Amongst earliest memories of my childhood are falling asleep at night, listening to my father’s collection of Enrico Caruso on 78s, played on a 1920s windup HMV gramaphone in its tall oak cabinet, which held the record collection below. Visiting our old home on the tea estate some 34 years after having left in 1963, I was amazed to find it was still in place, and on opening the cupboard doors below, finding all his old Caruso 78s, none of which I am prepared to bet had ever been played since he last put them back in their covers…
You are very fortunate – are they in your posession?
No – a manager of the company owning the estates now, lives in our old home. Obviously he had no idea where the antique gramaphone had come from, and I didn’t feel in a position to claim ownership almost forty years after my father’s retirement!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Amongst earliest memories of my childhood are falling asleep at night, listening to my father’s collection of Enrico Caruso on 78s, played on a 1920s windup HMV gramaphone in its tall oak cabinet, which held the record collection below. Visiting our old home on the tea estate some 34 years after having left in 1963, I was amazed to find it was still in place, and on opening the cupboard doors below, finding all his old Caruso 78s, none of which I am prepared to bet had ever been played since he last put them back in their covers…
You are very fortunate – are they in your posession?
No – a manager of the company owning the estates now, lives in our old home. Obviously he had no idea where the antique gramaphone had come from, and I didn’t feel in a position to claim ownership almost forty years after my father’s retirement!
A shame.