Record of the week: Lookin’ For Clues – Robert Palmer
29th December 1980 Expecting Graeme 1000 He didn’t come should come tomorrow Dentist 3.20pm
30th December 1980 Album of the year: Damned – Black Album/Machine Gun Etiquette Cockney Rejects – Greatest Hits Vol II Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
31st December 1980 Single of the year: Dead Kennedys – Holiday In Cambodia The Fall – How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’
1st January 1981 The Damned and PiL are on OGWT mixed my drinks – all the family have (illegible)
17th July 2021 – The Old Grey Whistle Test was an interesting TV show although at the time I just wanted to see punk music and not all the boring old hippie, prog, jazz shit they would include. Trying to find more information about the show on this date makes me think that they re-ran recordings from 1979 – maybe a New Year special or something like that.
As to the drinking part of this entry….I’m not sure if this would have been drinking allowed by my mother (and with family – Grandparents, visiting relatives, maybe) or perhaps stolen from my grandad’s stash out in the shed, from which I learned to enjoy Newcastle Brown Ale and practice skulling 300ml bottles of various other forms of ale.
2nd January 1981 Bought The Not The Nine O’clock News album and Sid Vicious Family Album
3rd January 1981 FA Cup Third Round Ipswich 1 v Villa 0
4th January 1981 Gotta finish school project but who the hell wants to do that? ME! I suppose
This week’s chart-topper is: Anarchy In The UK for the 3rd time John Peel’s Festive Fifty Also in Top 10 – Stiff Little Fingers, Dead Kennedys, Clash, Undertones, Joy Division, Jam, Damned
29th Sep 2022 – And so we are here, at the mysterious back pages of the diary.
Record of the week: The Greedies – Merry Jingle
29th Sep 2022 – Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy and Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols were the Greedies and this song is a fun, romping Christmas song but as with most Christmas songs, won’t hold up at any other time of year. I wonder what it is that makes people think to write a Christmas song? If it’s your last resort maybe it’s time to give up?
29th Sept 2022 – Paul Mariner, Mick Mills, Mick(?) Lambert, Bobby Robson, Trevor Whymark, Roger Osbourne, John Wark, George Burley, Paul Cooper, Kevin Beattie…the other faces are familiar but names stuck somewhere deep in the noggin. I’m going to go search the rest of the names as a reminder.
Frm Fidy tety sx nw cod i sudrtkn
29th Sept 2022 – Any codebreakers got this one? I reckon ‘From Friday Twenty Six…….” – any significance to the missing letters? Children and their warped minds.
Andrew said “I don’t think the FONZ is very interesting.”
29th Sept 2022 – Me trying to work out how to spell Leif Garrett, and yes, I had to look it up again just now.
Me —— Them Golf -8 —— -2 -2 —— -2 -3 —— -6 -4 —— -10
29th Sep 2022 – In my childlike imagination my bedroom was a golf course. Using one of our eating knives as a club and a marble as a ball, I devised a course around the bed, chair, floor, drawers etc.
I remember the knife well, it was one that was least favoured to be used at the table, it was the odd one out in the cutlery drawer. It had a cream handle, some kind of imitation ivory, bakelite maybe? Where the blade joined the handle had a small piece missing that added to its devious charm. The tip of the knife was an industrial semi-circle shape, with no pointed end as with our other knives. It was ugly. So it became my mini golf club and I loved it for that.
Of course, I just played against myself, labelling the scores Me and Them and generally always favouring Me, naturally.
When you chatted up the girl with the great big boobs I don’t make a fuss, I just kept me cool
29th Sept 2022 – The genesis of getting into writing lyrics and trying to make them outrageous as per my idols. I didn’t yet have the vocabulary and ability but genius (haha!) must start somewhere!
Bed (curtains) 2p Bricks 102p Make own tea 2p Make both teas 5p Make tea to drink 1p Collect coal 1p Collect wood 1p Extra jobs… 1p Depending how hard… 2p It is 3p and so on
29th Sep 2022 – Keeping track of potential earnings. No matter, I would always spend more than I earned, well into my late 20s. Some lessons take a long time.
Racing Kempton 1.30pm 10p stake 1. Be Better 8-1 80p Kempton 2.00pm Catechism 7-1
29th Sep 2022 – A minor interest in Maths, betting and odds developing. I soon realised what a con gambling is, though when I say soon, it probably took another ten years as I did usually put some money through the fruit machines of pubs I attended for a while.
29th Sep 2022 – Artistic skills don’t look particularly promising but that never stopped me from trying.
I want Sex Pistols book, LPs and Clash ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope’, dartboard
29th Sep 2022 – I ended up with all these except the Clash album which I curiously never owned on vinyl and even now when I listen to it it still sounds fresh and new as many of those songs are not so familiar to me. Weirdly, I think I only ever owned the first album and Sandanista on vinyl and I’m not sure why I missed out on London Calling, which is also a little less familiar to these ears.
Friggin’ in the Riggin’ Ch. Friggin’ in the riggin’ (repeat two more times) Cos there’s fuck all else to do Stick glass up your arse (repeat thrice) Cos there’s fuck all else to do
The captain’s wife is Mable And when she’s fully able She’ll give the crew the daily screw Upon the mess room table The captain’s name is Dodo And he’s a lazy bugger He isn’t fit to shovel shit From one place to another
29th Sep 2022 – As Graeme Gray introduced me to the Sex Pistols through this song I would ask him to repeat these lyrics for me until I could remember them and write them down. Not accurate as expected but filthy enough to warp the precious minds of eleven and twelve-year-old potential brat-punks.
75m – 11.2
29th Sep 2022 – I was obviously pleased with myself for being a fast runner.
Chorus to Pretty Vacant We’re so pretty, oh so pretty -ow – Vacant (repeat) And now, we don’t careeeee!
Second verse and chorus to Silly Thing People here, people there People around you everywhere What you gonna say What you gonna do Now you’ve missed out once again But I thought you knew Ch. Oh, you silly thing You’ve really gone and done it now (repeat)
More songs Bodies There’s a girl from Birmingham She’s had an aboushtion She looks a screaming mess Screaming mess Fuck this, fuck that Fuck that fucking little brat She don’t want a baby like that I don’t want a baby like that She looks a screaming mess Screaming mess
29th Sep 2022 – More outrageous Sex Pistols lyrics. It’s really hard to comprehend what an impact this band had at the time. For folks like me, it has been a lifelong inspiration and influence that I am proud to be a part of. It all looks old-fashioned and pointless now so I’m forgiving of anything that kids are into these days and forgiving of those who were consumed within their own subcultures that were at pinnacles in the past. We don’t have to understand what they like but we can understand the feelings that it gives them.
RAD DID IT GRANDAD DID IT
29th Sep 2022 – I had an irrational dislike for my grandparents. Being a snotty kid around Victorian/Edwardian grandparents was never going to be easy. I did like them when I was smaller but perhaps they were more forgiving then too. I would soon be driving them crazy with super loud music and friends visiting for drinking parties. I never really reconciled with my granny (as I called her and my mum wished to be called by Hayden) before she passed but I was more sympathetic to my grandad as I got to my late teenage years. I was surprised to find out at one point that they were actually quite liberal and were members of CND. They weren’t quite so impressed when I showed them the lyrics to Crass’s What The Fuck but they did seem to get the sentiment.
This fucking’ little bastard Was a fuckin’ little burk He didn’t know what to do When he went to work
23rd Sep 2022 – The Beat were tied in with the Two Tone movement but were more traditional in their songs than the almost straight-up ska of the Specials and early Madness. The Beat trod a more poppy path than the Ruts and I’d argue even some Haircut 100 went down that path too and later this sound was brilliantly utilised by one of the best bands no one has ever heard of, Crane, who covered both The Beat and The Ruts at different times.
23rd December 1979 Wonder what I’ll get see 26 Dec 2p 2p 94p*
24th December 1979 Can’t wait 2p 4p 92p*
25th December 1979 WOO!! 2p 2p 88p*
23rd Sep 2022 – I believe in the afternoon of this Christmas, mum and I went to my Auntie Lorna’s house and it looks like my Auntie Shirley stayed at my house with my grandparents.
I thought my Auntie Lorna was quite sophisticated as her house had a lounge that went around the corner and the corner part had a lamp, table and cup holders. At this time my cousin Elise would have been about 10 I guess and she and I never got on, possibly because we just had different lives and the only thing that connected us was this odd tie of family.
Lorna was still married to Jim though that would fall apart over the next couple of years, I believe because of his infidelity but that is only what I heard. I liked him because he would play with me. Children make interesting judgements on adult’s characters. I would make fun of him because I discovered his middle name was Aloysius, which was (and is) an unusual name, so much so that I just had to look up how it was spelt. When I knew how much he hurt my auntie though I didn’t have such a great opinion of him and he disappeared from all our lives once they got divorced.
26th December 1979 Got Never Mind The Bollocks This pen, desk diary Book – I Like This Poem 2p 2p 84p*
23rd Sep 2022 – Boxing Day and the shops were open again. I’m not sure why but we made a special shopping trip to Bournemouth which was just amazing to me.
We parked at the Triangle which I would become more familiar with over time as it was the bus stop for buses from Wimborne and also you could usually find a parking spot here. It’s usually a nice walk down to the Gardens and to the record stores on the other side and up the hill. I have a clear memory of it being gloomy and cloudy when we arrived and then dark and rainy when we left, this was so magical to my little mind. I was in the big city at night time!
Bournemouth Gardens, down to the beach.
Bournemouth was so high class compared with sleepy Wimborne and the, as then, still unexplored Poole. At the record store, which may even have been a chain store such as Our Price, I convinced my mum to buy me the picture disc version of the Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks album. I was so proud, and, not being able to play it until getting home a few days later I stared at the live shot for hours.
27th December 1979 Don’t think there is any charts today Shirley sleeps in my bed Ha Hee Not charts 2p 2p
23rd Sep 2022 – Knowing that my Aunt Shirley would sleep in my bed whilst I was away I filled it with itching powder that I’d either received for my birthday or that Christmas morning!
28th December 1979 Get the car re-serviced Flooding Got a taxi home only to Horseshoes, had to walk through the water. 2p 78p*
23rd Sep 2022 – This was the year of the big flood and on the way from Ferndown to Holtwood, which isn’t too far, we had to slow down many times after hitting water that just looked like the road in the early dark of the evening.
I’ve seen images from the floods in 1979 but can’t find them now. This one is from around 2014 and shows what it was like driving through the waters. Imagine that at night time and not even being able to tell where to road turns to water.
We couldn’t even get directly home and had to go around through Gaunts Common and even then the depth of water was too intimidating for the taxi driver at Horseshoes. I couldn’t believe it. Mum said, Come on, we’ve got to get out and walk through the water!
The top of the hill, coming from Gaunts Common down to Horseshoes. It looks beautiful here and makes me want to go and visit again.
And me with my brand new unplayed copy of the greatest album in my world, that I hadn’t even listened to yet! The water came up to our waists and we held our bags as high as we could and at least it had stopped raining.
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.
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*
Record of the week: ELO – Don’t Bring Me Down Highest entry: Buzzcocks – Spiral Scratch
27th Sept 2021 – Double checking this, I don’t believe the Buzzcocks were the highest entry but I was developing early signs of favouritism and believing what I wanted to believe.
13th June 2022 – It’s also odd now to me as Spiral Scratch originally came out in 1977. I see it was re-issued in 1979, perhaps because so few of the original were pressed at the time but that was quite an achievement to chart on the repress.
26th August 1979 Pistols Split 2p 2p 149p*
13th June 2022 – In hindsight, the Pistols had obviously split long before now but perhaps this was the end of the ongoing Great Rock N Roll Swindle and the flogging of the dead horse. The timing seems to coincide roughly with the reformation of the Professionals so this kinda makes sense.
27th August 1979 Gonna watch My Way Manhattan Murdered 2p 147p*
13th June 2022 – Can’t find anything about this now but guess it was some TV doco about Sid and Nancy. I was going all-in with this punk rock thing though still not really understanding what it was.
28th August 1979 Went to Beaulieu Saw an Aston Martin Lagonda 2p 221p*
13th June 2022 – Not quite finished with the childhood fascination with cars, Beaulieu was always an exciting visit for a pre-teen boy. Though, funnily enough, I mostly remember the monorail and the palace house as well as the surrounding forest and gardens.
29th August 1979 Gotta old Sex Pistols posters League Cup 1st Leg 2nd Rd Ipswich 0-1 Coventry 2p 2p 219p*
30th August 1979 1. Cliff Richard 2. Boomtown Rats 3. B.A. Robertson 4. Roxy Music 5. EWF 6. Specials AKA 7. Darts 8. Flying Lizards 9. Ian Dury 10. Gibson Bros 2p 2p 215p*
Record of the week: Sham 69 – Hersham Boys, The Members – End of Term Highest entry: Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays – 15
17th May 2022 – Had to go back and check out the Members tune again. A great bopping number with particularly relevant lyrics for a schoolkid. Very much of its time and not as classic as some of their other singles, I love the sound of it though. I guess I do have a nostalgia through music. Hersham Boys was a classic at the time though hasn’t really stood the test of time for me. I had the 12″ single with the extended mix and live tracks (with the swear words beeped out – which made me feel a little naughty).
As for the Boomtown Rats, I kinda like this song but when it got to number one and could be heard everywhere all the time I soon got sick of it. Gone was the upbeat tempo, great songwriting and dizziness of their first two albums and earlier singles. The end of my love affair with the Rats.
15th July 1979 Finished poster to go up on me wall 2p 28p^
17th May 2022 – Like most teenagers and pre-teens I was ripping out pictures from magazines and putting them up on the wall of my bedroom and this developed into making my own which often featured titillating images such as page 3 topless pictures with Princess Diana’s head on top. Decorating my room soon became graffiti over the following 5 years.
16th July 1979 Hopefully I’m going to get the Dickies LP this week 4 2p 30p^
17th July 1979 Didn’t get it today Hope Sex Pistols are number one 2p 2p 32p^
18th July 1979 Highest entry – Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays – 15 It’s great
17th May 2022 – Finding out this was about a school shooting was weird. It seemed unthinkable and didn’t really seem to be a common thing back then, at least not reported on the shores of Blighty. On the one hand, I found it fantastic that someone was so pissed off with school that they went there and killed people! On the other hand, what had anyone really done to deserve that fate?
With the situation becoming more common in the US over time I still can’t believe the situation there. It makes me feel like the place is dangerous, just in general.
19th July 1979 1. Tubeway Army 2. Janet Kay 3. Sex Pistols 4. Dave Edmunds 5. Chic 6. Beach Boys 7. Gerry Rafferty 8. Amii Stewart 9. Squeeze 10. Dooleys 38p^
20th July 1979 Break up for holidays Skill I didn’t get Dickies this week Part 5 Next 40p^
17th May 2022 – Skill! I had forgotten we used to say that. Ace! too. Every kid enjoys the end of term, right!?
21st July 1979 I don’t think there’s been any big move to do with Ipswich Got 2 cars. Notes 42p^
17th May 2022 – Transfer news wasn’t such a big deal back at this time, or so I imagined. Nowadays, it’s like every little piece of everyone’s business is dissected and analysed to death. This isn’t necessarily a good thing. Really just gossip and out of one’s control.
Record of the week: C’mon Everybody – Sex Pistols Highest entry: Chic – Good Times – 22 (What crap!)
7th May 2022 – Well, I’m going to take my word for it and not even going to bother checking out the Chic song again. Could C’mon Everybody really be by the Sex Pistols? Were the Pistols the Pistols without John Lydon? Obviously, moneymakers thought they could use the name but when it comes to the actual ‘real’ band, they only really had about 18 songs in their catalogue. For a band that had such a great impact on musical culture (culture in general, really) it seems an incredibly small recorded legacy. Are there other bands with such a minuscule recorded output that was such a huge influence?
The video has Sid riding his motorbike without a helmet, which was SO punk rock to 11-year-old me. I couldn’t understand how he was allowed to do that, to get away with it! I’m going to watch it again in a minute but the footage I remember is of him riding through English country lanes and that takes me back to the time of doing the same, pushbikes and then motorbikes (with helmet, of course!), about 5 or 6 years later.
I went on a bike ride this morning, around a lot of country lanes here in Chiang Rai and despite the different types of foliage, it’s quite a similar experience. As I was riding I was thinking about going back to the UK and hitting up Rupert and Jeremy, hiring some 50cc mopeds and hooning around our old haunts.
1st July 1979 Yesterday I was in bed all the time because of me leg (see Friday 24th June) 2p
2nd July 1979 POP DAY Making out my pop records that I’m playing 2p
3rd July 1979 Used a spud to make C L A S H, you know, cut-outs. 2p 2p^ not in debt
7th July 2022 – My love of the Clash was getting creative. I also made some tiny bread buns of those letters and at school made them out of wood whenever there was free bits leftover from making….whatever we were supposed to be making. I was never handy with tools and soon gave up on woodwork and metalwork classes.
4th July 1979 I’m actually saving money If you look back to Feb 9, the middle statement has become false 2p 4p^
5th July 1979 1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? 2. Squeeze – Up The Junction 3. Janet Kay – Silly Games (what crap!) 4. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 5. Gerry Rafferty – Night Owl 9. Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody 2p 6p^
6th July 1979 Sports Day This year Last year Long Jump 1 1 75m 1 1 150m 1 1 Cricket Ball 1 1 Relay 1 2 2p 8p^
7th May 2022 – I could’ve been a contender, I suppose. There wasn’t much support for a dumb kid from the backwaters of England and there wasn’t enough internal motivation. I didn’t believe in myself, no one else believed in me and so it goes.
7th July 1979 Borg vs Tanner 6-7 6-1 3-6 6-3 6-4 Ipswich’s last 3 seasons places 6.3.6 2p 10p^
7th May 2022 – I liked Bjorn Borg for some reason. He seemed humble.
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
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.
1994ever 