You could not just drop in on Rod Walker, the visit had to be prearranged and
you should budget for at least an hour, two or three would be more realistic.

From the outside it looked like any other mid-terrace Victorian house in Heaton.
The period doorbell worked and Rod would invite you into the hallway, he'd take 
your coat and hang it with others including his mother's who had died many years ago.

You would be invited into the front room, 1950's decor, glaze-tiled fire place,
some modern audio equipment including two whopping speakers, a windup record player
with a large copper horn, a framed photograph of Rod in military uniform when much
younger, one of his mother, a glass fronted cupboard, and a Wurlitzer (in full
working order) in the bay window. You would be invited to sit in the armchair or
setee around a little carved wooden table (which he had brought back from India, 
when he was in the Signals Division in WW2) on the hearth rug. Little sherry glasses 
were produced and a selection of sherries offered. Twenty minutes chat, and then 
the tour would begin.

The back room was telephones, it was full of them. Modern ones, old ones, a coin 
operated one, ones from the twenties, ones that you had to wind a handle to get
the operator's attention. A Strowger telephone exchange that I got for him from 
the University. (The Computing Laboratory used to have its own telephone exchange
in the old Rotary Convertor room where we have our collection of computing
artifacts). The exchange worked and many of the telephones were connected to it.
Everything was in spick and span order.

Then you would go upstairs beginning in the little room over the front door. 
There was little room to move. On the left were some ancient wirelesses (not radios),
from the early 1900's, and some wartime transceivers. On the right hand wall were
shelves of wireless bits and pieces, and behind the door shelves filled with hundreds
of thermionic valves in their original packing. Some of these came from his father's
shop on Westgate Hill - the first shop selling wirelesses in Newcastle. Oh, and a 
telephone connected to the exchange dowstairs.

The front room was full of wirelesses, radios, record players, on all sides, on tables,
under the tables, on shelves. The record players were mostly wind-up machines for which you
had to find a new needle to play a 78 record. There were more modern ones requiring a
mains supply. Nearly all the wirelesses were valve jobs, there was the odd transistor
one. (I gave him a Heathkit one, you bought the kit and assembled it yourself.) 
Another I gave him was a Bakelite 40's style table top one. When I gave it to him it
was dirty, the grid over the loudspeaker was a rusty mesh, and it didn't work. Later
when I saw it, it gleamed as if new and worked perfectly. Rod's touch was the same on
everything, lovingly restored to working order, sometimes better than new. Some of the
wirelesses were pieces of furniture so not just electrics restored, but cabinets.

The rear room was his bedroom. There was not much space around his bed. It was mainly 
a store of early audio players. I remember him playing me a wax cylinder of Caruso 
singing. When you consider a wax cylinder has a limited number of playings, I was very privileged.

When we last visited him (earlier this year? 2005), he was converting his attic to more
storage space. He made sure that the new staircase matched the original woodwork in every detail. He had been to the hospital for a couple of operations, and had visibly
aged after so many years of never ageing, but his death is a loss to us. Rod and Marge
used to play the Wurlitzer together, and he delighted in showing us his latest acquisitions.  

After the trip around his collection you would be invited back to the front (best) room
and partake of biscuits and coffee that he had earlier prepared, dispensed from a large
Thermos flask.

A great technician, gentleman, character, no vices.

His whole collection is to be auctioned ?. He did talk about his contacts in Tyneside
Museums and I thought some of his collection might go that way. But I guess he wanted
it to go to people who would appreciate it. I might go and try and get my restored
Bakelite radio back