Single of the week: Discharge – Why?, Members – Working Girl
27th April 1981 Back at school –SHIT–
28th April 1981 Sports day in 3 weeks
29th April 1981 Broke 2 records High Jump 143 Long Jump 450
30th April 1981 Bit tired Kenny you know Everett video cassette
1st May 1981 That’s today SOUNDS EXPLOITED
2nd May 1981 mum’s not here
3rd May 1981 Records of the month B-Movie – Remembrance Day Tenpole Tudor – Swords of a Thousand Men Blitzkrieg EP Exploited – Dogs of War Discharge – Why?
This week’s chart-topper is: Fucks Bizz – Making Your Mind Down
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: 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!
1994ever 