A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… well it was the 20th century at any rate, I was given a clock radio for my 21st birthday. It was a present from my aunt and uncle and was a version of the Sony Dream Machine – basically a white square cube with a green display on the front.
I loved that radio. It was with me at university and accompanied me to Paris for three years. My faithful companion at journalism college and during my indentures in Birmingham. It was, by this stage, a slightly yellowing version of white and markedly slower than some of its newer contemporaries. Changing the time meant literally clicking each second away which was a time consuming job and meant you sort of needed to start a full minute before you wanted to get there, if you know what I mean.
That clock radio woke me on my 30th birthday, my wedding day, for the birth of my children and my 40th. It woke me for early flights and from afternoon naps and it faithfully kept the time.
Then, six years ago, we moved into this house. And we started a massive renovation, and the clock radio got some dust in its eye. And the button you used to change the minutes started to jam occasionally. Which meant that sometimes you could change the minutes and sometimes you couldn’t. But this was ok when you managed it as long as no-one ever unplugged it afterwards. Ever. The builders were under strict instructions to never turn it off.
I remember going into what is now the 15 yo’s room (ours at the time) when the windows were being installed. The room was completely empty – not even a window – but there, on a stool, sat the dream machine stolidly ticking off the minutes.
Then we moved into our current bedroom and the clock managed the journey up a single flight of stairs and soldiered on for a couple of years. Then the hour button started sticking which meant it was completely impossible to change the time. The only way to do it was to unplug it and plug it back in again at midnight, which was the default time. This meant I had to not fall asleep and had to hover by the plug when the clocks changed twice a year.
“Are you sure you don’t want a new clock? asked my husband after the fourth day in a row when I had fallen asleep at 11.55pm and the clock sat unused. But I couldn’t love another clock as much as this one, which had, let’s be honest, been with me longer than my husband.
And then I found the Ruark R1. And that was the point at which I discovered how technology had moved on in the intervening 28 years. A dial to change the time not a button that made your finger ache after about 15 seconds/clicks. A chance to have one alarm for Monday to Friday and one for the weekend. A clock that, if you unplug it to move it to another room, RESETS ITSELF BY ITSELF. And, for my technically minded husband, a really clear warm sound.
We bought a black one that lives by the bed and Ruark lent me this wooden one to photograph. And the dream machine? Well, it’s currently living under the bed carefully wrapped in an old silk scarf. Retired but not forgotten.
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from Mad About The House http://www.madaboutthehouse.com/ruark-radio/
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