WOEBOT: 10 from my Grandparents

The TV show is up and running now and the mailing list is in place. I've no less than four episodes "in production" (trying to make this sound as pseudo-professional as possible, winks). I never said I'd kill the written blog and actually there are things that I just couldn't possibly squeeze into the format, no matter how hard I tried.

Just recently I acquired my beloved Granny and Granddad's record collection. 95% of it is is what I'd term "hardcore" classical recordings of Janacek, Belioz, Bruckner, Purcell, Monteverdi and Handel. What really enchanted me however was the errant 5%, recordings that could only possibly have come from their collection, which betrayed perhaps more accurately, who they were.

This is the odd one out as, shamefully, I stole it from their attic about ten years ago. I very nearly included it in my Un-Ra piece of a couple of years back. Recently I saw this priced high on the wall of Haggle Vinyl. Super cover-art innit.

My Grandparents lived in the Cotswolds. It seems like everyone and their dog has the weird Folkways records, but recordings like this? One for the Belbury Poly massive.

Tank-top, Galway!

We woz definitely a patriarchy.

Dorothy Ashby she ain't. My super-lovely aunt used to play the harp.

Alan Wicker style. Comes with a wee booklet.

Love the generation-wide ethnographical interest evident here. Nowadays no-one seems to give a hoot for this sort of thing. A tourist memento I suppose, though I don't think they ever visited New Zealand. Probably my Granny's record this one...

Shelley, Chatterton, Swinburne, De La Mere, Owen all in this nifty box-set.

Cheesy-listening.

A Reader's digest release no less.

I suppose these represent the final remnants of my Grandparent's estate. My aunt started upon twisting my arm to take the records away, unclaimed stuff was to go to the charity shop, before realising that I was actually quite keen on having them. I tend not play up the WOEBOT shtick around my family. All of the above which serve to remind me, in the most heartfelt way imaginable, how great and good my Grandparents were.