1977-1978 Above the Pie Shop

When my mother left the man she had married, we moved out of his house and into a very different place altogether. It was a house where the front room had been turned into a pie shop, and we lived behind it and above it.

Upstairs there were two large bedrooms, a small bedroom, and a large bathroom. Downstairs there was a big hallway, a small living room, a kitchen, and a larder. There was also a cellar, though we never really used it. It was one of those houses that felt part home, part business, and part leftover space from another life.

By this time I had left school and was working. The best thing about the move, from my point of view, was that the house was much closer to work. I could walk there, which made a big difference. After the upheaval of moving again, that bit of independence suited me.

At first, I shared one of the big bedrooms with my brother, while my sister had the small bedroom. Later, when she moved out, I moved into the small room myself. It may not have been much, but it was my own space, and that mattered.

This is where my tech journey really began properly. I was working now, earning my own money, and I could start buying things for myself. I don’t remember exactly how or when I bought my first piece of proper tech, but I know what it was: a 12-inch portable black-and-white television. I suspect it probably came from my mother’s mail order catalogue, as that was how a lot of things were bought then.

It was only a small portable TV, but to me it felt like freedom. For the first time, I could watch my own programmes without having to fit around everyone else. Growing up, the television had always been a shared thing, usually controlled by the adults in the house. Now I had my own set, in my own room, and I could decide what was on.

In the mid-1970s, that felt like a big step. A portable black-and-white television might seem basic now, but at the time it gave me a bit of independence. I could move it around, take it with me, and watch what I wanted. When we went on holiday to visit family, I would often take the TV with me. It became one of those things I just brought along.

At my grandparents’ house, where we often stayed, they had a very large radiogram. I would sit there playing their records, even though I hadn’t really found my own taste in music yet. Their collection was mostly Max Bygraves sing-along records, The King’s Singers, choirs, and that sort of thing. It wasn’t exactly my music, but I still enjoyed using the equipment and playing through whatever was there.

I also spent a lot of time listening to the radio. Sometimes I would retune it just to see what I could find, especially on long wave. I liked searching for obscure stations, hearing voices and sounds coming from somewhere else, even if I didn’t always know what I had found.

Looking back, this period feels like the point where technology stopped being something that belonged to the house and started becoming something that belonged to me. The small black-and-white TV, the radiogram, the radio stations on long wave — they were simple things, but they gave me control, choice, and curiosity.

And that little room above the pie shop was probably the first place where my own tech story really started.

There was also a record player in the flat above the pie shop, though I honestly can’t remember much about it now. I don’t remember what make it was, where it came from, or even who it really belonged to. It was simply there, part of the background of the flat, but by this time it had become far more important to me because I had started buying records and cassette tapes of my own.

Around then, something else was beginning to appear everywhere: Star Wars.

Before the film had even been released, it already felt enormous. Posters, magazine articles, toys, books, and anything connected to it seemed to appear everywhere, and I started collecting whatever I could find. Long before I actually saw the film, I felt like I already knew the world of Star Wars through the merchandise and recordings surrounding it.

Two things in particular stayed in my memory.

The first was a cassette tape: an abridged version of the story using dialogue, music, and sound effects taken directly from the film itself. I played it constantly. Hearing Darth Vader’s breathing, lightsabres humming, blaster fire, and fragments of dialogue over and over again built the film in my imagination before I had even sat in a cinema seat to watch it properly.

The second was the original 1977 soundtrack album by John Williams on a double LP. Even now I can still remember the impact of that music. The themes sounded huge and cinematic compared to anything else I owned at the time. I would sit listening to it repeatedly, studying the cover artwork and imagining scenes from a film I barely knew but already felt obsessed with.

Looking back, I honestly think I knew more about Star Wars before I saw the film than I did after finally watching it. The soundtrack, the cassette adaptation, magazine pictures, and all the surrounding hype had already created the world in my head.

I can’t really remember what other music I owned around that time. Those Star Wars recordings completely dominated my attention. Both the cassette and the soundtrack LP were played to death in that flat above the pie shop.

The cassette eventually vanished somewhere over the years, probably worn out, taped over, or simply lost during one of many house moves. The double album survived much longer and stayed with me for years afterward, until eventually that too disappeared, along with most of the records I once owned.