REJOICE! The past may not be lost forever.

For the first time since the digital download came into being, sales of records have overtaken them. People are enjoying the pleasures of vinyl, despite records being more expensive.

That’s reason to celebrate, surely.

Records have so much more to offer - they are tactile, you can pick them up and polish them. They come in a little sleeve which can be a work of art in itself, and sometimes offers information about the artist.

I can clearly picture the cover of Blondie’s ‘Parallel Lines’ album and the Talking Heads ‘Remain in Light’.

They may be in the loft, but I still have many of the records I bought as a teenager, from WH Smith or Alan Fearnley Records in Middlesbrough. We used to hang around the record aisles for hours on a Saturday, flicking through them. No-one ever moved us on.

The resurgence of vinyl may be the start of something. Maybe other things my generation knew and loved will come back.

Wouldn’t it be great if letter writing began to rival email as a means of communication? If people started to realise how much nicer it is to receive a handwritten letter, carefully considered and crafted, rather than a few words hurriedly ‘bashed out’ - a phrase that tends to be associated with email

It may take time, but people might slowly come to realise how much they miss receiving letters, how uplifting they can be - the feeling that someone has gone to the trouble of sitting down and writing to you.

Email is so impersonal. Even good news is dampened if received in an email. It is so much better to receive it in a stamped envelope, with a proper letter inside.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if the telephones I grew up with came back into vogue, either. By that I mean phones that connect to a socket, that you have to speak into in order to have a conversation.

Having no text facility, it would be help to develop communication skills among young people and also discourage them from retreating to their rooms when they make a call. I know that we still have land lines, but my daughters would not dream of using ours: when they are summoned to use it, to speak to their grandparents, they behave as though it were a hand grenade. The idea that landline phones may come back into fashion isn’t as crazy as you may think. I was astounded, recently, to see the telephones of my youth - now described as ‘retro’ - on sale in Aldi. I was tempted to buy one. It would do youngsters the world of good to have to sit in a draughty hallway on a landline.

And I am sure there are many people who would welcome a return to TV as it was in the good old days. We may have has only three channels, but at least some of the programmes were watchable. Now we have millions of channels, the majority airing variations of Cops With Cameras, Benefits Britain and Come Dine With Me.

One thing I would not like to see return is the typewriter. I grew up to the sound of my dad tapping away on his Imperial - a fine-looking machine, but would I want to use it? I sat - and failed - my first typewriting exam on a typewriter. Going back to those days of pushing the carriage, dabbing Tippex and sticking in carbon paper would be nothing short of horrific. Not all progress is bad.

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