New Record Player

The faithful old gramophone mysteriously disappeared, as did many old toys and books that one parent or another thought I wouldn't miss, not long after my own first record player arrived one Christmas when I was about seven.
It was a Dansette; green stick-on vinyl-type-stuff on the outside off-white plastic beneath the lid and, with two chrome knobs for tone and volume. It failed to work on Christmas morning, which probably miffed my Dad more than it did me, but once it was fixed I made good use of it for years.
I never got into pop music much – Dad said it was all rubbish and to prove the point he played the finale of the ‘1812 Overture’ at high volume on his Stereo and sat me in the middle of the room for full effect. I was strictly a Popular Classics kid after that, which didn’t really do much for my social life.
I spent many an hour slouching on the floor with the record player on, looking at the plastic band around the electricity lead, and wondering what the cryptic wording meant: ‘Green and yellow earth, blue neutral, brown live.’ It made no sense - I had never seen green and yellow earth.