`WHEN SOME SAD OLD DREAM REMINDS YOU`..

The other day I came across a box in a cupboard in a spare bedroom which hadn`t been opened for years - the box, that is, not the bedroom. Or the cupboard.  The box contained quite a collection of old 12" vinyl LPs, all the property of one of our long gone sons.   They must take after me, as the collection can only be described as eclectic.   Among them were albums by Level 42, ELO, Steve Winwood and others of that genre and those times, maybe 30 years ago?

The discovery made me think of my own collection which disappeared some years ago as a result of one of our occasional `clear-outs.`   And in turn it brought back memories of my days (or rather my nights) as a projectionist in the AKC Cinema in Barker Barracks, Paderborn, Germany, where I spent most of my 731 days of National Service.   My pay as a National Serviceman was about 26 shillings a week - about £1.30 in new money - so my cinema job, for which I was totally unqualified, brought in a useful additional income.

Now I haven`t been to the cinema in years so I suspect that things are much changed from my own experiences over 50 years ago.   In those days, as the audience were taking their seats and settling in, it was customary to seduce them with soft lights and mellow music selected by the management.   I thought this needed ramping up a bit so I used to serenade them with proper music of my own - the Kingston Trio, the Modern Jazz Quartet and their Golden Striker and especially Ray Conniff letting the audience know that s`wonderful.   And it was, especially as I indulged myself by treating them to lighting colour changes in time with the music.....until the dead hand of management intervened.

One of Steve Winwood`s unforgettable songs contain the lines, "When some sad old dream 

reminds you.......`   Well, opening the box certainly reminded me that I might now be sad 

and old but I can still dream wistfully of those times, that place and that music.