BBC - A History of the World - Object : Dansette Major Record Player

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Bought for me by my father at Christmas 1961, the Dansette Major was produced between 1950 and 1970 and provided the transmission for a revolution (sic) in popular culture that saw the rise of British pop music across the world via The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Who, The Kinks.
Mass produced, cheap and reliable, the Dansette was the medium; love, sex and a little rebellion was the gentle message.
Rock music came later, its medium was the stereo hifi system - separate deck, amplifier and two remote loudspeakers. It was followed in turn by the music centre, the Walkman and the iPod. Nevertheless, the Dansette Major was the nonpareil!

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2 comments
1. At 14:24 on 7 June 2010, dobbin68 wrote:
I was 16 when I bought, on hire purchase, a similar record player to the Dansette and made by 'Regentone'in 1958. It cost 24 guineas, or 25 pounds and four shillings.It took more than a year's entire income from my early morning newspaper delivery round to pay for it - so I cannot agree that such machines were cheap, though I never regretted having to work so hard for it.
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2. At 14:07 on 29 October 2010, the legal view wrote:
Dansette were owned by friends of my parents so I had one of their transistor radios in 1959 ( advanced for the time, in a plastic coated fibreglass shell. Dansette were made in Old Street EC1, on the edge of the City, close to the centre of the furniture & timber trades in the East End, but become victims of the rise in cheap imports from Hong Kong & Japan during the mid 1960's and faded away; although there is now a website dedicated to the company's products.
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