Crystal set radio was one young man’s link to the world

For a Melbourne-based boy who couldn’t wait to embrace the new 60s music, a crystal set radio was the ticket to ride.

The Beatles during their 1964 Australian tour, when Alan Howe was not invited to be their drummer.

3 min read

12:00AMDecember 28, 2022.

Updated 7:37AMDecember 28, 2022

My first love was Japanese. We met when I was six, but keen to turn seven. Before long we were sleeping together. I was smitten by her and wanted us to be together all day, every day. But Sister Mary, the Dominican nun who headed the Catholic primary school I attended, heard of our relationship and expelled me.

And that was fair enough. I’d had more than a few warnings. My love was pale blue, plastic and mostly sat in my shirt pocket. I was infatuated by her small assembly of bits, bobs and thin wires: one part was called a diode, but I never knew what it or the other little things were, but they made magic.

She was a crystal set radio and, with no batteries, you could put its alligator clip on some metal fixture, pop in the one-size-fits-all Band-Aid coloured earpiece and music would come out. On the side was a dial – not for volume, there almost was none – but to tune into AM radio stations.

It was 1963 and in those days three Melbourne radio stations did combat for youthful ears – 3UZ, 3XY and 3KZ. The DJs all had nicknames and call signs. Getting towards the end of the Allan Lappan show on 3UZ he’d announce that “this is the last lap of the Lapp Lapp show”. Finishing for the day he’d sign off with: “This is Lapp Lapp saying bye bye for now now.” I knew all this nonsense by heart. Embarrassingly, I still do.

I was in grade one at the little Our Lady of Perpetual Succour school in Wilana St, Ringwood, then towards the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The year started with the routine pop hits of the day, mostly American, but with occasional English intrusions and less often Australian-made gems.

That little blue radio was no good on the train, but as soon as I arrived at school it would be attached to a railing and I was away. My mates could still talk to me; only one ear was busy. In any case, I was listening to commercial radio that was then, as it is now, buttressed with ads, too many of whose jingles occupy brain space that would have been better left vacant for what the nuns planned to teach me. Am I the only silly old fart who can still sing the Sparkling Rhinegold ad?

There was The Four Seasons’ Walk Like A Man, Del Shannon’s Little Town Flirt, The Chantays’ Pipeline, Ned Miller’s From A Jack To A King and then, in midwinter a different sound – a lively song by Gerry and the Pacemakers called How Do You Do It?

The Four Seasons circa 1965.

It turned out that a tsunami – soon to be called the British Invasion – had been sitting offshore for some months and was now breaking in radio waves across the world. The Beatles arrived with it. The world – well, my life at least – would never be the same.

It started with She Loves You, then I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Saw Her Standing There (“Well she was just 17” – imagine being 17!), All My Loving, A Hard Day’s Night. And on it went.

I’d been born in England and brought here just before I turned two. Now, the last place on earth I wanted to be was on the outskirts of an Australian city. I needed to be in London. Or Liverpool. I wanted to be wherever the Beatles were.

But the closest I could get to it was my blue crystal set. So I listened day in and day out. I had already began to sleep with it listening to 3KZ’s John Bright as he opened letters in the studio and played the requests sent in by listeners.

In the classroom, I slipped the alligator clip under my shirt and attached it to the metal frame of the twin-seat desk. A wire ran from the clip up to the blue beauty in my shirt pocket from which thin, entwined speaker wires led to the clunky earpiece. On my right was my best mate, Peter Dacy. He would soon get his own crystal set, but in the meantime I might say: “Mate, listen to this!”

I stared out the window and dreamt that one day the Beatles would come to Australia. And one day they did. I dreamt that their drummer would fall ill and be unable to play. And he was; Ringo Starr had tonsillitis and missed the early dates of the Australian tour. I dreamt that in the search for a replacement, John Lennon and Paul McCartney would hear that I played in the school band, arrive at Our Lady’s, brush the nuns aside and rescue me sitting me behind Ringo’s drum kit. But they didn’t. They chose Jimmie Nicol from Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, and I was left in the classroom with my crystal set and thoughts of what might have been.

Over the next few years, various teachers busted me listening in class. Finally, in June 1967, I was brought before Sister Mary and expelled.

Postscript: Peter Dacy and I formed our first band in 1966. He remains my oldest friend and has made his life from performing and producing music. We have both met members of the Beatles.

Alan Howe is history and obituaries editor at The Australian.

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Crystal set radio was one young man’s link to the world

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