As a child my sister can recall hearing brass band music being played on the family radiogram as she was dropping off to sleep. Pa loved brass band music. He also liked to listen to an orchestra called St Martin in the Fields & was known to point out cute little musical twists the orchestra made.

She inherited the old valve radio but had been given a strict instruction that she as not to turn it on before 7am at the weekend. Her evening routines were different from mine as the household then had a television. But she was allowed to listen to the national hit parade on a Thursday evening via a transistor at the kitchen table while she did some homework.

Generally, she listened to the local radio station until she found Radio I and then Radio Hauraki on 1480 at the top of the dial (after they received a land licence in 1970) so she no longer had to tolerate what she described as ‘that local dross’. During that decade she can recall hearing whole new albums played in their entirety which opened up an amazing new world of listening pleasure from radio.

Earlier this year she caught up with a friend from her teenage years. They hadn’t seen each other for 40 years. When little sis began to talk about bands she had seen recently John’s eyes glazed over, leading her to ask him about his early interest in music. He told her that as he grew up, music on the radio was just a pleasant sound in the background.

Curiosity got me. I asked two 24-year old Kiwi baristas from my favourite cafe about music in their households. The first listened to dedicated music stations the Rock & ZM, while his parents listened to what he described as ‘older music’ on More FM. He said he didn’t want to listen to that. The second of these baristas is very interested in music, noting the first band he got into was Pink Floyd which his Dad had played in the car. Other bands he began to listen to were the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughn then Flume, playing music on his iPod or on CD – all before he was 21. He said there wasn’t much music played in the house he grew up in & they didn’t listen to radio.