Record of the week: The Members – Offshore Banking Business Genghis Khan – Genghis Khan Highest entry: Abba – Does Your Mother Know
18th Mar 2022 – Revisiting Genghis Khan cracked me up. I can understand its appeal to an eleven-year-old. Abba were riding their wave but I don’t remember this song at all. Though I can enjoy some of their music now, because it was everywhere, non-stop, at the time, it symbolised the generic pop junk that was to be rebelled against.
29th April 1979 Forgotten (30th April) 2p 2p
30th April 1979 Quite good today suppose 2p
18th Mar 2022 – I was trying to make sure I filled in every entry in my diary – even if there was nothing to say.
1st May 1979 Almost forgot about charts Brought wrong book home so wrote on paper Find out results tomorrow 2p 2p 148p*
2nd May 1979 Mum got magazines today About yesterday – s,a’right * = in debt
18th Mar 2022 – I think it’s interesting that I was keeping track of my finances or lack of them. I didn’t seem to learn anything from this. When I started working I always spent all my money before the next payday came around. Perhaps that is what I learned. So I can blame my mother for allowing me to go into debt and that becoming the norm.
I am happy to say that from my thirties onwards I have been able to manage my money much better and I have managed to never use a credit card and never had any debt. I think this has led to less stress in my life. At least, around that issue.
3rd May 1979 1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 2. Racey – Some Girls 3. M – Pop Muzik 4. Boney M – Holiday 5. Wings – Goodnight Tonight 2p
4th May 1979 Not a lot happened today 2p 142p*
5th May 1979 sr 5.26 ss 8.29 Rangers 1-0 Celtic – at Hampden Chelsea 2-3 Ipswich
18th Mar 2022 – One of the few things I miss about living in England are the long summer days. And on the opposite spectrum, I do not miss the long winter nights. Although sometimes I feel like I want to endure them again just to get a balance. Wrapping up in layers of clothes, enjoying entry into a heated room. I have memories of walking home from the football club after a few beers and a joint, listening to the Ozric Tentacles and trying not to slip on the icy roads. The air was white with cold.
But I don’t even enjoy the cool winter nights in Thailand now. I’m acclimatised or getting old. Let’s say acclimatised.
Record of the week: M – Pop Musik Highest Entry – Boney M – Holiday – 19
15th Mar 2022 – Hooray! Hooray! It’s a Holi-holiday! Boney M were goofy and likeable. I saw an interesting documentary about them the other day. I don’t think they even sang their own songs. Was this cynically released during the school holiday? I think so! I was so obsessed with M’s Pop Musik.
24th April 1979 First day at school was all right 2p 2p
25th April 1979 Forgot to get charts yesterday so I got them today European Cup Semi-Final (2nd Leg) FC Cologne 0-1 Forest 2p
26th April 1979 1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 2. Racey – Some Girls 3. Squeeze – Cool For Cats 4. Jacksons – Shake Your Body 5. M – Pop Muzik 2p 2p
27th April 1979 Dunno Matthew came down 2p 2p
28th April 1979 Do bricks No six-a-side again Ipswich 2-1 Spurs
15th Mar 2022 – I would have been in the second year (of four) in middle school, 11 years old. I don’t remember playing six-a-side but the main football team would be comprised of first and second years for the junior team and third and fourth years for the senior team. So, being a second-year and a prolific striker I was looked up to quite a lot. But then in the next year, I would be looked down upon again. The English class system ensured the hierarchies were maintained in school, though I imagine it’s similar everywhere else.
Digging around for pictures online I found this drone view video and it doesn’t look like much has changed in 40 years or more. I even recognise pictures in the assembly/gym hall with its gym-climbing frames, entrance to the changing room and the sports storage room, to which I was consigned when I was in the fourth year because I was too shy to go swimming and begged my mum not to make me go since they started charging a minimal fee for it. Save your money, mum!
All I had to do was tidy it up, which took a boy 5 minutes. At the end of term, I asked the PE teacher if I could keep a book I had found there. It was a tennis umpires scorebook and I was fascinated with its layout, tables and use. I guess I had already been interested in tables, charts and scores with keeping track of my car races, football leagues and music charts.
Record of the week; Supertramp – The Logical Song Highest Entry: Bee Gees – Love You Inside Out – 25
7th Mar 2022 – The twisty bendy Logical Song shows my early interest in prog-ish music. The sound of this song made me happy. I like music that challenges but that also makes me laugh with excitement. So, not much into the Bee Gees at the time. I do have their early albums to check out as they were apparently much different to their popular hits around this time.
15th April 1979 Going up North today 2p
7th Mar 2022 – I don’t recall driving back up North with Jean at any time and can only think we took the National Express, though I don’t have any memory of travelling with her on the bus either.
I do believe it was on this bus journey that, on the way to London, there was a mouthy brat further up the bus, a boy probably around my age. He was leaning over the back of his seat, retelling a movie he saw recently about a skydiver whose parachute had failed. People found him standing upright in a field, held upright by his bones having split through his feet and shoved like stakes into the ground.
I also believe it was on this trip that we were waiting at Victoria Bus Station in the evening and I bravely went off for a walk around the outside of the building and coming towards me in the opposite direction was the spitting image of Sid Vicious, in a grey woollen poncho. I guess many punks at the time copied his image and I’m not certain if I was aware that he had already died.
16th April 1979 Playing cards with Paul til 2:30am
7th Mar 2022 – Paul had lodged in our house in Whitehaven for as long as I can remember. He probably lived there right up until mum sold it a few years later. It was a four-bedroom, three-storey, end-of-terrace house with a garden. Maybe I mentioned it already. 20 Hugh Street, Bransty. I asked mum how much she sold it for and I couldn’t believe it was only 13,000 pounds! The north of England was definitely in a different freaking financial hemisphere compared with the south.
Anyway, Paul (and George, a canny Scot) entertained me despite our age difference, he was probably around his early to mid-twenties at this time. Our card game of choice was Hunt The Cunt, more commonly known as something like Chase The Queen, I forget now because we always just called it by its nastier name.
This was the hill my mum had to drag me up a couple times a week when she went shopping in town where the only supermarket was.The typical back alley of British terraced houses where kids could and would get up to as much mischief as possible. It was quite daring to go into allies where we didn’t live or know anyone. This particular alley was where I first tried and failed to ride a pushbike that was far too big for me.20 Hugh Street as it is now (2022). They’ve got a new door and have walled off the garden. The path also looks like it has been tarmacked whereas in my time it was just dirt and perfect for games of marbles. And gone is the old traditional green lamp post that used to have arms near the top. Was it just to stop kids from throwing tyres over it? Cos it didn’t work!
17th April 1979 Quite good day!
7th Mar 2022 – I had lost pretty much all traces of my northern accent by now but it was a kind of comforting sound to me, like a return to home, to something far away but familiar. I think these days were quite good because there was no school and I probably badgered my mum into generously buying things that I wanted.
18th April 1979 Quite good day again!
19th April 1979 1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 2. Racey – Some Girls 3. Squeeze – Cool for Cats 4. Jacksons – Shake Your Body 5. Milk and Honey – Hallelujah
7th Mar 2022 – The Squeeze song is classic, they had some great singles, I should probably check out their albums. I dig the Jacksons early stuff these days too. Not into any Michael Jackson though. Ever.
20th April 1979 Hi! Mum Gave mum a tape measure 2p
7th Mar 2022 – Mum’s birthday and no doubt she had to give me the money to buy her her own present! She probably had to go and buy it too! Well, at least she got what she wanted
21st April 1979 2 Bolton 2-3 Ipswich 2p 2p
7th Mar 2022 – 2 – more long-forgotten secret codes.
Record of the week: The Members – Offshore Banking Business Highest Entry: Wings – Goodnight Tonight – 25
3rd Mar 2022 – The Members were knocking out classic singles and Offshore Banking Business was even surpassed by its b-side Solitary Confinement. The lyrics summed up what I assumed was in store for me as an English teenager in the forthcoming decade. I didn’t know it at the time but I spent all of the eighties avoiding it to some degree.
Coincidentally, The Members vocalist Nicky Tesco passed away this week. One day all my idols will be dead. As you, as I.
I’m sure some folks remember and enjoy the Wings tune. I have no recollection though.
8th April 1979 Would be able to stay up to watch That’s Life but it’s not on 95p 2p
3rd Mar 2022 – That’s Life was actually a good introduction to the cruelties and absurdity of being alive. It was funny but in a typically dry English way. I used to enjoy the Last of the Summer Wine which was on Sunday nights too I think. Though I ended up so fucking annoyed at the miserable characters in that show even though they did overcome their weekly dramatic obstacles. But why were these shows on a Sunday night, priming people for the misery and absurdity of a working week!? So typically English. Is it any wonder we are fucking miserable people!
I didn’t get everything that was featured on That’s Life but knew that it was funny. I would laugh along with my mum even if I didn’t understand why something was funny. My mum influenced me quite a bit as she enjoyed absurd humour such as Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and Monty Python etc Even kids’ programs were pretty out there, influenced by the drugs, excesses and changes of the sixites, not that I knew it at the time. The Americanisation of kids’ TV is disappointing.
I remember my grandmother as being quite Victorian, though it would have been her parents that lived during that time. By contrast, my mother seemed to be a fifties and sixties girl, growing out of the post-war grind. It was only when I was in my twenties or thirties that she told me that my dad was her second husband! It wasn’t something that she hid from me but she didn’t think it was that an important thing to tell me.
On one hand, I can understand her thinking, though I’m curious now. At the time she told me I only asked her a few questions and didn’t investigate further and of course, now it’s too late to ask. I wonder if there are things I don’t think are important for Hayden to know that might surprise him in the future when and if he finds them out?
9th April 1979 I was buttering up my bedroom wall today – looks fab 2p
3rd Mar 2022 – My guess is I didn’t quite know the meaning of buttering up unless the meaning has changed a little in my short life. I think at this stage I was still just putting up posters and pictures cut out of the music magazines and papers that I was collecting through my mother’s benevolence.
10th April 1979 Got a new pair of trainers. And I got two pads now. 2p
3rd Mar 2022 – The ongoing fucked feet saga. I still haven’t gone to get them checked again. Not that I’ve been waiting since 1979.
11th April 1979 Matthew’s coming down Went on common European Cup Semi-Final (1st Leg) Forest 3-3 Cologne 2p
3rd Mar 2022 – Pre the mega money-spinning sponsorship of football I don’t recall ever seeing European football matches on TV, not even highlights. The scores just appeared occasionally on the news and in the papers, which I would sometimes check out my grandparents’ stash. They got the Guardian and the Observer delivered to our oversized letterbox that sat snugly in the privet hedge by the gate along with the morning milk, twice-weekly bakery goods and the mail.
It’s difficult for people to comprehend these days just how difficult information was to come by. There’s a reason Encyclopedia sets were a popular door-to-door sales item though the one we had we had to sell so that we could live. Food was more important than knowledge at that stage. We were never destitute but it always felt like it wouldn’t take much to push us in that direction.
12th April 1979 1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 2. Squeeze – Cool For Cats 3. Racey – Some Girls 4. Village People – In The Navy 5. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive 2p 10p
13th April 1979 Jean came today 2p
3rd Mar 2022 – Jean was my mum’s school friend. A hard-drinking, hard-smoking lady who always wore too much perfume to hide the fact she might’ve been enjoying whiskey breakfasts. I think it was on a visit to her house back in Carlisle that I stole my first cigarettes from her many packets and took that first step into bad boy teenage smoking rebellion. I don’t remember much about any of the visits, her coming to us or us going back up North. She and mum were always off to the pub. These times were my mum’s only holiday time in the year.
14th April 1979 Do bricks Norwich 0-1 Ipswich 2p
3rd Mar 2022 – I wasn’t a Liverpool fan but did much prefer Ray Clemence to Peter Shilton. I hated Peter Shilton’s hair!
Record of the week: Generation X – Valley of the Dolls Highest Entry: Sex Pistols – Silly Thing – 24
28th Feb 2022 – This guitar-based noisy music was grabbing me more fully. The Billy Idol’s on TV intrigued and as kids still do today, were something to aspire to. The dross of mainstream music was made bearable and in hindsight seems far better than today. I don’t know what kids today are rebelling against. It’s all very serious now. Demonstrations and riots are common and no one is shocked. Why don’t you rebel against me? I am the old fogey, the establishment. Fight me!
1st April 1979 Them lot came round UGH! 2p
2nd April 1979 It’s alright today I suppose 2p 1p
3rd April 1979 Went down to Matthew’s today. You should see his place, it’s brilliant with a tennis court Today got English Civil War 2p
28th Feb 2022 – Matthew’s house was huge, maybe three stories high. His dad drove a Mercedes and they had a tennis court. In comparison to our humble place I felt I was in the company of a rich family. They were down-to-earth and friendly though. I got on well with his Mum and Dad and over the next couple of years, Matthew and I would play many long five-set matches of tennis. His brother Toby was a year or two older than us and had bought the Dexy’s Midnight Runners album which we enjoyed listening to.
That English Civil War 7″ by the Clash! The cover was taken from the cartoon version of Animal Farm which I hadn’t read or was even able to comprehend but I knew it was a statement. I was still early in my vinyl-buying days, begging mum to pick up things for me if she could and I had been a good boy. I wonder what would have happened if I’d been a better boy?
4th April 1979 Got mag called Smash Hits today 2p
28th Feb 2022 – Smash Hits, I think, was the magazine that had some light articles about pop music but its main attraction was the printed lyrics to the songs of the time. This was revelatory for me and besides being able to understand the words to the songs and sing-a-long, it wouldn’t be long before I would be trying to imitate writing them, inspired further by the crude and rude lyrics of the punk songs I heard or heard about. Fuck was becoming more common in my vocabulary. I wanted to become a singer and a lyricist, a punk and a poet. But I was only 11 years old.
5th April 1979 1. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive 2. Village People – In The Navy 3. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 4. Chic – I Want Your Love 5. Sex Pistols – Something Else 2p
28th Feb 2022 – There it is – 80% dross and 20% intrigue.
6th April 1979 Yesterday I got a Fiat X1/9 and Prototypes Trumps but I swapped them TCH! 2p
28th Feb 2022 – Still hanging on to my Matchbox car fixation and my competitive nature of Trumps. I loved playing that game.
7th April 1979 Went to Matthew for 4 hours Leeds 1-1 Ipswich 2p 2p
28th Feb 2022 – Matthew did come to my house sometimes, or we would mess around in the woods and on the common but I was more enamoured with his new mansion to explore.
Record of the week: Late Show – Bristol Stomp Highest Entry: The Jacksons – Shake Your Body – 26
29th Dec 2021 – I had to go back and check these again. Bristol Stomp was quite an upbeat pop swing-around, singalong that quickly becomes forgettable (obviously). I like some of the Jacksons/Jackson 5 music but this one is pretty bland and was surely reused for MJ’s Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough. I never got into Michael Jackson. It had no redeeming features in my mind.
25th March 1979 Italy’s gonna win the Eurovision Song Contest 2p – Israel won!
29th Dec 2021 – Once again my wish and support for the team in blue. Didn’t quite work out. As well as supporting the Italian football team I also had a passing interest in learning Italian and borrowed a book from Sharon and Ken for a little while. I was fascinated that other people used different words for things. The fascination didn’t last many chapters in though, and that was a sign of things to come when it came to studying French in High School. I should’ve tried harder but French sucked!
26th March 1979 You know I think school days are really getting boring so this is all I’m putting (March 27) 2p 1p
29th Dec 2021 – It seems most of my day was based around school at this point and I wasn’t getting up to anything worth writing about at home. These times were when I was still staying in my mum’s room in the evenings and the bedroom was just where I went to sleep.
27th March 1979 I don’t know what to put Same as yesterday 68p 2p 1p
29th Dec 2021 – Here I started accounting more properly and noting how much I had in savings. Later in the year, with much conniving and begging, these would usually be negative numbers. Early learning about overdrafts though thankfully without interest.
28th March 1979 Real drama in Coronation Street 2p 1p
1st Sep 2021 – Unbelievable! A quick search finds the storyline of this episode (# 1898!):
Ivy shocks the girls by siding with Steve against Vera. Alf comes out of his coma. Vera discovers Steve is doing a time and motion study on the girls. The girls accuse him of spying on them. Ivy calls a stop to the work when he refuses to rip the study up. Steve is shocked that Mike told Ivy to keep an eye on him. Ivy phones Mike. Mike can’t believe that the girls have stopped working on an important order. He orders Steve to get them working again. Steve accuses him of undermining his authority. Mike decides to leave the hospital. The nurses refuse to help him so he struggles with his crutches. Alf can’t remember the crash at all. Mike tells Ivy there’ll be no more clock-watching. She gets the girls back to work. Mike tells Steve he has a lot to learn. Alf tells Renee he will return to the GPO. Ivy realises Gail has wedding bells in mind and doesn’t like the idea.
29th Dec 2021 – We tried Emmerdale Farm and Crossroads but Coronation Street was the only one my mum and I would watch together in the evenings. I think eventually, as I transitioned to staying in my bedroom, she stopped watching it too. Later, we did bond again over BBC’s new offering of East Enders when that started – unbelievably not until 1985! I can’t find the ‘real drama’ of Coronation Street in the description alluded to in my diary entry. Fairly mundane stuff by modern standards.
29th March 1979 1. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive 2. Village People – In The Navy 3. Sex Pistols – Something Else 4. Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army 5. Lene Lovich – Lucky Numbers 2p
29th Dec 2021 – Hmm – does this mean I earned 2p and then had it taken away! I don’t know.
30th March 1979 What a day – so many bad things happened today This is all I’m going to say 2p
29th Dec 2021 – Another one of those times that I probably thought I would remember these events forever just by seeing these words again. Sadly not. But this may have been the time of an after-school event, some kind of series of plays and performances for parents and everyone was at school in the evening which called for much festivity, particularly after we might have finished with our tasks for the event. I was enjoying going around all my friends and talking excitedly with them. I was in such a joyous mood that I wanted to kiss my friends. I’m not sure where I got this idea from. I thought that’s how we showed love or pleasure for each other maybe.
Anyway, after trying this a little, my so-called friends started making fun of me, jeering and calling me gay. I didn’t really know what that meant but it appeared to be obvious that they thought it was bad. My balloon of joy had been rudely pinpricked and no one would talk to me for the rest of the evening. In the car ride to the school, I had been very excited and my mum couldn’t get a word out of me to find out what was wrong on the journey home, as we dropped off David and Joan Anderson to their house.
This specific event left me emotionally scarred and sticks in my memory still. Being called names was nothing really but the quick rejection by friends cut deep. Of course, I didn’t really understand my emotions at the time, or other people’s motivations. But I did understand that people can be pricks.
31st March 1979 Do Bricks 6-a-side match P-P Ipswich 2-1 Man. City
Record of the week: Car 67 – Headlight Highest Entry: Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes – 27
28th Dec 2021 – I think I checked out the Car 67 song again back when I initially wrote this entry and now, can’t remember a damn thing about it. Art Garfunkel though – ugh. These were the times of realising that popular music was quickly becoming something I hated. I don’t hear this song anywhere in popular culture these days either so perhaps it has been justly forgotten.
18th March 1979 Clocks forward Boring day Really Most days are now 2p 1p
19th March 1979 Same as yesterday 2p
28th Dec 2021 – It’s a shame I couldn’t find anything to write about, or thought that was worth writing about at the time. It was definitely an effort to try to put anything down here every down and there would be long periods when that became normal. I don’t think I have any diaries between 1986 and 1994. I seem to be fairly regularly making 3p per day – making my mum a cup of tea and something else, maybe washing up, though I can clearly view the sink and often still have dreams in this kitchen I don’t recollect ever washing up!
20th March 1979 Got new pair of shoes, wedged 2p 1p
28th Dec 2021 – I was probably costing my mum a fortune with my dodgy feet. These ‘wedged’ shoes would’ve also made me more conscious of standing out from everyone else. It felt like a negative for me and I didn’t appreciate at the time that I was receiving help from others. I found my life to be a hell that everyone wished on me. A lack of self-esteem. I can’t really identify where I developed this from. Perhaps from not having a father figure around? I did often wonder how different my life would have been if my father had been alive for my childhood.
21st March 1979 European Cup Quarter Final (2nd Leg) Barcelona 1-0 Ipswich Colehill P-P Cranborne 2p 1p
28th Dec 2021 – There were three middle schools in the catchment area for Queen Elizabeths (High School) in Wimborne. I was at St. Michaels (up the hill in Colehill), Allenbourne was down in the town and Cranborne covered all the rest of the countryside to the north. My house was along one of the catchment borders, or thereabouts. A bit further north and I would have been going to Cranborne too. The bus route is etched in my memory and it always weirded me out that we drove a long way down one road to pick up a couple of kids and then the driver had to reverse into a side track and drive on back again. It felt like it added so much extra time to the journey but it was really only a few minutes.
Throughout this school year and the next, I developed a habit of getting up earlier and earlier, even before the TV programs started in the morning at 6am. If it was too early for TV I would find something on the radio. I would eat biscuits for breakfast with a cup of tea. I encouraged my mum to buy more and more different types of biscuits and I would eat two of each, lining them up in the order of least tasty to delicious. I would take a bite and suck in a mouthful of tea and feel the biscuit crumble in my mouth dispersing its taste within. On and on…if I ran out of tea before biscuits I would make another cup.
22nd March 1979 1. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive 2. Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army 3. Lene Lovich – Lucky Numbers 4. Sex Pistols – Something Else 5. The Real Thing – Can You Feel The Force? 2p 2p
Sid Vicious had died in Early February and there was still money to be made.
28th Dec 2021 – Seeing Sex Pistols videos on TV was thrilling as all hell to me. Who were these crazy people? There was nothing I could identify with from my beautiful green countryside surrounds. I thought Sid Vicious came from another planet. More and more I wanted to be like that. To shock, upset and offend. This would develop much more strongly in the next school year, got me in a stack of trouble and ultimately confused me and made me bitter. It was a lot of fun at the time, a way to express myself and I soon discovered how boring and straight most people are.
At this stage though, I was just beginning to dive in. I was still teetering on the edge of being a good student and being a rebellious one. It’s fantastic to recognise these exact same traits in some of the kids I teach now. I try my best to encourage them but, fuck, I know exactly what I was like at their age and wouldn’t listen to anyone – especially teachers!
23rd March 1979 Rev.’s got more boring since a couple of weeks ago 2p 2p
28th Dec 2021 – Rev. must have been Religious Education but what the hell did the word Rev. actually mean? I wonder if subjects are still called this?
24th March 1979 Liverpool 2-0 Ipswich 10p
28th Dec 2021 – 10p – I was a money-making machine! It wouldn’t last.
Record of the week: Thin Lizzy – Waiting For An Alibi The Jam – Strange Town Highest Entry: Players Association – Turn The Music Up – 25
24th Dec 2021 – Thin Lizzy and The Jam – classics. It reminds me to take the time to play their music again but I don’t know if I will feel this way when I sit down in front of my collection looking for something to play. Players Association? Remembered by some I’m sure, but forgotten by me.
11th March 1979 Not much happened today 2p
12th March 1979 Same as yesterday! 2p
24th Dec 2021 – Well, not much I can say here except to remember that this was more than 40 years ago. Sometimes it feels like nothing much happens to a 12-year-old, much the same as a 54-year-old! Perhaps I need to make some excitement for myself!
13th March 1979 Chiropodist Gotta pad on my foot 2p
24th Dec 2021 – My foot aches still now and I think it’s time I tried the local hospital here in Chiang Rai though I’m not very confident in the quality of service I may get here – perhaps similar to the UK in 1979. I hated wearing the pad that was supposed to help re-align my bones. It was very uncomfortable and I was conscious of it if I had to change into sport shoes at school. I wasn’t ready to be different to others just yet.
14th March 1979 I don’t know what to put today 2p
15th March 1979 1. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive 2. Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army 3. Bee Gees – Tragedy 4. Lene Lovich – Lucky Numbers 5. The Real Thing – Can You Feel The Force? 2p
24th Dec 2021 – That damn Gloria Gaynor song has become a classic. I mostly associate it with gay clubs in Sydney that I would go to sometimes with Amy. I can understand its lyrical appeal for anyone feeling disenfranchised and seeking a positive message. I’d rather not hear it again though. Oliver’s Army and Lucky Numbers were fun pop tunes though and The Real Thing is an ok watered-down funk tune that I quite enjoy.
16th March 1979 Just thinking how boring this week has been 8:43am 2p
24th Dec 2021 – Indeed! But what did I draw this No Parking sign for? I can’t make out the text. Was it a positive message from the past to my future self? Doubtful!
17th March 1979 Do bricks Football League Cup Final Forest 3-2 Southampton Ipswich 2-0 Arsenal 2p
24th Dec 2021 – Football trophies were simpler to understand back then. There was the League, The FA Cup and The League Cup. I don’t know what the difference was between the FA Cup and the League Cup. Maybe the FA cup was open to the minor league teams too whereas the League Cup was just for teams in the first four divisions. The League Cup didn’t really carry as much prestige for some reason and felt a little exploitative for this reason. Just another way to make more money. These days the cups are all named after their advertising sponsors and as I don’t really much follow football now I don’t understand which cup is which anymore.
Record of the Week: Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army G. Harrison – Blow Away Highest Entry: Thin Lizzy – Waiting for an Alibi – 25
29th Nov 2021 – I don’t remember this George Harrison song – wait, I’m gonna listen…..weird. I don’t recognise this at all! Thin Lizzy on the other hand is ingrained in my psyche. A stone-cold classic.
4th March 1979 Not feeling very well!
5th March 1979 Didn’t go to school today 2p 2p 1p
29th Nov 2021 – For someone who was sick enough not to go to school, it seems I was well enough to earn a few pence doing chores.
6th March 1979 Same as yesterday
29th Nov 2021 – The poor kid was sickly again. I don’t know why. Was I just a dirty kid picking up infections from every other dirty kid? I could never stop picking my nose no matter how much my mum told me I should. At least by this age, I had stopped wiping my old snot on the back of the sofa for someone else to find and clean.
7th March 1979 European Cup (1st Leg) Ipswich 2-1 Barcelona Go to school 2p
29th Nov 2021 – Whilst Ipswich struggled in the league, we were giving it our best shot in Europe. I only ever attended a couple of football matches in the UK and I think I was too young to notice any violence in the air at the stadiums. It became obvious on TV and over the next few years as rival fan attacks got more brutal and bloody. One countermeasure taken was to make stadiums all seated and it still looks weird to me to watch every sitting down at a football match.
Another I notice is how small the stadiums appear and how close the fans are to the pitch. It makes everything look quite quaint. My only other experience of watching football was at the Sydney Olympics and it felt like everything was so far away, the players looked like ants.
When I started attending occasional AFL games in Sydney there was no air of violence, no separation of supporters and tons of kids with their parents. There was plenty of good-natured cajoling and any angry scenes were soon forgotten. It was always a lot of fun. I seem to have a bad run with paying through the nose to attend games though. It was very rare that my team won, even if they were doing well that season. So I made a point not to go to any games again so as not to jinx my team.
8th March 1979 1. Bee Gees – Tragedy 2 . Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army 3. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive 4. Lene Lovich – Lucky Numbers 5. The Real Thing – Can You Feel The Force 2p
9th March 1979 Got a new bus driver On bus of course? Only for that day though Shaun Marchit 2p 2p 1p
29th Nov 2021 – I remember the bus to middle school being quite a nice air-conditioned coach. The fourth-year kids always got the back seats and had the best fun. It would be a couple more years ’til I graduated to the king of the bus. Our bus driver doesn’t stand out in my memory perhaps because of the legend of our high school bus driver who was a champion never to be forgotten.
Who the hell is Shaun Marchit? Or was I trying to tell myself something? Was it the bus driver’s name? Doubtful. It must have been relevant at the time for me to write in my diary but alas, it’s gone now.
10th March 1979 FA Cup 6th Round X Ipswich 0-1 Liverpool Top: Liverpool 2p 1p
29th Nov 2021 – Fucking Liverpool! I admired Liverpool cos they were always winning. So, obviously, I hated them too.
23rd Nov 2021 – Trevor Brooking – I hated Trevor Brooking!
Record of the Week: Just a Gigolo – The Village People Highest Entry: Gary’s Gang – Keep On Dancin’ – 23
23rd Nov 2021 – The Village People! I had not converted completely to punk rock just yet. Perhaps my attraction to them was the happy, fuck-you attitude they projected. Well, their upbeat gay anthems were (and still are) part of the western zeitgeist.
Tracy Pew R.I.P. – Haha
25th February 1979 The other lot came round today. All four of them. Blurp!
23rd Nov 2021 – Hmm, so now I’m confused about the ‘first lot’ I mentioned and ‘this lot’, ‘the other lot’! If there were four of them…..perhaps my Aunt Shirley, Uncle John, my cousin Sharon and her husband Ken. It’s possible though I think my Uncle John may have already passed away by this time and maybe Sharon and Ken’s first son, Mungo, was already born. My uncle John was a competent carpenter, or at least that is in my memory bank somehow. Perhaps just some weird association with fresh-cut wood? I know I liked him.
I was ambivalent to my Aunt Shirley as she always seemed so strict but I really came to dislike her over the next few years as she would often tell my mum that she was doing a bad job at raising me. I tried to avoid her as much as possible, which wasn’t that difficult really.
I wasn’t very family-oriented really, possibly due to the fact that I never had a father around as he had passed when I was too small to even have any memory of him, and even though we were living with my grandparents I think I resented that in some ways, as other families of friends were just the more traditional family unit of parents and one, two or three children living together. There were times when I wished for my mum to remarry. I was always hopeful whenever some man or other came into our lives but I appreciate that my mum was happily self-sufficient.
By calling my extended relations, that lot and the other lot I’d already made my mind up about certain things.
26th February 1979 Didn’t see the eclipse today Da! Da! Ipswich 6-1 Bristol Rovers
23rd Nov 2021 – February in England. Well, it’s no real surprise that I didn’t see any eclipse.
27th February 1979 Had five pancakes Did games today! Even though my foot hurt
23rd Nov 2021 – My foot is hurting right now. I can still poke into the arch of my left foot and feel something isn’t quite right. But it’s mainly the joint of my big toe that is painful now. I’m considering going to get it checked out. I’m not sure what to expect from the Thai medical system here in Chiang Rai. It feels like we are a long way from where folks with real expertise might be. I’m sure whoever I see will give it their best shot though. At least I could get an x-ray done that might give a better idea of managing it.
By fuck, did I love my mum’s pancakes, covered in sugar and lemon juice. What a treat. I could never replicate them though.
28th February 1979 Went to orchestra at school
23rd Nov 2021 – I guess I was playing the clarinet. Mr Broadway was my science teacher and music teacher. He had curly brown hair and was quite fun to be around. But I gave up the clarinet when it started to get more tricky. This was quite a common behaviour through my teenage years. Too hard? Give up. Sometimes I still do this. And I see Hayden do this too. What is it that makes us give up so easily when things become more difficult? When I get stuck learning to play the guitar now, I just keep trying until I finally get it. I don’t put the kind of pressure on myself that I used to.
1st March 1979 1. Bee Gees – Tragedy (2)(1) 2. Blondie – Heart of Glass (1)(3) 3. Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army (5)(2) 4. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive (7) (-) 5. Abba – Chiquitita (3) (4)
24th Nov 2021 – Oliver’s Army was great as were some other early Elvis Costello tunes but I stopped listening after listening to the “Carry On Sex Pistols” album where Steve Jones continually shits on him, so I thought I should too. I’ve more recently bought his first two or three albums as they are often revered in certain circles but I haven’t given them a listen yet. It’s only been about 5 years….one day, one day.
Writing this post is making me want to go home and listen to this and the Birthday Party (Mr. Clarinet). Not the Village People though.
2nd March 1979 Get REV homework Soap was on at 11:40 Only my second whole week at school
3rd March 1979 Do bricks 2p Didn’t do them? X – Ipswich 1-1 Forest
24th Nov 2021 – Outside our back door was a small bricked patio area that needed to be cleaned every week or two as it would get a little mouldy and slippery. I hated cleaning them, although I can imagine the first time I did it I was really trying to do my best but after a while, I just resented the time I had to spend doing it and I would attempt to do it as quickly as possible and sometimes I would be made to do it again because I had been too careless, which of course meant losing more precious time.
I’m curious about the X, and various other codes that appear more often throughout the year. I’m thinking that this was some secret indication of my masturbatory habits as it would have been around this time I discovered the pleasures of touching my dick. More on that later.
