[The listening experience occurs in chapter twelve, ‘In Retirement’. William George Elliott retired in April 1958, and he and his wife Ada volunteered at church and the Red Cross Centre. A radiogram, also known as a console, combined a radio and a record player]

Ada visited one or two friends in the afternoons; invariably I went over to the [Methodist] Church which had been newly built, and pottered about in the garden, busying myself weeding, etc for an hour, taking things very quietly. The evening we spent listening to the radio or having some music on the radiogram which I had rented. Some time later I bought a record player and amassed a good number of records. Ada was fond of music, so was I. We did not go in for classical music, nor pop stuff and mostly we loved the musical shows which we had seen. 

Two evenings a week we spent at the Red Cross Centre, at a Whist Drive or Beetle Drive and every month on a Saturday we arranged a Dance, employing some local musicians.