Cassette tapes have always been part of my life, it seems.
One of my favourite childhood memories is of the Christmas I was given my first cassette-radio – a piece of kit that I (almost literally) loved to pieces. By the time it finally played it’s last, there were at least 2 buttons missing, the aerial had snapped at some point, and the cassette deck door had to be shut firmly to stay that way.
But for the years I had it, I discovered music, a love of radio in general (and particularly Test Match Special), I started recording music and other programmes onto tape, buying my own audiotapes, and that my little radio could pick up the audio of Channel 4 – and there were plenty of Sunday nights I didn’t sleep anywhere near as much as I should have because I was listening intently to the live NFL game of the week in bed, trying to make sense of the pictureless TV coverage…
I realise now that it’s all part of how I’m made up: radio and tapes are certainly both a major part of me, and all began there. It’s where I fell for much of the things I still love now. And spending more time in the place I grew up, sharing it with my wife and children is a special feeling – taking the smallest chap there for a play group, going to church there again, walking round the area.
It’s all a bit like some missing links emerging from the shadows. So these two things are what this week’s poem ended up being about.
Hauntology
The static fades a little
with the first few steps –
the opening bars
of a b-side
too long unplayed.
And with the rumble
and hiss, background patina
to jumpy images,
comes a warmth,
not just nostalgia.
Because this is still me.
It’s the same tape,
tangled in the the same deck,
after careful re-spooling,
it is still mine.
Navigating 