“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” – Andre Gide
Damned – Machine Gun Etiquette
Damned – Black Album
Cockney Rejects – Vol II
Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
13th July 2021 – I can’t imagine how I had these records at aged 13! I know I used to steal money from my mum’s stash of savings hidden in the bureau (sorry mum!) so maybe that was it. I do remember a year or two later I would never eat lunch and just saved the money my mum gave me to buy records on the weekend. I was skinny and starving.
Record of the week: UK Subs – She’s Not There
Highest entry: Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmas Time
9th Sep 2022 – How many singles did the UK Subs put out in one year? Rock bands these days are slow as fuck to do anything. ‘In my day’…haha – the punks were cranking this shit out month after month, no wonder there is so much great music from this time period. Of course, there was lots of shit getting cranked out too but let’s not talk about that.
Despite hating Christmas, Paul McCartney and Christmas songs, for some reason I really like the tune in this song. I mean, not so much I went out and bought it but at least I can find it somewhat unirratating. I suppose Mud’s ‘Lonely This Christmas’ isn’t a bad vocal melody too. You don’t hear that one so much though. And since living in Thailand, never heard again!
2nd December 1979
Not a lot happened
give me self a new hairstyle
2p
9th Sep 2022 – I can’t imagine that this went well but this was the year of hair experimentation. It wouldn’t be long until Mr Gander sent me out of class to go and fix my messy hair in the bathroom. As a teacher now I can’t really imagine asking a kid to do that. Imagine messy hair being such a terrible affront to the possibility of learning.
3rd December 1979
did myself
this…
2p
4th December 1979
week…
2p 6p
9th Sep 2022 – I seem to be just filling up the days with a sentence spread out a word a day, just so I could feel that I managed to write something every day.
5th December 1979
Got it
Punk rocker in Coronation Street
2p
Trouble at t’factry!
Mike refuses to get involved in an exchange trip to Charleville as the machinists are too busy. Renee returns from her mother’s. Suzie rouses Hilda into having a slanging match on the other side of the connecting wall to put buyers off No.11. Steve tells Ivy the Trades Council are organising a French exchange for five of the machinists. He realises he shouldn’t have told her when it’s too late. Suzie puts six buyers off the house. The factory girls challenge Mike about the French invite. He tells them he’s been too busy to tell them. Paul Haines, the estate agent, rings Suzie to tell her that he’s not happy with the way no one is interested in No.11. The machinists row over who’s to go to France. Mike isn’t happy with Steve’s attitude.
9th Sep 2022 – Punk goes mainstream. I don’t think any punk representation was portrayed in a particularly positive light though. Still not as bad as CHiPs or Dr Quincy would be.
6th December 1979
1. Police
2. Pink Floyd
3. Donna and Barbra
4. Dr Hook
5. Gibson Brothers
6. Tourists
2p 6p
7th December 1979
DO…
2p
8th December 1979
Ipswich 4-0 Man City
2p
9th Sep 2022 – Well, that’s a positive result to end the week on.
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.
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*
Chris’ house on the left and the entrance to the ‘mansion’ opposite.
Record of the week: Secret Affair – Time For Action
Chart entries: 40 – Secret Affair – Time For Action, 38 – Billy Connolly – In The Brownies, 34 – Commodores – Sail On, 32 – Nick Lowe – Cruel To Be Kind
22nd Jun 2022 – The Secret Affair song is a great mod tune though it wouldn’t be long until my allegiance to punk had to see me dislike anything that didn’t fit into a strict definition. Billy Connolly making fun of the Village People, there’s the cool disco-funk of the Commodores and the very 70s pop tune from Nick Lowe. Music was good.
2nd September 1979
Part 12 of the Dickies saga
De-ciphered some words from Dickies album
2p 209p*
22nd Jun 2022 – The Dickies songs were so fast, the vocals blurred and spasmodic but I really wanted to sing along. I couldn’t wait any longer for the unlikely event of Smash Hits printing lyrics for Dickies album tracks. I’m not sure they ever printed the lyrics for Banana Splits but everyone already knew the words to that from watching the TV show. Having no comprehension of record collecting yet I wrote the lyrics in some spare space on the inner sleeve and wrote on the cover too. I completely ruined the Boomtown Rats ‘Tonic For The Troops’ doing that too. That album had a lyric sheet but there were so many mistakes and missing lyrics that I attempted to fastidiously fix.
3rd September 1979
Oh no
(arrow pointing to tomorrow)
2p 207p+135p = 342p*
22nd Jun 2022 – I wonder what I bought this time? I’m guessing it was some 7″ singles or Matchbox cars.
4th September 1979
School
S’arite in fird yer
2p
22nd Jun 2022 – Middle school was split into two sections somewhat. Years 1 and 2 did things together as did years 3 and 4. In Year Two you had some sway over the kids in Year One. Moving to Year Three didn’t really give you sway over the two years below, instead, you became the target of attention from the Year Four kids. It was during this year that a bunch of them started calling me Sid as that was the only punk icon name they knew. One tomboy girl, in particular, took umbrage at me being a punk and would punch and kick me at any opportunity.
The main point of contention for me was in the school football team. I was the top player when I was in Year Two but now I struggled to make it into the team with the Year Four kids. I did end up playing a few games though and felt like I got a little respect from some of them.
5th September 1979
Forgot about the charts yesterday so I got it today
2p 338p*
6th September 1979
1. Cliff Richard
2. BA Robertson
3. Gary Numan – Cars
4. Roxy Music
5. Money
6. Specials
7. Street Life
8. Rats
9. Vanwarmer
10. EWF
2p 2p
7th September 1979
Going to I Eye and staying the night and coming back Sat 7.00pm
2p 2p
22nd Jun 2022 – The secret code of I Eyes is lost to time though I think it may have been Chris Foote. He, Graeme and I were the only three kids interested in the Sex Pistols and punk at the time. I do recall staying at his place once or twice until I was deemed too unacceptable as a dirty punk by his parents and later him too.
He lived on the corner of one of the hills that led down into Wimborne. We could climb his fence and still atop and shoot peas through a peashooter at cars as they drove by. This was great fun until some guy spotted us and got out and came in and told us off in front of Chris’ parents. Maybe that’s what got me into trouble with them.
Also, opposite his place was a big hidden mansion, or so it seemed to us. Their drive had a little bridge and a dry moat-like area that was hidden from pedestrians and the owners. We adventured through the hedge and down into the ditch in search of treasure, perhaps hoping for a porno mag or…who knows. What we did find on one occasion, under the bridge, was a huge human shit, which was both fascinatingly huge and seriously disgusting. Who was responsible for this!? What kind of massive butthole evacuated it?
The other road of the roundabout outside Chris’ place led down to the chippie which I most remember for having a cigarette vending machine standing by itself on the pavement, like a mailbox. You could buy single cigarettes for tuppence or five pence but we never had any money. We did see if we could get our little hands inside though, which worked occasionally. Of course, the fragility of the device meant that some folks would come along and just bash it until the glass broke and we would take advantage of that if we ever found it in that state.
It was also walking up this hill that one time I actually did find a porno magazine in the bushes which I had to hide in my pants and smuggle home.
8th September 1979
Great at I Eyes
Ipswich 1-0 Bristol
2p
22nd Jun 2022 – It would have been around this time that my mum lent me a cheap camera to finish off a roll of film which saw me pretending to take a shit, squatting over some dog poo on the pavement and hungrily pretending to grab at cigarettes on a billboard.
Record of the week: Generation X – Friday’s Angel
Highest entry: The Knack – My Sharona – 24
14th May 2022 – My Sharona is still in the cultural zeitgeist, though maybe only for another generation. Friday’s Angel I don’t even recall myself. Let me check it out again. Seeing the cover, I may have even owned this 7″ at some point. Looks familiar. A re-listen is not winning me over these days.
8th July 1979
Not meant for today but the Sex Pistols are great.
2p 12p^
14th May 2022 – Not meant for today? What does that even mean, 11-year-old me? Perhaps just filling up diary space when having no recollection of what I actually did on that day. I wish I could go back and tell myself to write down as much as possible, to tell Hayden to do the same. Tell your kids to keep a diary, even better, a journal. No need to get all Kerouac about it but your future self will be grateful to you.
9th July 1979
Had chalkie today
Great stuff
Chalkie = Hard and White = Arden White
2p 14p^
14th May 2022 – Well, I’ve searched but Arden White remains a mystery. Some kind of candy, chocolate or beverage, maybe? Already enjoying playing with language. It is something that I still admire as part of my Englishness. Not to say that language games don’t exist in other languages or that English is better, just that I enjoy the learning, practising and knowing of it.
10th July 1979
Graeme brought a Rubber Johnny to school and I’ve got the instructions
2p 16p^
14th May 2022 – Damn, this would’ve been a playground coup and kids would’ve gathered around to see this forbidden item. I was obviously proud to be the owner of the instructions! Even with them, I wouldn’t have known what to do with the thing! I feel sure Graeme would’ve given it a go though.
11th July 1979 called the
2p
14th May 2022 – As if my writing wasn’t hard enough to read already, I obviously wanted this piece partially obscured
12th July 1979
1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric?
2. Janet Kay – Silly Games
3. Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody
4. Squeeze – Up The Junction
5. Amii Stewart – Light My Fire
6. Gerry Rafferty – Night Owl
7. Ruts – Babylon’s Burning
2p 2p 20p^
14th May 2022 – Extended to a top 7 so that I could include the Ruts. It’s amazing to remember a time when a song like this was in the charts.
13th July 1979
Gra Johnny’s number is 0425 42800
24p^
14th May 2022 – In the punk tradition Graeme and I changed our names though I forget what mine was. So Graeme was Johnny, implying that he was the Johnny Rotten of us two potential punks. I don’t believe I ever went by the name of Sid but it wouldn’t be long before that was the name older kids called me to make fun of me. And by this time I was the only punk in the school.
14th July 1979
No news to write about Ipswich this week
26p ^
14th May 2022 – That’s how to write about Ipswich every week, even when there was nothing to write. I could’ve been a journalist, I tells ya!
Record of the week: The Clash – Cost of Living EP
Highest entry: Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody
6th May 2022 – The cashing in on the Sex Pistols and punk. I didn’t know it at the time, I was just thrilled with it all. Promoting songs like C’mon Everybody really just shows that punk was founded in the roots of rock, which was founded on….etc etc… All those people outraged by this ugly phenomenon – do they think they won a battle for decency or realise that the rebellion was not that dangerous after all.
24th June 1979
Them lot’s coming
2 Dunnos, 1 Forgottens, 1 Not much happened
2p 2p
25th June 1979
Middle of the year
2 Don’t know, 2 Boring days, 2 Same as yesterday, 1 Not much happened, 1 Nothing much
Won the relay. Came fourth in 75m and 150m heats at District Sport
2p
6th May 2022 – This would have been a good lesson to show that teamwork beats individualism. To someone who thought about it more at the time!
26th June 1979
I’m in the cricket ball bungin’. Chucked 42 metres.
By the way, Clash are great.
6th May 2022 – 42 metres seems a fair distance. I should be proud. I guess I was. Yesterday I played football with a couple of students in the school playground. I prefer goalkeeping these days as it’s less running around. But when the ball goes past me, then I have to chase around for it and I was doing well for a little while. I think I ended up playing for about twenty minutes, enjoying the exercise and camaraderie with these kids, before starting to feel dizzy and sweating too much. I’m quite proud these days of my stamina, even though I feel sad that I can no longer just keep going and going. Could I? If I really wanted to?
27th June 1979
Dunno
2p
28th June 1979
1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric?
2. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell
3. Squeeze – Up The Junction
4. Earth Wind and Fire – Boogie Wonderland
5. Quantum Jump – The Lone Ranger
2p
6th May 2022 – Reminding myself of the Lone Ranger – that’s a fun song. And who knew it was banned by the BBC initially due to its drug and homosexual references!? Really? I’ll have to give it a closer listen but I think sometimes people just seek to be offended!
29th June 1979
Done me leg in, on the knee
Matthew’s coming down
Leg’s KILLING ME
2p
6th May 2022 – Days when injuries couldn’t stop you from still doing things. My leg, obviously, didn’t kill me!
30th June 1979
Mick Mills appears on the same page as my birthday (27th Oct)
2p 10p
14p 4p
170
6th May 2022 – 170? What the hell is that?
31st December 1978
Snow started falling yesterday
HEYY!
2nd Aug 2021 – My first memory of snow, though it is likely I experienced it previously when I lived in Cumbria. About 4 or 5 feet of snow fell over a few days and hung around for ages as the temperature stayed around freezing. I built huge camps by the garden hedge, reenacting great trench warfare battles with pine cones as grenades. My machine gun also finding the target of the British soldiers. As with football teams, I always sided with the team in blue, obviously not knowing the real history behind the wars. It also made me want to side with the underdog and to try to appreciate the other side of a story. This was probably helped along by a continual stream of British movies celebrating victory against all odds, an attempt to counter the decline of the Empire since the end of the second world war.
My brief research indicates that there was snow around Dorset until February at least. A child’s dreamland!
1st January 1979
Watched the zany goings-on with The Didn’t Quite Make It In Time For Christmas Show
2nd Aug 2021 – That’s Kenny Everett and Rod Stewart – and this is what people looked like in 1979! Other guests were Leo Sayer and Hot Gossip. Punk had definitely not gone mainstream yet!
2nd January 1979
Tried some tricks with rubber bands
HEYY!
2nd Aug 2021 – Not sure what I was doing with rubber bands here but my mum taught me how to tie rubber bands together to make them longer. In summer I would tie four together and shoot dead the flies that had come in through the open windows during the day. Their blood-splattered remains smeared across the walls and ceiling.
3rd January 1979
I rolled a snowball about 3 feet high but later I smashed it with Kung Fu kicks
3rd Aug 2021 – Kung Fu was a pretty popular TV series and I was always in awe of when the guy gripped the molten pot that burned images of a dragon and lion onto his arms. I think I checked out the show again a few years ago and like many things, it’s best left good in the memory of the past. Looking for the attached picture tells me the show has been revived this year. Hmmm….could be good. Could be terrible.
4th January 1979
‘Blue Peter’ were talking about diaries
HEYY!
3rd Aug 2021 – No one who saw it at the time will ever forget Peter Purves exclaiming ‘What a lovely pair of knockers!’ about a couple of door handles. A further search for this has the phrase spoken by Simon Groom – see how fallible our memories can be?
5th January 1979
I found out that Saturday’s match wasn’t on
HEYY
What do you mean Heyy
3rd Aug 2021 – I was writing HEY on most pages of my diary because I loved watching Happy Days and also thought the Fonz was so cool. It was as close as a prepubescent could get to being a potential rebel. It was the nearest we got to seeing punk rock on the TV most weeks. I notice most of my diary this week revolves around TV. At this time we cherished these shows as they mostly were only on once a week and life was planned around things you wanted to watch.
On Saturday’s I would usually play football for the school team – I was centre forward, wishing to emulate my heroes Trever Whymark and Paul Mariner. Talking of which, as previously mentioned I think I also asked the hairdresser to cut my hair like the Fonz – which also never worked out well for me or the hairdresser.
I think in this case the match I was talking about was the Ipswich game as this would have still been school holiday time.
6th January 1979
Ipswich P-P Carlisle
BLURP!
3rd Aug 2021 – Ipswich had won the FA Cup last year and I believe did very well in 1979 too, winning the Cup Winners Cup and possibly the First Division (though that may have been in the following couple of years). These were days before big sponsorship deals and the names of the competition changing every year depending on who provided the money.
1994ever 