*The Week That Was – 5th March 1984

Record of the week: Confessions of Sin – Loose (live)

5th March 1984
Physics – ok. Maths – shit. Social Studies – ok. Someone put my bag in a bin so I left it there. H.E. – ok. Got letter from Black Flag’s drummer Bill Stevenson. They’ve got a new LP – My War, released March 1st so should be here soon. They’re coming over early June – right when my fucking exams are. Fuckin’ typical. Practised at Simon’s – fuckin’ ace laugh. Especially Balderson’s Boots. Hill Street Blues – fucking funny.

6th March 1984
Found my bag. R.E. – ok. P.S.C.E. – shit. Maths – shit. Wellman wanted to see me – Mrs Bell said ‘well done’ – fuckin’ bitch. English – good. P.E. – had a fuckin’ laugh pissing around in basketball. Getting good friends with Julie again. Maybe taking her to Brownsea on Saturday before gig. (?) not open yet. Went to Muz’s – making fireworks with Jasp. Had a laugh with some on wall (?)

7th March 1984
H.E. – did fuck all. Got hamster cage for Damien – he ate 7 other mice on Monday. Should get him tomorrow. Physics – ok. Didn’t do a lot at lunchtime. R.E. – has film on addiction. English – ok. B.Studies – shit. Maths – fuckin’ shit, got more revision books today. Went to Muz’s, Burt came round. We went up to the common. Blew some aerosols up. Burt shit himself. Went back to Shirl’s who gave us some (?) and a burger. Went to Muz’s, played a bit on his computer. Came back.

8th March 1984
Met Damien. Art – bit of a laugh. P.E. – badminton, fuckin’ knackered. Pissed off for some reason. Talked to Julie. Social Studies – not too bad. Went for a fag with Mandy. Business Studies – won part of a lottery to use an electric typewriter. English – reading. Took Damien home on bus. Chris gave me a lift from bus. Put Damien in cage. He’s not very sociable. When I picked him up he pissed all over me. Not a lot happening tonight. Doing some art and even revision. Rang Paul and Andy who seem to hate each other now.

9th March 1984
Julie isn’t coming tomorrow – but next Saturday. Bit pissed off. English – ok. Got Aischrolateria tape. People liked it. H.E. – boring. Maths – shit. Art – Mini brought in his moped to draw. Business Studies – pissed around on electric typewriter. Physics – ok. Saw some Saw some common (?) punk on the tube. Went to Muz’s. Chris came down. Me, Muz and Burt went up to Houldey’s and had a crack-up. Listening to Aischrolateria now – for a laugh.

10th March 1984
Played football against Bournemouth who were acting like a bunch of pricks – we still lost 5-3. Met Simon in Wimborne. Went to Ratty’s. Went to Poole. Watched Simon have his hair cut. Went to Record Fair. Bought Skids/SGC/Fall singles. Ratty took them back for me. Got bus to Bournemouth. Went up to gig. Had a chat with everyone. COS weren’t playing which pissed me off a bit. Atrox played instead. Then Breakout. Then COS turned up too – we had a fuckin’ great time. Loose for 10 minutes – ace. Idiom Tribe went on – real heroes. Aheads went on to catch everyone. I went back then so missed Self Abuse. I should see them on Monday though.

11th March 1984
Finally stirred at 10.40. Feeling a bit pissed off but looking forward to tomorrow. Went to Muz’s, saw Conway on the way. Muz wasn’t in so went to the BMX track in the woods. Started hailing it so went to Shirl’s – who wasn’t in. Left some tapes for him to tape. Went home. Remembered I had to collect bag from Houldey’s so did so. Saw Dandy – lovely. Came back. Watched It’ll Be Alright On The Night. Had a bath. Had a chat with Mother. The fuckin’ money situation is in a terrible state. Damien bit me today.

*The Week That Was – 27th February 1984

Record of the week: Birthday Party – Bad Seed, Minutemen – Clocks, Black Flag – Machine
Record of the month: DOA – Bloodied But Unbowed

27th February 1984
Got up 7.00 after 6 hours sleep. Physics – Hayward was in a mood – we had a go at each other. Saw Liz holding on to (?) hand tightly. Maths – me and Mandy were talking about Wednesday’s party. Chesh, (?) and Nick had some dope, so I had some. Bought a stick off Chesh. Social Studies – pretty boring. H.E. found out more about (?). Got home. Rang Justin – told of the new group name – he liked it. Aischrolateria. Smoked the dope – and fuck all. Did some Maths. Saw an ace film. Bluebird and Dirtwater Fox or something. Goldie Hawn was in it – hmm. Found out Kathryn’s got a boyfriend. Did the stars say this would be a romantic month – we’ll see.

9th June 2023 – looking up this morning, it’s called The Duchess and Dirtwater Fox. Guessing I was liking it because Goldie Hawn was looking hot in it.

28th February 1984
R.E. did a bit of Maths. PSCE had a propaganda talk from an army cunt. Maths – talking to Murray about the system – he’s caught. Business Studies – did fuck all. Told Chesh I wasn’t gonna give him my money for the dope. Teach him a lesson. English – had a chat about power and video. P.E. Basketball was a laugh. Chesh had a joint nicked and looked very upset. FUCKIN’ HA HA. Chris was following the bus so everyone ignored him. Giving Kathryn a quid to see the Thompson Twins. Went to see Dandy to confirm if Kathryn hasn’t got a boyfriend – yet. God – I hate war.

29th February 1984
H.E. not too bad. Physics – ok, actually did some work. Chesh is not threatening me with violence. HA FUCKIN’ HA. R.E. – boring. English – not too bad. B.Studies – fuckin’ shit. Maths – shit. Getting on with all the girls so maybe it is my romantic month. Was expecting Jim to come round but the bastard didn’t turn up. Watching football instead, England – France 0-2 last I heard. Thinking about things. Julie reckons she’ll go down Poole with me one day.

1st March 1984
I hear Kathryn got off with Chris. Oh well. Cracking up at Martin all day. Art – not too bad. P.E. – ok. Social Studies – ok. B. Studies – boring. English – quite good. Spent my fuckin’ dinner money on sweets today – pissed off about that. Went on run round school with a fag. Had a laugh with a Tampax. Got my driving licence – just need tax, MOT and servicing. Rang Justin – we may have a practice Sunday 11th. Jim had to stay round last night cos he was giving Lorna some jip.

2nd March 1984
Assembly by Crud. Yawn. English – ok. Pissed off for some reason. H.E. – ok. Maths – shit. Didn’t do much at lunchtime. Bernice admitted to having it 23 times with Jim. Art – ok. Martin was hanging around me at break. B. Studies – DM – no homework – oh dear. Physics – bit of a laugh. Went down to the chip van on ‘ped – saw everyone. Beki’s going to get fucked by James Dean tomorrow night. Went to Muz’s – played The Gate and few other things. Came back. Didn’t see the cat at all – bit worried.

3rd March 1984
Cat came in happy – not even limping. Took moped to Wimborne for MOT. Went to Poole – bought Chunks and Bad Seed. Tara gave me the book. Saw Justin. Went on up to Pam’s. She seemed alright. Dusty came along – told me what he’s been up to. We had a chat about religion and good and evil. Walked back to Poole. Simon and Ratty. Ratty said he can’t practice on Sundays. Caught bus back. Met a nice girl – Nicky Miller (Midge) and had a chat. Rich got on in Wimborne – said Kris got sent off in football for scrapping. 2-2. Got home – disappointed with Chunks. Bad Seed’s good though.

4th March 1984
Got up 11.30. Didn’t do much. Had breakfast. Had dinner. Went to Murray’s – he’s gone fishing. Came back. Had a wank. Played some records. Had a bath. Started painting backdrop yesterday, did some more on it today. Going to Simon’s tomorrow to have a practice with him and Ratty. Went down to see Murray. Me and Graeme got chucked out cos his grandad died. What a wonderful world.

9th June 2023 – You can see from the picture that it’s no surprise that it took me more than an hour to decipher this. I was writing more words than ever before but nothing much of any substance but at least, thankfully, some reminders of events.

*The Week That Was – 13th February 1984

Record of the week: Crass – Don’t Get Caught

13th February 1984
Last week of term. Physics – fuckin’ laugh as usual. Maths – fuckin’ really shitty – did a test. Lunchtime played football. Detention’s come through Wed and Fri. Social Studies – boring. H.E. – not too bad. Made a quiche. Falling in love with Ange (huh!). Got letter from Zoe – quite interesting. Hill Street Blues was ace.

14th February 1984
R.E – ok. P.S.C.E. – boring. Maths – shit. Business Studies – boring. Lunchtime – played football again – had a laugh. English – quite good – bit of a piss around. P.E. – fucked around playing basketball. Got a crash helmet so went out on ‘ped for a while. Watching ice skating at the mo’. Torville and Dean win.

15th February 1984
H.E. – made apple turnovers – again. Physics – fuckin’ ace laugh. Me, Burd, Rupe and Jim are organising a pissup on Monday at my house. Jim’s backed out ‘cos he doesn’t want to come.’ – god knows why. Bernice probably. Detention – wrote up smoking leaflet. R.E. – ok. English – reading. Business Studies – ok. Maths – shitface wouldn’t let us out til after the bell – wanker. Andy called – seemed quite happy. Minder was good. Football tonight – Liverpool vs Walsall 2nd leg. Was played yesterday 2-0 to Liverpool.

16th February 1984
Art – Mr Hough wasn’t here. P.E. – slaughtered Chesh at badminton. Played football at lunch. Jane Seabright was making enquiries ie she wants to go out with me. Social Studies – flew by. Business Studies – pissed off with Bell – the cow. English – didn’t do much. Got Kathryn’s (that girl on the bus to Bournemouth) telephone number – so rang her up and had a strange conversation. Rang Jane and she was giving me some bull.

17th February 1984
Took in MDC cover – shut everyone up. English – talking about fashion. H.E. – shit. Maths – shit. Detention at lunch. Art – Mr Hough was pissed so I sobered him up with MDC cover. Business Studies – boring. Physics – nothing special. Went down Gaunts on moped – had a fucking ace laugh. Got some of Murray’s wine for Monday. Went to St James school with Muz and Burt.- had a laugh in the tube thingy. Did a flame thrower thing with a bike pump and some petrol out of my bike – nearly ran out of petrol so used some of Muz’s mower petrol.

18th February 1984
Supposed to see Rupe on the bus but he didn’t show – rung up, said was ill. Bought the new Crass single and plenty of booze for Monday – let’s hope everything goes to plan. Fish was pissing me off a bit cos he was a bit drunk and acting a bigger prat than usual. He’s off to Cirencester on a job tomorrow. Got chucked out of Arts Centre for allegedly smoking dope – it was only a fag stinker(?). Just looked under my bed – fucking cat’s piss. Good film – The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.

18th February 1984
Got up. Ate. Rode into Wimborne to meet Chesh – he said he couldn’t afford to come over on Monday – so he isn’t. Annabel and co may be coming over as well. Went to Simon’s for a while. Came home. Chris came round on his moped. Went down to the club. Met Burdett and Rupert, who should be coming. Brought Rupert’s drinks back. Saw Chris in Hinton Martell so left my bike there and he brought me back on his moped.

*The Week That Was – 6th February 1984

Record of the week: DOA – Bloodied But Unbowed

6th February 1984
Knackered. Physics was alright. Maths was totally shit. Lunchtime was boring. I was depressed by now. Social Studies made it worse. As did H.E. Bus home was alright. Hill Street Blues was good – cheer me up. Chucked Andy out of the group.

7th February 1984
R.E. – no teacher. P.S.C.E. – Jim’s shit. Maths – shit. B. Studies – shit. English – good, right piss around. P.E. – basketball – quite a laugh. Told Simon about Andy – no practice Sunday. Grange Hill was good. Went out on bike, down the road and round about. Looks like a good film on later ‘Visions of Death’. Football on instead.

8th February 1984
H.E. – made some bread. Physics – did a mock practical – quite good. Spent 80p on sweets. R.E. was ok. English was ok. B. Studies was boring. Maths was shit. Went out on my ped again. Didn’t do much else really at all at all at all at all at all….

9th February 1984
Art – Ok. P.E. – slaughtered Chesh at badminton. Social Studies – not bad. Business Studies – cut my thumb on a typewriter. English – ok. Fuck all to do at home at the moment. Reading Paul’s fanzine at the mo’. Ped just ran out of petrol or something.

10th February 1984
Did my English exam today – don’t think I did too well. English was a laugh. About 30 of us got caught smoking today. Burdet was lippy to Brooke and has got to see Crud. H.E. – boring. Maths – shit. Played football at lunch – good laugh. Art was ok. Business Studies was ok. Physics was alright. Jim’s decided to go vegetarian. Quite an eventful day so far. Watching telly now – well, there’s not much else to do.

11th February 1984
Got up at 8.15. Went to Poole. Saw Burd. Saw Lisa, Justin etc. Got some vivisection posters. Bought DOA LP. Met Paul around 3.20 and didn’t do much. Went to Arts Centre with Fish, Gilly and Paul. Quite a laugh. Came back home – played records, watched telly. Watched the horror movie – was fuckin’ shit. Talked til about 2.30.

12th February 1984
Woke up 10.30. Played records. Played darts and cards with Paul. Didn’t do a lot. Took dog for a walk. Took Paul back to Wareham. Not a lot on telly tonight. Read book most of the night. Couldn’t stay up for Sgt Bilko.

*The Week That Was – 30th January 1984

Record of the week: Aheads -Minuteman, Self Abuse – Batman (Live)
Song of the month – Confessions Of Sin – Loose (Live)

30th January 1984
Didn’t do much today. Physics was quite good – writing for the Bloodstains. Maths was shit. Social Studies was depressing as usual. H.E. was boring – god what am I gonna do? Rung Justin and Paul – had a chat. Hill Street Blues is on again. Nearly finished my book. Got letter from Zoe.

31st January 1984
Not a lot happened today – boring eh? Patchet had a go at me and Kas (?) in R.E. PSCE was boring. Maths was shit, what’s new? B. Studies – yet (?). English was interesting. Had the Bloodstains book taken by Mr King. P.E. was alright. Doing a tape of the Clash for Liz at the moment. Grange Hill was interesting, Glenroy having a go and sticking up for the poor. Had a bath and here I am. Alas, Smith and Jones is on tonight, it was pretty good. Not a lot else.

1st February 1984
Had a bit of fun today. H.E. made a Lemon Delight which we all scoffed. Physics – I took some incense in and Haywire thought it was dope and nearly took me to the Head of Year. Nearly got caught smoking with Vince by Clarke. R.E. did nothing. English – wrote some more Bloodstains. Business Studies – watched a rainbow. Maths was shit. Hell Comes To Your House Part II has been released. Now I’m here and that’s the end. Finished Time Enough For Love.

2nd February 1984
Didn’t do a lot in Art. Slaughtered Chesh in squash. Got bored in Social Studies. Business Studies was boring. English was alright. Saw Mandy Richardson get stuck in a bin. Nicked Liz’s scarf. Might be buying a moped tonight. See you later. Did buy it – it’s jolly cool. Amanda rang – so I told about the gigs. Managed to scrounge a day off school next Thursday to go and see Conflict and 15 other groups down Bournemouth. Started The Satanist.

3rd February 1984
Did fuck all in English. H.E. was boring. Maths was shit. Art was alright. B. Studies was boring. Physics was ace. Heyward wanted volunteers for detention so me and Rat got it. Mine’s next Thursday when I won’t be there. Chris Frost came round and we went round on it. Went down to the chippie and had an accident with it. Went down Hinton Martell, then the club. Bought some fags, saw Carly then came back. Not a lot else.

4th February 1984
Went into Poole. Was with Lisa – Siomn’s girlfriend, til we met Simon. Saw Snowy – the tramp. Then caught the coach to Ilminster – was a laugh. The pub there wouldn’t let us in but everyone managed to get a drink. The gig was good. Self Abuse were their usual self. Breakout were good. We left at 11.30, got back to Paul’s about 1 and watched some videos. Had some of the most silly conversations ever. Andy was getting on everyone’s nerves and I’m thinking of chucking him out of the group.

5th February 1984
Got up at 11.00. Found out last night that the Conflict gig is off. Came back at 12.30, got to Wimborne about 1.10 then came back. Borrowed a load of fanzines off Paul including Flipside. Had a bath. Had a wank. And now I’m here. Fuckin’ knackered. Cat slept on my bed til 1.45 am then decided he wanted to get out.

No hope for you, no hope for anyone – 24th December 1983

28th Jul 2024 – Mum and me in my bedroom at Forest Cottage. I’m not sure why Mum let me graffiti the walls but I did, and my friends did, along with some painting and various other decorations. The writing on the right was WASTED which was my imaginary band at the time.

Her old Sony Trinitron was how I remember watching TV in those days. I think she had upgraded to a newer Sony Trinitron, happy with the quality. Those things used to last and the rate of improvement of technology was much slower then.

My room wasn’t much wider than this. My single bed fit perfectly across the width and the length was perhaps a little shorter than two bed lengths.

The three-piece suit was an Oxfam buy that was a bit of a fuck you to the traditional punk clothing that everyone was wearing and also helped me get lifts to Poole when hitchhiking there.

28th Jul 2024 – Sometime around October, I had bleached my hair and a week before the Christmas holiday started I got the sides cut to give me a nice wide blonde mohawk. The school were having none of it though and suspended me from school unless it was off or dyed black. So much for the Christmas spirit! Fucking school!

I thought that my Mum wouldn’t be that bothered about me missing the last few days of school but I was wrong and she insisted that I do something about it. So I got most of it cut and the tuft at the front I had to cover in boot polish until the end of the week. Ugh.

This picture was taken in the dining room where my grandparents would spend their time, the chair behind us belonged to our dog, Jenny, a springer spaniel that my mum overfed over time and eventually was unable to lift herself up there.

Can’t Wait – 24th November 1983

Can’t wait for the end of the lesson
Can’t wait to get it over and done with
Can’t wait for the end of the day
Can’t wait to get out and live
Can’t wait for the end of the day
Can’t wait for the end of the week
Can’t wait til the end of term
Can’t wait to go out and seek
Can’t wait to leave school
I can’t wait at all

15th May 2023 – Safe to say that I wasn’t a big fan of school.

Haywire – 25th July 1983

Beuagh, guts are lying everywhere
And my brains are going spare
Another physics lesson, I’m going to start a fire
Haywire, haywire, haywire, haywire

24th Apr 2023 – Mr Hayward was our Physics teacher and struggled to keep us nasty, disobedient kids under control. Naturally, we called him Haywire.
One time I was burning incense at the back of the class and when he saw the smoke he ran to us and threatened to take us to the headmaster for smoking marijuana in class. Scared at the prospect of going to the headmaster’s office we told him it was just incense and after a while, he calmed down, but that was his undoing. From then on we knew we could get away with anything in his classes.
For the Easter holiday in 1984, we (Rupes, Jez, Jim and Muz) stole a stroboscope out of the cupboard on the last day of school and had a party in my room where we made ourselves dizzy and broke the varispeed dial. Not to be disheartened we fixed it by shoving a matchstick into the shaft and got it going again. As we would only be at school intermittently for our exams from that time onwards we had no intention of returning this equipment but we ended up thinking it would be funnier if we could put it back without anyone noticing and so that’s what we did.
Needless to say, I failed my Physics exam and quite possibly most of our class did.
I found out a few years after leaving school Mr Hayward died of a heart attack whilst playing squash. Really, I had fond memories of him and though I hated physics I always enjoyed his class.