The Transistor Radio
Music you could take away from your parents.
Pocket sized, leather cased, powered by a PP3 battery, and held against one ear at low volume after lights out.
The transistor did to radio what the Walkman later did to the album: it made listening private. That single change is most of the sixties.
The sound was terrible: a two-inch speaker and a tuning dial that drifted if you breathed on it. Nobody cared.
Cost back then
£4 10s
Goes for now
£25–£90 for a nice one
