Author: shaun tenzenmen

Australasian DIY music specialist and practising poet, amongst other things

The Week That Was – 25th November 1979

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Record of the week: Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant

6th Sep 2022 – I can’t find any information about Pretty Vacant being re-released around this time so not sure why it was in my mind as my record of the week. I had taped it off Top of the Pops earlier in the year (and again, not even sure why it was on Top of the Pops this year) and I smashed that tape a lot. I think it also included some Damned John Peel Session, I still have the tape here somewhere. I have the means to transfer my old tapes to digital but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

25th November 1979
Graeme’s a Christian
2p

6th Sep 2022 – This was a big deal for me at the time despite not really comprehending anything about what it might mean. Hmm – I wonder if he didn’t come to my place on Saturday because his parents wanted him at home on Sunday so that he could go to church, or if that was even just some kind of excuse.

Never having had any real intimacy with faith I’d gone along with what I was being told at school but there was none of that at home. Having been exposed to ‘Anarchy in the UK’, I was of course, immediately curious about what anarchy meant and the simple definition was lack of government and religion, so that seemed a good idea to me! As I later became exposed to Crass my feelings would become even more vehement.

26th November 1979
Make the tea
6p 2p

27th November 1979
Dunno > Naturally
2p

28th November 1979
Replacement watch comes
4 stopwatches
Luminous
41p 2p

6th Sep 2022 – Pre-hi-tech, watches were a kid’s way of showing off. I think it was Danny Dowling who had the first digital watch in school. It was LED. Everyone wanted to see it. So, I wanted to one-up him of course and managed to convince my mum to get me an LCD watch, which I duly showed off to everyone to gasps of awe. However, I was learning my first lessons in modern tech and the thing broke pretty quickly and there were no jewellers doing repairs on such modern watches yet. In the bin.

29th November 1979
1. Dr Hook
2. Queen
3. DS & BS (Donna Summer and Barbra Streisend)
4.
5.
7. Madness
2p

30th November 1979
–
2p

1st December 1979
Get the Sex Pistols File.
Got it
Coventry 4-1 Ipswich
2p

6th Sept 2022 – The Sex Pistols File became my bible. I would stare at the pictures every day and wonder about the lives of these crazy people. I wanted to be crazy too. I started experimenting with my hair, got my ear pierced after a while and ripped up my clothes. It was so inspiring and out of this world yet it wasn’t out of reach like David Bowie or Queen or similar. The attitude really struck me and has stuck with me to this day. As a little scruffy kid out in the sticks of Dorset, I would start to annoy everyone, without even having to do anything. It led to tough times, struggles and eventually growth.

The Week That Was – 18th November 1979

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Record of the week: Tourists – I Only Wanna Be With You

5th Sep 2022 – This is a great song and a couple of years later I found a sleeveless copy on yellow vinyl in Wimborne Market, probably for 50p. I don’t think they had any more popular songs, maybe released an album and then went on to achieve fame as the Eurhythmics, which was dull new wave pop that I generally detested.

An online search shows they had 3 albums and a handful of singles, the only one I recall now being ‘Blind Among The Flowers’ which preceded I Only Wanna Be With You I believe and was also excellent. All of these were released in 1979 and 1980 when bands didn’t hang around, years between albums.

18th November 1979
I want my bike
2p

19th November 1979
(tick)
^^
2p

20th November 1979
God knows
1p

21st November 1979
England v Bulgaria (European Championship)
2-0
2-0
2-0
two-nil
1p

22nd November 1979
1. Dr Hook
2. Queen
3. Jam
4.
5.
My bike comes
1p 182p* 162p*

5th Sept 2022 – Was the excitement of my bike arriving enough to distract me from the top 5 this week? A quick look online suggests there wasn’t much else to write home about, except perhaps Madness cracking the top 10. The Jam song was Eton Rifles, one of their last great singles. Funeral Pyre was the last – they’d gone too soft by this time.

23rd November 1979
My bike is here
Mum did tell it came yesterday because she was going out.
2p 160p*

5th Sept 2022 – I guess this bike was a Christmas present and with it coming a full month before Christmas it still gave me enough time to beg for new presents on the actual day. She would’ve told me it was here because I would’ve discovered it in the garage anyway as I always had my nose in everything. Keeping myself entertained as an only child and in a garden about an acre in size, I was intimate with every nook and cranny. I knew places to hide and spy from, football was best behind the sheds where the two apple trees could be goalposts. Athletics could be run around the top lawn as it was mown with an oval around the edges. This tree was good for one thing and that tree good for another. The garage I often rearranged to make it more convenient, first for my bike, then motorbike and later drum kit and sofa,

24th November 1979
Hope Graeme comes
Ipswich 3-1 Soton
2p 180p*

5th Sep 2022 – It’s possible Graeme didn’t come because his folks forbid him to see me anymore as they decided I was a bad influence. I was bemused by this as it seemed that he was always the bad influence on me.

5th Sep 2022 – I had an irrational hatred of Peter Shilton. Maybe it was his curly hair or the fact that he kept Ray Clemence out of the England team whom I considered a better keeper.

The Week That Was – 11th November 1979

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Record of the week: Madness – One Step Beyond
Highest entry: Madness – One Step Beyond

29th Aug 2022 – I think it’s pretty much impossible for pre/early adolescents not to love this song. I still love it now though its familiarity has worn a little thin.

11th November 1979
Nothing
2p

12th November 1979
(tick)
Not a lot
2p

13th November 1979
today
2p

14th November 1979
Six weeks til me bike comes
2p 195p*

30th Aug 2022 – It’s funny to see the affected writing using me instead of my. Is it an English thing? It feels like it. Northern perhaps? Scottish or Irish influence? Blackie from the Hard-Ons still uses it when he’s sending emails, messages etc. It also reminds me of Gilesy who never says fucking but fooking. It sounds weird to me but it seems to be his thing.

Anyway, me bike was an Eddy Merckx 12-speed racing bike ordered from the huge catalogues that appeared once or twice a year. I didn’t know who Eddy Merckx was but the catalogue spiel sold me on it. I thought it was something special.

I don’t know where these came from but I think they were free. Grattans was the name of one. They contained everything such as kitchen items, clothes, tools, toys etc and usually at a cheaper price than in the shops, though by the time shipping charges were added they probably ended up the same.

For teen boys (maybe girls too) the fashion pages were prime material to get excited about, especially the underwear sections. Without any access to porn, this was as good as it got. I still prefer to be stimulated by a semi-clothed body rather than a naked one. I’ve got an imagination that I want to use.

15th November 1979
1. Dr Hook
2. Lena Martell
3. Queen
4. Jam
5. Commodores
6. Abba
2p

16th November 1979
(tick)
If I don’t find something to say soon I’ll do something about it
2p

30th Aug 2022 – Seems I was even annoyed at myself at the time for what felt like boring days. I bet they weren’t boring at all and filled with forgotten episodes or creative stupidity.

17th November 1979
Ipswich v ?
Graeme came

30th Aug 2022 – Why I didn’t write more? We would’ve got up to loads of mischief but maybe the mischief was so prevalent that it wasn’t worthy of mention. We usually walked up to Queen’s Copse and dicked around there. To be honest, there wasn’t much to do there, occasionally we’d stumble through farmer’s fields and get chased by bulls, piss on electric fences and find dead snakes. I got my mum to take a couple of pictures with her Polaroid Instamatic as Graeme and I pulled ‘punk’ poses that we’d learned from whatever magazines we’d come across.

The Week That Was – 4th November 1979

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Record of the week: Specials – Message To You Rudy
Highest entry: BA Robertson – Knocked It Off

24th Aug 2022 – By this time my friends and I were just starting to form our favourite music and subculture. Danny Dowling and Nick Spooner were really into Two Tone and I loved the energy and politics of it too (without fully understanding it yet). I was pulling away more into punk rock, both music and attitude.

As I started to hang around in the village in the evenings over the next 12 months or so, that little group of friends was very diverse. Murray Jackman was the mod, Lee was the gribbly (our name for someone into hard rock and metal), Graeme was the trendy and I was the punk. Because the village was so small and there were so few kids we stuck with each other despite our subcultural differences.

4th November 1979
Dunno
2p 180p*

5th November 1979
(tick)
We’re back
2p 178p*

6th November 1979
Got John Wark in football cards
Danny brought radio but we didn’t find out no. 1 only number
2p 176p*

24th Aug 2022 – At this time we were all interested in hearing the chart rundown on Radio 1 during our lunchtime. Sometimes it went on too long though and we had to return to class. As Lena Martell was number one though, we didn’t really miss out on much this week.

I guess it felt like another form of sport, instead of following your favourite team you were following your favourite artists.

7th November 1979
So I found out today
2p 174p*

8th November 1979
1. Lena Martell
2. Dr Hook
3. Abba
4. Sad Cafe
5. Queen
6. Tusk
7. Jam
8. Viola Wills
9. Selecter
10. Still
2p 172p*

9th November 1979
Total fuckup in the charts
What’s fucking no. 1
Tell me
2p 170p*

24th Aug 2022 – Not sure what the deal was here but it does show how difficult it was for information to travel in those days. In this current time of knowing about everyone’s farts and burps in real-time, there’s something missing. Much like the idiom about the journey being more important than the destination and living is suffering, having everything at your fingertips really has no reward.

I still have a goal in my mind now, from all the way back in 1979. I think I’ve mentioned it before. One night whilst listening to John Peel under the sheets I heard a song with the lyric ‘Who are these people?” I still have a vague idea of the sound of the song though find it a little difficult to describe. It was quite a simple song, kind of like the Angelic Upstarts or some of the more upbeat Messthetics post-punk coming out, like the Leyton Buzzards ‘I’m Through With You’.

Anyway, I never wrote down any information. Maybe I never heard who the band was, which is annoying because I did start writing things like this down when I heard them so that I could try and buy them later. There were many things that I did track down eventually, some of which were 10 or more years later. But this one has eluded me and in my mind, I have a feeling that one day I will discover this song again and then I will soon die. I would like to say that I will not die UNTIL I hear this song again. Let’s see.

10th November 1979
Ipswich 0-0 Villa
2p 188p*

The Week That Was – 28th October 1979

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Record of the week: BA Robertson – Knocked It Off

17th Aug 2022 – BA Robertson, not often remembered in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll but the chorus in this is still in my brain, at the back somewhere. A quick internet search shows he was releasing music as early as 1973 and after fading out of the limelight by 1982 was writing more for other people, including Cliff Richard. Recently reading Beatles, Stones and other rock biographies I hadn’t really considered how a lot of popular artists had hits written by others and often ended up making more money out of them too. Teen idols across the years have been and remain a facade. Truths are always hidden.

28th October 1979
For birthday I got the Great Rock N Roll Swindle
2p 146p*

17th Aug 2022 – I was so into this album because I could finally hear Friggin’ In The Riggin’ at my leisure, the tune, or lyrics really, that Graeme had told me about that originally got me interested in this punk thing that was happening. It is such a strange album and cannot really be called Sex Pistols canon but that is kind of interesting in a way. The movie is an arty oddity too. I might give it a watch again soon.

29th October 1979
(tick)
We’re in the fuckin’ holiday
2p 150p*

23rd Aug 2022 – Well, I certainly seem excited about this fact. Like most schoolkids.

30th October 1979
Bought 30 packs of football cards
2p 2p 146p*

23rd Aug 2022 – I was big on collecting cards. Football cards, Top Trumps, playing cards. We had devised all sorts of games to play with them when I was younger. By this point, I think I was just trying to track down all the Ipswich players and perhaps some other top players of the period. I don’t recall many other kids being as fanatic about football card collecting but I guess there must have been. I think there’s a reasonable market for baseball cards in the US (maybe American Football too?) and I’m wondering now if there are still people out there collecting old football cards.

31st October 1979
(tick)
Nothing much
2p 144p*

1st November 1979
1. Lena Martell
2. Dr Hook
3. Sad Cafe
4. Abba
5. Buggles
2p 142p*

2nd November 1979
(tick)
Hey it’s you again
Nothing
2p 185p*

23rd Aug 2022 – Who was ‘you’, I wonder?

3rd November 1979
Nottingham 2-0 Ipswich
1p 2p 182p*

The Week That Was – 21st October 1979

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Record of the week: Stranglers – Nuclear Device
Highest entry: Suzi Quatro – She’s In Love With You

10th Aug 2022 – The Stranglers had passed me by until now and I reckon I only heard Nuclear Device once and never again until I bought a copy a few years later. It felt strange that a song I loved and I believe charted was so rarely heard on the radio. I was starting to feel that someone out there had it in for the punks and good music. I don’t recognise this Suzi Quatro song but she was always a pleasure to watch on Top of the Pops, though as a weird soon-to-be 12-year-old I didn’t quite understand why!

21st October 1979
Nuclear Device (Wizard of Aus) is great
2p 188p*

10th Aug 2022 – Perhaps this was the start of my education into the terrible power of nuclear weapons which would only cast a longer shadow over our lives in the early 80s. I did love the pun in the record’s title. Perhaps a first inkling of an interest in language.

22nd October 1979
(tick)
Specials Message To You, Rudy is as above
2p 186p*

10th Aug 2022 – The Two Tone ska revolution was just starting to swing and my friends and I were getting into it. The music wasn’t punk but the messages were. I could identify. Any youth culture was interesting to me at this formative stage.

23rd October 1979
(4) Not long
Took radio to school
2p 8p 1756p*

10th Aug 2022 – Countdown to my birthday. Birthdays were still exciting. Soon to be 12. I took a radio to school so we could listen to music and particularly the chart run down.

24th October 1979
(3) Not as long as yesterday
2p 1754p*

25th October 1979
(2) Even shorter
1. Lena Martell
2. Buggles
3. Michael Jackson
4. Dr Hook
5. Sad Cafe
2p 152p*

10th Aug 2022 – Apart from the Buggles this top 5 is pretty atrocious, though I do have a Sad Cafe song in the memory banks.

26th October 1979
(1) One day
Christopher’s coming down tomorrow
Greatt!
2p 150p*

27th October 1979
Great
HEYY!
Ipswich v.
For what I got, look at next week
2p 148p*

10th Aug 2022 – A Saturday birthday with a friend visiting. Unfortunately, no memories retained, sadly.

An Ipswich Town related info box in my diary for my birthday week.

The Week That Was – 14th October 1979

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Record of the week: Fleetwood Mac – Sara and Tusk
Highest entry: Chic – Forbidden Lover

3rd Aug 2022 – Is Sara and Tusk one song or two? I know the song Tusk and still love that. I think it was Camper Van Beethoven that released a complete cover of the album Tusk but as much as I’m sure I enjoyed it, it wasn’t enough to tip me over the edge with Fleetwood Mac.

14th October 1979
Nothing exciting, at least I don’t think so
2p

15th October 1979
(tick)
Nowt
2p

16th October 1979
That’s today
What’s homework
2p 200p*

3rd Aug 2022 – I would like to go back in time and kick myself to add more detail to my writing. There’s nothing here to grab on to. My current diary writing is quite mundane in content but there’s enough detail to trigger returning memories in the future. Something that these entries are entirely lacking.

17th October 1979
(tick)
European Championship
N. Ireland 1-5 England
2p

18th October 1979
1. Buggles
2. Police
3. Michael Jackson
4. Blondie
5. Lena Martell
6. Sad Cafe
7. Rainbow
8. Status Quo
9. Dr Hook
10. Chosen Few
2p

19th October 1979
Awful fucking day
7 things went wrong
2p 1p

3rd Aug 2022 – Well, this one is more like it though still with nothing to excavate anything from the depths of my old noggin. Seven things though. Funny that I counted them. In the future, I would just accumulate everything on top of the other. Plenty more awful days to come.

20th October 1979
Man Utd 1-0 Ipswich
Ipswich still bo’m
2p 191p*

The Week That Was – 7th October 1979

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Record of the week: Sex Pistols – The Great Rock N Roll Swindle, Rock Around The Clock
Highest entry: Fleetwood Mac – 30

2nd Aug 2022 – The exploitation of the Sex Pistols legacy had almost run its course by now but for me, anything related to it was still exciting. I don’t mind some Fleetwood Mac these days though I think I would only know their hits. I recognise their songs sometimes when they appear in the guitar app, Yousician.

7th October 1979
No
2p 2p

8th October 1979
(tick)
No
2p

9th October 1979
St Michaels lose 6-4 and No
No
2p 2p

2nd Aug 2022 – I don’t remember this football game specifically but a lesson I learned this year from Mr Ewing involved my team being awarded a free kick just inside our forward half. I gave it an almighty hoof and almost scored. Everyone was amazed I could kick it so far. But Mr Ewing brought me down to earth saying that if it went in the goal wouldn’t have counted because it was an indirect free kick, meaning it had to touch another player before going in the goal. Way to kill a boy’s happy moment!

I think I mentioned before that at this time I was now in year 3 and the school football team was made up of year 3 and year 4 players, so I didn’t get much of a run.

10th October 1979
(tick)
Couldn’t
2p

11th October 1979
1. Police
2. Buggles
3. Blondie
4. Michael Jackson
5. Status Quo
6. Rainbow
7. Gary Numan
8. Bellamy Bros
9. Lena Martell
10. Kate Bush
2p 2p

12th October 1979
(tick)
Nothing
2p 2p

13th October 1979
Ipswich 1-2 Liverpool
Ipswich bottom
2p

2nd Aug 2022 – I think Ipswich must have turned this around quite quickly. It was only a year since winning the FA Cup and I remember doing well in Europe. Perhaps that was at the cost of not doing so well in the league.

The Week That Was – 30th September 1979

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Record of the week: Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star
Highest entry: Dooleys – Chosen Few

1st Aug 2022 – The Dooleys. A name best forgotten, surely. Are there any Dooleys fans out there that wish to argue their case?

30th September 1979
Them lot came round
Coo!
2p 2p

1st October 1979
Advice
Nothing
2p 2p

1st Aug 2022 – Advice? I wonder what that was? Sounds like some school-related subject about future employment wishes. Or possibly something set up to give us pre-adolescents advice about our soon-to-be raging hormones.

2nd October 1979
No
2p 2p

3rd October 1979
(tick)
No
2p

1st Aug 2022 – The idea of maintaining a diary every day had worn thin by the end of month nine.

4th October 1979
1. Police
2. Dreaming
3. Gary Numan
4. Status Quo
5. Bellamy Bros
6. Buggles
7. Michael Jackson
8. Rainbow
9. Dollar
10. ELO
2p 2p

5th October 1979
(tick)
No
2p

6th October 1979
Leeds 2-1 Ipswich
2p

1st Aug 2022 – Well, there was not much reported for this week of my life. I hope that when I go to my next life and watch the video of this life that it was slightly more interesting than I remembered.

The Week That Was – 23rd September 1979

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Record of the week: Dickies – Knights In White Satin
Chart entries: Buggles – 24, Blondie – 7

14th Jul 2022 – The Dickies kept rolling out awesome singles this year, this one a precursor to their second album and another great punk rendition of a classic tune. The only downside is that the b-side is a track from the first album. The Buggles new wave one-hit wonder ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ was making its run-up to number one and the Blondie track Dreaming was when I started losing interest in them as they fully hit the slick pop sound. Looking up the Buggles they had a couple of albums and a bunch of singles though none of them I’ve heard of.

23rd September 1979
(15th after Trinity – Autumnal Equinox)
But it’s still winter
2p 2p 264p*

14th Jul 2022 – I have no idea what 15th after Trinity means but it’s interesting to me that this information was in the diary. It’s kind of like a nugget of information that might send a child to a parent to seek more knowledge. It feels to me like this type of accidental/incidental learning is missing these days though I obviously have little current experience with being 11 or using a proper English diary.

24th September 1979
Fucking hell. How I hate school
2p 2p 260p*

14th Jul 2022 – Was it me or was it school? I definitely changed my attitude toward school over the ages of 10-12 and then by the age of 13 I hit full teenage delinquency and developed a contradictory personality that annoyed the help out of my mother for a year or so.

25th September 1979
It’s not so bad today
?
Went on a fungi hunt
2p

26th September 1979
Naffin
2p

27th September 1979
1. Police
2. Cars
3. Bellamy Bros
4. Dollar
5. ELO
6. Cliffie
7. Blondie
8. Commodores
9. Crusaders
10. Frantique
2p

28th September 1979
Puke
2p

29th September 1979
Palace 4-1 Ipswich
2p 2p