Dansette

My dear Friends

I would like to share with you a little about the history of my father's business. You may have heard of Dansette, a firm which produced record players in the fifties and sixties, and which contributed to the pop music culture in those decades.

Heading up the business, and before I was born. was my grandfather Morris Margolin, who came to England from Russia in the 1890's and who started a small family business in a furniture factory as a cabinet maker. He also had an interest in musical instruments, which he imported from the continent to sell. Instrumental in making the business successful in the 50's and 60's was my brother Samuel, who went into the business at age 20, and who was responsible for much of the subsequent design.

The Margolins decided to combine their interests in cabinet making and music to produce the 'Plus-a-Gram.'It was the first electric player in this country and was produced from 1934 until 1950. It became the forerunner of the Dansette. In the early 1950's BSR inroduced a British made autochanger at a realistic price as a basis for a new portable record player and suggested the name for it-Dansette-which was registered as a trademark in October 1952, the year after I was born. It was Mr McDonald, the chief of BSR, who invented the name-was he thinking of 'dancing?' We'll never know, but the name caught on and so did the record players, given the enthusiasm the new 'teenagers' showed in these players and their records.

I remember being taken to Old Street in the East end of London to see where the machines were made. I remember quite clearly all the wood shavings from the cabinets and the Garrard needles which were put on.

The Rock and Roll movement helped to boost sales of the Dansette, and the Beatles would have listened to records to give them inspiration for their own music. You could get all sorts of models of the record players and in different colours. Between the years 1950 and 1970 over one million Dansettes were sold. The company lasted until 1969; from a large profit-making organisation the company went into liquidation. But they had left their mark on the population of Britain and some people have kept their Dansette to this day.

Shalom from
Sister Gila

River cruise

My dear Friends

Did you know that the river Oose (hope that is the correct spelling) was about 169 miles long? That makes it the third longest river in England. The river runs through St Ives and Ely in East Anglia, amongst other places. I had an unexpected boat trip along the Oose yesterday for about an hour and a half, with an expert boatman called Chris and two couples in their sixties and seventies. One couple lives in St Ives and the other in Somerset, although the lady is originally from Yorkshire.

It was a fascinating tour-I already knew that we were in Cromwell country but our guide gave us an insight into the history before the Reformation, when there were monasteries on the site and a famous Catholic called The Abbott of Ramsey, whose personal history I intend to look up. More of him in a moment. Staying with Cromwell, we passed the famous 17th century bridge where Cromwell drew up the drawbridge to prevent the Royalists getting in. Cromwell was the Puritan in the English civil war who was fighting against those who were on the side of the King.

Going along with this history was the beauty of the landscape, serene and full of wispy trees, with pointed churches in the distance. As we drew closer, we saw one that was not so pointed, Hemingford Abbotts, which lost its top ages ago and which had never been replaced, so now it was flat. On the other side was Hemingford Grey church, which was the church of one of our travellers.

We learned that in the time of the Abbott a skeleton was found, which was declared by the Abbott to be that of an ancient saint from Persia I believe, called St Ives and the town was renamed after him. In the Middle Ages, many miracles occurred in St Ives and many folk made pilgrimages to the town. Later the skeleton was declared to be that of a Roman soldier and the town thought to be of Roman origin, but our guide preferred the first interpretation!.

St Ives also has about 150 swans, who converge on the little quayside and some keep guard on their nesting mates, whom, if we were lucky, we saw by the river on their nests. I reflected that swans are very faithful and mate for life, anyhow it was wonderful to see these patches of white dotted on the landscape.

A good lunch in a pub and I came home deeply contented and determined to pay a return visit.

Shalom from
Sister Gila