I realize that this is all completely meaningless to Americans and anyone under the age of 45.
Before we had DVDs, the BBC sometimes put out sound recordings of TV shows on "records" -- vinyl LPs. I owned a vinyl LP which contained the sound track of two episodes of "Camberwick Green". Peter the Postman (who was a very busy man) on the A side, and the Window Cleaner on the B side. I can't remember what the Window Cleaner's catch phrase was, or whether he had a song, because frankly I didn't like the B side. People climbing up ladders (and I think falling off) was way beyond my comfort zone for Mild Peril. But I played Peter the Postman (who gathers up all the letters as quickly as he can) incessantly. On one of those old-fashioned record players that were still referred to as "gramophones"; with a sort of brown leatherish case so it looked like a very small suitcase with a loudspeaker, and settings that ran to 33, 45 and 78.
My mother tells me that the midwife or district nurse who came to check up on her just after my baby sister had been born used to moan that whenever she came to the house, "Peter the Postman is a very busy man..." was always playing in the background. I am two years older than my sister, so I must have been two years old.
That's all I wanted to say. Literally my earliest memory is of Brian Cant's voice.
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I think I've got something in my eye.
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