From the second I read the title of this thread, I can see it now as if it were yesterday, the blue and white guitar hanging in the window of Wells Music Stores in the Arcade, Romford - Autumn 1964. Funny you should mention the colour, Shambles, because that is what made this guitar stand out, too. It was a scaled-down size acoustic guitar (ideal for 11 year old Jeanie)and painted in a pale matt blue with white scrollwork decoration and it quite took my breath away. I visited my "friend" regularly, suggested to my parents that we went to have a look at the music shop and oh-so-casually said "See that guitar. Isn't it beautiful ?" Their murmured agreement was enough for me to start hunting out for where they might have hidden the guitar at home in readiness for Christmas. "I'm going to the shops, are you coming ?" (Music to my ears) "No mum, I think I'll stay here. I'll be alright." Cupboards, boxes, under all the beds....nothing. They must have found a really good hiding place.

I think you can guess what's coming. Christmas morning. I can't remember for the life of me what my present was....but it wasn't the guitar. I learned many lessons that Christmas, all part of the pains, anticipations and disappointments of growing up.

So I carried on with my "pretend" home-made cardboard effort, strumming and humming along to records and the radio. (I had also made myself a drum kit, likewise out of cardboard and biscuit tins, and my cousin Paul and I played in our makeshift band "Paul and Paulina").

I was 13 when I finally got the real thing - a full size acoustic this time - and then started on the wonders of "Go Tell Aunt Rody" and Bert Weedon's "Play a Tune a Day". Hours and hours, ensconced in my room, with those lengthy delays whenever there was a chord change:
"Go, tell Aunt............Rody.........Go tell Aunt..............Rody".
Fun times, then and for ever since (though my chord changing has got ever so slightly quicker. But (and I know I'm going to sound very pathetic now): it was never the same as it would have been with *that* guitar.

Thanks for jogging my memory, Shambles.

- jeanie