Excellent post.
Saving up for albums (LPs) meant a different relationship to time, and - once adolescence had kicked in - music played a very large part in of lives.
For music, and for interests, for hobbies, you didn't have instant gratification. Instead, you waited, you saved, - saving up for albums (LPs) meant a different relationship to time.
You waited, you saved, (chores at home, and other sources of income - I remember my brother and I sharing the costs of the first few albums we bought together, much discussion and negotiation preceding each purchase, as, while our tastes were similar, they weren't identical), and visited the record shop endlessly (when visiting a major city my brothers and I spent ages and ages in record shops, traipsing around from one to another, browsing and inspecting and critically commenting on their selections, and I would also head to book shops) before buying. Anticipation was half the fun.
Some people (friends, schoolmates, neighbours, people you knew) had different albums (nobody could afford to get everything they wanted at first, everyone saved up - and we were all from middle-class backgrounds), and that meant arranging to visit friends - at home - who had albums that you didn't have in order to listen to them.
Coffee (or tea) were the usual drinks when you visited someone, or they dropped in to you; I always served the real stuff - most of my friends didn't. Raiding alcohol cupboards came a lot later (university years) and my father somehow always knew and - most unusually for him - made it clear that this was not on, and that he was really miffed. He said - qute firmly - that if we wanted to raid the booze cupboard, we were free to drink the disgusting local beverages/stuff he and my mother invariably brought back from their foreign holidays - places such as Greece, Italy, Turkey - but to leave the whisky and vodka (his and hers respectively, although she also sipped whisky on occasion) strictly alone, or else, - and this threat worked - or else, replenish it.
