“You had your time, you had the power, You’ve yet to have your finest hour “

Sometimes going through the entrance of the Los Cristianos Cultural Centre is like passing through a space/ time vortex. You never know what will greet you, at the moment there is an exhibition of Scandinavian culture, mainly paintings, but there are also photo displays and talks over the next few days. This is very understandable as Los Cristianos owes its early discovery as a tourist destination to ailing Scandinavian visitors coming to reap the benefits of the sunny climate.

That does little to explain to me why there is currently a small exhibition of some 10 antique radios and radiograms, just inside the entrance. They are the old valve powered type with the big dial type faces that list all the bizarre foreign stations that could be picked up. Sadly they were not plugged in so that eerie glow (if they still work) could not work it’s magic.

“I’d sit alone and watch your light, My only friend through teenage nights”

My parents still have a radiogram (that’s a cunning combination of a radio and gramaphone – record player to you) it’s a huge long wooden cabinet with a speaker at each end, and a radio that received VHM, Long, Medium and Short Wave. It has long since been gutted and now the shell is all that remains, the inside stores DVD’s, talk about rubbing in its lack of modern relevance!

My how times have changed, when I was younger (so much younger than today) I got a hand held transistor radio for passing my Eleven Plus exams (you what?) and I thought I was Mr Cool cos I had this modern technology. It was a more innocent time and I could get away with telling friends I had gone to bed early to cuddle a tranny, or even that I spent many hours twiddling my knob to get turned on – nowadays someone might take it all the wrong way.

Anyway, back to the Cultural Centre, I found a small leaflet that explained that the antique radios are from a collector, Vladimiro Regalado Armas from Calle Las Cuevas in Guaza. It didn’t make clear whether he has a shop or it is a private collection – I wonder how many more he has? So if you pop in to the Cultural Centre, I would ask you mere youngsters not to pour scorn on these outdated relics, and anyone of a certain age, maybe you could lean a little closer and just whisper a few words of encouragement like “Radio, what’s new? Radio, someone still loves you“ I promise I will come and visit you in the little room with the rubber wallpaper.