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.
14th January 1979 Going to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind
14th Oct 2021 – This would have been at the Tivoli in town (Wimborne Minster) and a very special event for an 11-year-old living out in the sticks. The movie really provoked my imagination – not so much about the alien visitors but how crazy the humans became. This and the War of the Worlds soundtrack really got me going, thinking about space and the universe though it wasn’t long until what was happening on earth overrode everything.
15th January 1979 Cleaning out the stream Forgot Don’t know
14th Oct 2021 – The woods opposite my house were a few children’s playground though for me it became a big part of my imagination and life. I familiarised myself with every corner, nook and cranny of the woods, sometimes even expanding over into overgrown backyards that backed onto it. It was divided up into several sections depending on clearings, paths, tracks and type of trees. There were three main entrances and a stream ran through the middle in a miniature valley (a ditch!).
When walking my grandparents’ dog – a job I mostly enjoyed – I would navigate through the grassy entrance to the woods, through the small paths amongst the bracken, to the main clearing where another path formed into a big circle you could walk, run or ride a bike around and beyond this down into the ditch where the stream was attempting to flow from right to left as I approached it. With the melting snow feeding it there was lots of water and so much debris would be picked up and block progress so that it flooded over the sides onto the banks and paths. I made it my mission to clear it, a little bit every day. I thought myself the owner of this stream and woe betide anyone who tried to reverse my hard work and block it again.
It took me many weeks to clear through halfway and later in the year, as seasons changed, there would be fresh challenges ahead. In my wellington boots, I kicked at the bottom of the stream to clear rocks away, pulled at entangled bushes on the bank, removed fallen branches until one day, about three-quarters of the way through I came to a small bend and beyond was the next objective to clear. The banks were steeper here and the tree cover dense so it was impossible to see the bottom. I bravely took a step forward feeling confident I would find the safety of the stream bed.
Alas, I was too careless and, as my foot plunged deeper, the icy water flowed over the top of my left boot and filled it full of water. Fuck! Stupid stream! I got out, emptied my boot and trudged home, cold and damp footed.
I went back of course but opted to start at the other end of the stream and work my way back to the cavernous depth that brought me despair. Having done this however, I found that the stream could only be accessed so far until it was blocked by a big hedge – and what was over that hedge made me extremely curious for further investigations.
16th January 1979 Same as yesterday Forgot Don’t know
14th Oct 2021 – I called my friend, Jason White, who lived on a farm down the end of the lane that ran alongside our house. You had to walk through his farm to get to the bottom of the field where Horton Tower was and where we used to climb up the crumbling brickwork inside to get to the windows from where you could also jump out. This was a teenage tradition for everyone locally and some kids even made it up to the second level but I was never brave enough to try.
Anyway, I called him…..actually, I probably didn’t even call him, I would’ve gone to his house and seen if he wanted to ‘come out to play’? I was proud of my stream cleaning success and wanted to show him. When we got there though he didn’t seem impressed at all which was disappointing. He was, however, curious about what was on the other side of that hedge.
Egging each other on, we climbed up a tree and along a branch that hung over into this forbidden territory. We dropped down onto a path that seemed to curve round in either direction. Whilst the path looked well enough used, the overgrowth on either side was so high it was difficult to predict what was around each corner. As I was thinking about this, Jason began to tell stories of the owner laying animal traps and walking around with a shotgun ready to shoot people who trespassed there. So it was in trepidation we snooped around as far as we could until we scared ourselves too much and jumped over/through another hedge and into an adjoining field.
Curiosity was well piqued by now and I ventured back a few more times, both alone or with a friend, until one day the owner walked right to us and asked what I was doing. I mumbled about just wondering and wandering what this area was and he told me to get out the way I came and not to come back. I don’t think I ever did.
There seemed to be nothing of interest in this enclosed wooded area, which, of course, made it even more tempting to investigate further but the threatening look of the owner was enough to keep me away.
I returned to the woods many years later and whilst some parts are the same, others have either changed or they no longer fit with memories. I’ll always be tempted to go back and look again (even though it’s on the other side of the world) but I’ve learned that memories are sometimes better left to themselves.
17th January 1979 Found out that ID and the Blockheads isn’t No. 1
14th Oct 2021 – Although I have no diary for 1978 I can see that music was taking on a more important role in my life throughout 1979. From football and cars at the beginning of the year to the charts and punk rock by the end. Critical times and enough to drive my mother mad.
18th January 1979 Painted WODs today Painted them white Interesting this article isn’t it!
14th Oct 2021 – Wall of Death? Wheels of Death? What’s the ‘s’ on the end? It seems I was also conscious of writing this diary for a reason, talking to a future self.
19th January 1979 Given new set book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe BLURP
14th Oct 2021 – I struggled with reading books during these years, especially if they were school-assigned books. Who wants to read what they’re told!? I do believe I did complete reading this book though. Something about a lion, a witch and a wardrobe, I bet!
20th January 1979 Finished some homework Ipswich 3-1 Wolves HEYY!
14th Oct 2021 – Weird that I would comment on finishing homework. I guess I was proud of this achievement.
1994ever 