My favourite sound

I was listening to a discussion on breakfast television yesterday about the recording of sounds for historical interest.  It was a fascinating discussion which made me appreciate that the sounds I hear today may not be the sounds that future generations will hear.  To illustrate this point they played a recording of Florence Nightingale talking which I had never heard before and which I thought absolutely amazing.  Here was the voice of this incredible nurse who I learned about at school but who seemed so far in the past.  Hearing her voice brought her into the present; it made her real in a way.

Of course it isn't just about human voices but also the sounds of daily living; sounds that we often take for granted but which may die out one day.  It's hard to imagine but the chances are that the world will be a very different place in 100 years time and this will have an impact on how we live and what we hear.  Look at how life has changed in the past 100 years alone.  Scientific and technological progress has transformed our lives so much that the sounds we hear now are very different to our grandparents' day.  The high street my grandmother walked along was very different to the one I know today and no doubt it will change again for my children's children.  Imagine if we recorded the sounds of our high street as it is now and what it would be like for future generations to hear how we lived.

Of course, even in my lifetime, some sounds have changed.  The dawn chorus for example, one of my most favourite childhood sounds, is not what it used to be.  No longer am I treated to a cacophony of bird sound that used to be so loud that, as a child, I could never sleep.  I didn't appreciate the sound at the time but 30 years later I often think back to how lucky I was to hear such amazing birdsong.  Nowadays the town that I live in is taken up by modern housing estates.  The fields have gone and so have the birds and other animals.  Maybe one day we can rectify this situation but for the time being recordings like the one below are a happy reminder of my childhood. 

Recycling furniture and helping charity

A few weeks ago a flier appealing for donated furniture landed on my doormat.  It was from the housing charity Shelter who were looking for donations to sell in their local shop.  I though it was a great opportunity to have a clear-out whilst helping a charity at the same time so I organised for them to collect our old dining table and bed frame.  A few days later they came and collected our furniture and I signed the relevant paperwork and gift aid declaration form.  I then forgot about it until this morning when a letter from the charity arrived informing me that the goods I had donated had raised £100.00.  I was really pleased to hear that they had raised some money and delighted that someone would benefit from our furmiture.

It reminded me of our lean years when we had to rely on family hand me downs and charity buys.  One particular memory was of a green settee which my mum and dad no longer wanted.  It was a bit outdated but I modernised it with cushions and a throw and loved it for years until my husband spotted it during an episode of The Royal Family one Christmas.  How we laughed but secretly I was appalled that my beloved settee appeared on one of the nation's favourite television programmes.  It made me realise how dated it had become.  Fortunately my mum was getting rid of another settee (what is it with my mum and settees?) so we took that one and passed our old one to someone else.

Then there was the gate-leg table that was passed to us from my husband's parents.  It was a very well used table having circulated around much of the family but it still worked as a table as long as you covered it with a tablecloth to hide the damage inflicted by decades of use (the table had been used by three generations!).  We couldn't afford chairs so we hunted around junk shops for a suitable match and eventually found six dining chairs that I suspected came from a house clearance.  They lasted for years. 

We were also passed some bedroom furniture.  I was expecting our second child at the time and we needed to move our daughter from the box room (which was being used as a nursery) to another bedroom.  We didn't have the money to equip the room so we gladly accepted the offer of furniture.  It was far from perfect though.  The furniture (a chest of drawers and wardrobe) was a dark mahogany colour and far too heavy for a little girl's bedroom so I decided to strip it down, paint it lilac and stencil flowers around the edge.  It was a big job as I was heavily pregnant at the time but I was determined that my toddler daughter would have a lovely girly room and she did.  That lilac themed room lasted years!

These days we are not so dependent on hand me downs.  We have a bit more money and are starting to be able to buy new furniture for ourselves.  It means we can recycle our old furniture and hopefully help other people set up home in the same way that we were helped.