Student Life and Sound Systems in the Seventies

When I returned home from work a few days ago, I found my wife (Gigi the Gorgeous) pottering around the house while listening to music on a small Bluetooth speaker she’d picked up on her travels. It must be acknowledged that I was more than a little impressed by the superb quality of the sound.

This teeny-tiny unit somehow managed to fill the room with a rich, full-bodied soundscape — bass I could feel in my chest, mids that carried every warble and word, and treble that shimmered and sparkled like glass chimes.

My first thought was to cast my mind back to when I was a student in my twenties, circa 1977, in Sheffield, England. Most of my friends at that time tried to outdo each other with their sound setups. A key element of these systems was their loudspeaker stacks — one at each side of the room facing inward towards the listening area.

Each stack typically contained three speakers — a 10” to 15” woofer (the size depending on your preference and pocket) to handle the low frequencies (bass), a tweeter to deal with the high frequencies (treble), and a mid-range driver (also known as “squawker” or mid) to handle the middle band.

We took great pride in the sophistication of our systems. I remember our group of friends migrating from one set of digs to another, listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon time and time again, endlessly comparing the nuances of the notes as rendered by the various rigs.

My next thought was to remember the first record player I ever owned. This originally served as our family’s primary sound system, which took pride of place in our front room. This was a significant piece of furniture. We’re talking about an amplifier, a radio tuner, and a record player, all housed in a massive wooden cabinet that measured about eight feet long. The speaker assemblies formed an integral part of the cabinet at either side.

I remember listening to my Winnie the Pooh records on this magnificent monstrosity when I was a kid. One of the stories was about a dark and stormy night when Pooh meets Tigger for the first time. The sound effects were so real (well, they were to an impressionable young boy) that you’d think you were cowering in Pooh’s house with him while a terrifying storm raged outside.

Around 1969, when I was 12 years old, my parents purchased a more modern sound system, which consisted of separate devices — amplifier, radio tuner, and record player — mounted on top of each other in a rack. As part of this, they gifted me with their old system, which we manhandled into my bedroom.

Looking back, it’s a little embarrassing to recall how proud I was of that system. The funny thing is that — apart from my old Winnie the Pooh stories — I didn’t actually own any records of my own, so I borrowed albums from my parents. One that stands out in my memory was The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1960), which boasted studio recordings of his stand-up monologues (including Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue and Driving Instructor). Another was At the Drop of Another Hat by Flanders and Swan, which featured classic songs like The Gas Man Cometh and Ill Wind (“I've lost that Horn, lost that Horn, found that Horn ... gorn!” — I’m still laughing).

I moved into my own small apartment when I started at Sheffield Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University). This was in 1975. I was 18 years old (as yet unheralded as the leading engineer of my generation… I’m still waiting, now that I come to think about it).

As an aside, to provide some additional historical context, it’s probably worth noting that, at that time, tuition fees for UK universities were paid directly by local education authorities (LEAs). In my case, this was the Sheffield City Council.

In addition to fees, students were typically eligible for a maintenance grant (often referred to simply as “the grant”) to cover living expenses, including rent, food, books, and travel. This grant was “means-tested” on your parents’ (or household) income. Students from lower-income families could receive a full grant, while those from more affluent backgrounds received a reduced grant or none at all.

I’m sad to say that things have changed. Since 1998, students in the UK have been required to pay their own tuition fees. Also, grants have been phased out. As a result, today’s students generally have to take out loans for both tuition and living expenses, which means they graduate with significant debt.

Personally, I believe that publicly funded higher education is worth its weight in gold — not only to the individual students, who gain the chance to grow, explore, and realize their potential without the burden of debt, but also to society as a whole, which reaps the benefits of an educated, creative, and engaged citizenry. An investment in education is never wasted; it pays dividends for generations to come.

But we digress…

To bolster my meager grant, I worked part-time in the evenings as a bartender in a couple of public houses. On some evenings, I could be found behind the counter in the venerable Wapentake bar in the basement of the Grosvenor House Hotel (the unlikely manager of the Wapentake, Olga Marshall, was my aunt). Other evenings, I served at the Moorfoot Tavern on Cumberland Street.

“What on Earth does any of this have to do with records and record players?” I hear you cry. Well, if you’ll settle down for a moment, I’ll tell you. Richard Branson opened his first Virgin Records store above a shoe shop on Oxford Road in London in the very early 1970s. It wasn’t long before these stores were rolling out nationwide. We got our own Virgin Records in Sheffield circa 1973. It was located at 137 The Moor. This was just around the corner from the Moorfoot Tavern. The manager was an ancient hippy. Well, when I say “ancient,” I mean “ancient to me” — he must have been at least 25 years old. I’m sad to say that I no longer remember his name, but let’s call him Nigel for the purposes of this column.

I remember one evening when Nigel came in to quaff* a few well-earned beers (*quaffing is like regular drinking except that you tend to spill more down your chest). We ended up chatting about records in general. We were talking about some album or other (I no longer recall which). I mentioned that I was looking forward to buying a copy the next time I had sufficient funds to spare (a full-price 12-inch LP typically retailed for around £2.50 to £3.25 at that time).

Nigel asked me if I could take a 30-minute break. I asked the publican, who said that would be OK, so we ambled around the corner to the Virgin Records store. By means of a big bunch of keys attached to his belt with a chain, Nigel unlocked the door and let us in.

The way things worked was that only the album covers were accessible to customers on the store floor. The vinyl records themselves were stored in white card sleeves on shelves behind the counter. This was to prevent people from stealing the records. Nigel told me that, paradoxically, it was not uncommon for people to steal the covers (maybe to replace one they had damaged), leaving him with a record he couldn’t sell.

His solution was to sell the orphaned albums in their white card covers to his friends for only 50 pence apiece. I made off like a bandit that night. I raced back to the bar to ask for an advance against my wages, returned to the record store, and stocked up on offerings from groups like 10cc, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, ELO (Electric Light Orchestra), The Moody Blues, and Supertramp.

I tell you, writing this column has taken me on an unexpected trip down memory lane. How about you? If you are of my generation, has this stirred any record-related memories of your own? Alternatively, if you’ve only ever known a world of downloads, has anything you’ve read here given you food for thought?

As always, I welcome your captivating comments, querulous questions, and sagacious suggestions, all of which you can share on Hackster's "Throwback Thursdays" Discord channel. I look forward to seeing you there.

P.S. Don't forget that you can peruse and ponder all of my Throwback Thursdays columns here.

P.P.S. Please feel free to email me at max@clivemaxfield.com if you have any questions about this column or if you have any requests or suggestions for future articles.