, it can fairly be said that he didn't look after them.  A year or two later I reclaimed them, and was astonished to see that he'd discarded the picture sleeves, and that some were bent or warped, and also scratched and seriously scuffed into the bargain.  Over the years, I've replaced the more prominently damaged ones (though I've so far kept the originals), and there's probably only another couple or so that I want to update.

I still have my original copy of Seasons In The Sun, and if my memory is correct in recalling it as the first single I ever bought, it's a bit of a landmark as, hitherto, all the other singles in the house had been procured by my brother.  Whatever record it was though (if I'm mistaken about 'Seasons'), I'll still have it, and it's good to look through them all from time-to-time and remember what was happening in my life when I first acquired them.  (I was still at school when Terry Jack's record hit the airwaves.)

In 1981, I was living down in Southsea, Portsmouth, and I bought ALL AROUND MY HAT by STEELEYE SPAN from a 2nd-hand record shop called JACK'S.  It's stamped with WEAPONS ELECTRICAL OFFICER 1.  H.M.S. SHEFFIELD and also has a word on one side, which might be a name.  As most of you will know, in 1982, the Sheffield was bombed in the Falklands war and was designated as an official war grave, as neither it, nor the 20 crewmen (out of 281) who were killed were ever recovered.  I can't help but wonder if the previous owner of my record is lying at the bottom of the sea on the edge of the Total Exclusion Zone, where the ship sank after an attempt to tow it to South Georgia.  I do hope he was one of the survivors though.

Anyway, what I want to ask all you faithful Crivs is this:  Can you remember the first ever single you bought and do you still have it?  If so, what happy memories does it conjure up for you whenever you play it (or hear it on the radio)?  Don't be shy now, share your reminiscences with your fellow Crivvies in the comments section.

However, before you do that, let me say that I have an earlier single that I remember buying, namely I RECALL A GYPSY WOMAN by DON WILLIAMS.  It came out in 1973, but I must've bought it later, after hearing it on the radio one night, as I'm pretty sure I'd left school by then.  Below, should you be interested, are numbers 2 to 5 of the first five singles I bought, though they might not be displayed in the exact sequence I got them.

Posted in: Cartoons