Do you ever find that seeing the sunlight, shining through the window, perhaps just onto the wall or the furniture, can suddenly evoke a memory.
I was standing in the bathroom on a sunny, bright yet cold afternoon this week. I had the window open to let the fresh air in and I could see the blue sky, the trees swaying in the wind and in a split second I was transported back to Summer days in my teenage years. We were living in a different area of the city then, just two miles from the city centre and yet so quiet with tree lined streets, huge gardens and a view of the city skyline from the very top of the road which was on a hill. Those were the days that you could lie out in your back garden in the sunshine and have your radio on, without fear of upsetting your neighbours. In those days, BBC Radio One was at it’s best I think. From breakfast time to tea time the shows were fantastic, or so I remember them that way.
The mid morning show was hosted by Simon Bates and he had a feature called “Our Tune” where listeners would write in their story and a song that meant a lot to their story. The stories were happy, sad, heartbreaking or incredibly heartwarming and a more than once I found myself in tears.
Lunch time would be Gary Davies and “Gary’s little bit in the middle”, he had great jingles advertising his show and these have remained with me as sounds of Summer.
These days I listen to BBC Radio Two in the afternoon because the DJ who was on Radio One in the afternoon back in the day, Steve Wright, is now on Radio Two in the afternoon and he plays the music of the 80’s which I absolutely love. I sometimes put the radio on, just to have it playing in the background as I am passing through whilst carrying out the daily tasks and now and again a song will come on that just stops me in my tracks and I stand and listen for a few minutes and again I am transported.
A song I heard recently which took me back to those beautifully happy and carefree Summer days is “The Closest Thing to Heaven” by The Kane Gang. It’s not a song I hear often on the radio and I have downloaded it to my iPod. Every time I hear it, it immediately takes me back to what appeared to be the longest, hottest, Summer days ever.
I have mixed emotions, like most people I expect, when I go back to those days. My heart hurts. My parents were full of health and strength, my beautiful Sister was still here with us, I was happy, carefree and I wonder did I really value those days or take them for granted. I suspect the latter, I was a teenager after all and all was well in my world then. Although it brings happiness and sadness to think back to those days when a song plays, or the sun shines through the window in a particular way, or you hear the wind rustle on the trees and the memories flood back, I feel blessed now that I was so lucky to live those days in the way I did.
I also dressed like Madonna…thank God there was no mobile phones or social media back then!!
Dawn. The Sparkle Diaries. 