Dictaphone

I couldn’t keep up with the lectures.

I wondered if a Dictaphone would help.

When I phoned home I said to Dad – Dad, I can’t keep up with the lectures. I think a Dictaphone would help.

He said, I’ve got an old Dictaphone I don’t use, would you like it?

I said, Oh wow! yes, of course, that would be great!

I’ll post it to you, he said.

A few days later it arrived in the post.  It was a small micro cassette Dictaphone with a small microcassette already in the cavity where the microcassettes fit.  There was a note in with the Dictaphone which simply read:  “Press Play. Dad”

I pressed play.

Dad’s voice came out of the tinny speaker.  He told this long rambling joke about a farmer who no longer liked the tractor he had bought for some reason or other and so he was an Ex Tractor Fan, or something.  It wasn’t a very good joke - you could tell what the punch line was going to be very early on. But it was good to hear Dad’s voice.  I listened to it several times.  I love you, he said at the end.

He died ten years later.  A sudden heart attack.  He was unbelievably out there in the blue, floating around with no warning.

A few weeks after the funeral, I moved flats in Hull. Packing boxes, I found the Dictaphone.  The microcassette was still in the cavity where the microcassettes go.  I remembered Dad’s Ex Tractor Fan joke.

The battery had leaked so I replaced it and pressed play but all I could find was a muffled lecture on Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy.