C is for CASSETTE

It meant 'little box' in French and although it had come into being in the mid sixties, I didn't really discover the joys of the cassette until well into the seventies. Up until that time, the only way to record anything was on a cumbersome open reel recorder and , because of its lack of portability, that system was indeed a very personal player indeed. But the cassette changed all of that almost overnight. For a while it battled with the eight track player for dominance, particularly in cars, but the bulky size of the cartridges and the fact that you could only buy pre-recorded music, eventually heralded their demise, even though the sound quality was better. Yet the cassette was so handy. It fitted into a pocket, could be recorded on many times, could hold anything from thirty minutes up to two hours of recorded material and worked in every player, from the cheapest to the most expensive.

MY first experience was when a neighbour loaned us their player to listen to a concert that had been held in church around the mid seventies. I remember lying in bed with this small box beside me and being totally amazed by its sound and portability and also by the fact that I could play, stop, rewind and fast forward the tape just by moving one control either north, south, east or west. I was less impressed at how quickly the four large batteries faded and the music slowed down and deepened to a halt! However, I was hooked by the new system and before long we had bought one of those upright radio cassette recorders that were all the rage at the time. This was such an advance in technology in our house, being able to record directly from the radio and also using the built-in microphone. There was now no limit to the creativity available to the imagination and so began, as in most households, a collection of cassettes of varying lengths, containing all sorts of themes but mostly rubbish. I think during my lifetime at home we owned three, possibly four, of the radio cassette recorders but for some reason we kept breaking the mains connection socket away from its housing, so if the lead was removed from the recorder it was well nigh impossible to get it back into place and then the only power source was the humble and not terribly long lasting battery.

The cassette was a great step forward but it didn't come without its problems. Sometimes, the tape got tangled up inside the machine and often the only solution was to break it try to rejoin the two ends again. This was less easy than you think for the tape was only about two or three millimetres wide and it if not straightened properly, could mean joining the inside of one reel to the outside of the other. Sometimes, unless the recording was precious, it was better to throw the whole thing in the bin. Also the quality of the cassette tape never compared with the thicker and faster running reel tape and after a good few plays, you began to notice it getting duller in sound, with the addition of a little bit more hiss each time. Occasionally, if the tape was left sitting around for a long time, it would stick inside the plastic box and required several good thumps on a hard surface to get it dislodged. This was more likely to happen on longer tapes which were generally less reliable.

For many years, in church, we recorded the services on cassette and then had a special high speed copier that could make a replica in about two minutes flat. The quality was slightly poorer but since it was only speaking, this was not a major issue, but it did highlight the great shortcomings of the system in terms of sound quality reproduction. By the time I had given up that job, I had amassed two large cardboard boxes of 'master tapes' along with a further box of my own from various recordings down the years. Soon all car radios had the obligatory cassette player, many with auto-reverse, some with a track seeking system that could fast forward or rewind to another song and what made them so popular was that you could record your favourite songs all on one tape and blast them out as you drove along. Later, they even developed, Portastudios, cassette recorders that could record on four different tracks and this was a little piece of heaven for musicians, who could construct their own songs and add other instruments or voices to make a more complete work. Needless to say, one made its way into my collection. But the march of technology never stops and soon everyone was looking for something even more portable, so cue the Sony Walkman that allowed private listening though little earphones. Eventually however, that wasn't to be enough and as punters craved more facilities and ease of use and better quality, other systems such as mini disc and DAT players began to squeeze out the humble cassette. Still, in a couple of decades it ruled the world. Now, you would struggle to find cassettes anywhere only a small corner of an electrical or music shop, but it did pave the way for what was to come. I suppose it only underlines the proverb that a friend of mine often quotes, 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.'

It's really a microcosm of life in general and of people in particular. We all only have a few decades in which we can make a mark and leave an impression. It would be a mistake to think that things won't go on without us but it would be nice to think that people would remember us for the good things we contributed. I often think of the role of John the Baptist in the early church, a man who knew there was someone greater about to follow him but who knew his job was to prepare the way for Jesus. The Bible tells us early in the first chapter of John's Gospel that 'He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.' Luke records the words of John the Baptist when he says ''Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.' John preached in his own style and knew he wasn't the Messiah but his contribution in preparing the people for Jesus was important enough for it to be written for ever in the annals of Biblical history. That's a recording that can never be erased.