Columnist HUGH SELBY is in a sentimental mood as he remembers the “sliver of growing-up time”, a special period between the end of World War II and the Vietnam War. Stay with him, there’s a treat at the end for you… 

We turned the knob and it crackled into life. Turning it more increased the crackling.

By turning the other knob at the opposite end of the radio set, the thin, vertical bar moved along, left or right, until it lined up with a station and, wow, there it was – music, news, sport, serials, and advertisements such as: “I like Aeroplane Jelly, Aeroplane Jelly for me. I like it for…”

This was the pre-transistor age. Small radios were bigger than today’s four-rack toaster and the case was made of varnished wood or Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, which was invented in New York in 1907. 

Unfortunately, it sometimes contained asbestos but, so what, the wall sheeting, pipe lagging, and cement roofs of our homes were full of the stuff, as were the brake linings on the drum brakes of our rust-ridden cars and vans.

I see ads these days extolling the virtues of fish oil for nutrition. I kept a small can of it to spray up behind the headlights, but most importantly on the floor panels. The car stank, but was mostly free of the rust bubbles, which were a detail of cars of the ’50s and ’60s.

It was that sliver of growing-up time, between the end of World War II and the Vietnam War. Others were to label it the age of boredom, but it was anything but if you had access to trees and roofs to climb, creeks to cross on a flying fox, caves and cliffs to explore, rapids to run in fiberglass canoes that you had made with friends.

The glass resin had a strong smell. One of us was smaller than the rest. We held him by his legs as he wriggled deep inside the covered bow and stern with a brush soaked in resin, to make sure those fibre sheets were well impregnated around the timber stringers.

Didn’t seem to do him any harm. He’s still friends with us six decades later, silver-fibred hair, but no grudge.

We left our backdoors unlocked, left unattended our single or three-speed bikes, argued fiercely about things that didn’t matter a damn, and made up words of abuse that, even now, I remember as having more power than today’s overuse of that F and that C word – words that none of us uttered.

We came in when it was getting dark from after-school sport or the backyard where Victa mowers were saving dads and elder siblings from pushing the hand mower with a sweat.

The better off had water-pressure lifted Hills’ hoists to swing on when there weren’t clothes drying. Some of us still had egg-laying hens down the back.

We came to the table for veggies, red meat done one way or another, Edgell’s tinned beetroot, and a bottle of mint sauce or gravy from the white-aproned local grocer on the high street. 

The dog had a kennel near the back door, with a bit of old carpet in it, and woven tar paper on the roof to keep the inside dry. It was fed horse meat from the pet shop. Never saw anyone walking their dog. No need. It ran itself ragged in the backyard or chased cars up and down the street.

There were early opener pubs and the afternoon male culture where he left her in the ute while he went inside for a drink or two. 

We drank endless cups of milk tea with sugar. (That was until instant coffee turned the world on its head, with the help of broccoli, Pizza Hut, and the contraceptive pill.)

At the mechanic’s garage – where I’d be while my classmates played summer cricket and wet, muddy winter games – there’d always be an open pint bottle of milk next to the green ceramic electric jug. When the element burnt out we walked up to the hardware store and bought a couple of spare elements.

Greens, creams, and battleship greys (Does anyone remember the Brisbane trams?) were the colours of our youth, until along came bright-orange formica, clear-coated pine tables and chairs, and window frames that could be any colour, providing it was dark mission brown.

Those were childhood and teenage years spent oblivious to the PTSD and the chronic depression of World War II vets, the housebound women going stir crazy (even with a cuppa, a Bex powder and a good lie down), the ever increasing numbers of car fatalities and deaths from smoking. Ignorance was such bliss.

Talking of bliss there was the magic of the radio serials, bringing us crime dramas, comedy, panel shows, the insanity of The Goons, and so much more.

Wouldn’t you love to hear some of it again, to be transported to a world where your imagination decides what the setting and the actors look like?

You’re in luck. Thanks to a pom, Kevan Davis, you can listen free – crackle included – to hundreds of bygone hours of British and American radio.

Go to https://fourble.co.uk/podcasts  Light up a smile, not a cancer stick. You will probably want to pay for a cup of his coffee – not instant!

Author Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs, but not this time. A former barrister, his free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.