I first started keeping a diary 40 years ago. Dad, Anne, Mike, Alison, Frances and I only went on a few summer holidays all together – there were scout and guide camps, after that some of us became too cool for it, though sub groups did go away. This was special, it was in aContinue reading “My mind goes sleepwalking”
Tag Archives: 80s
This is the coastal town that they forgot to close down
There is something about of season seaside towns – Clacton, Yarmouth, Southend, even Felixstowe. A lot of closed shops and one or two open amusement arcades ringing away to the sound of the hard-core fruity fan or a group of teenagers in the evening. My first proper job at Grant Thornton was the audit ofContinue reading “This is the coastal town that they forgot to close down”
The only thing that helps me pass the time away
We were parts of two families stuck together into one. Anne and her daughters, Alison and Fran plus Dad, Mike and me. Divorce was lot less common then and there was some grief at school. It did not matter how often I explained to Mark Terry or Sean Kenny that my parents were married whenContinue reading “The only thing that helps me pass the time away”
It’s just a rumour that’s been spread around town
Robert Wyatt was drummer/ co-vocalist in Soft Machine, a band from the early 1970s. In June 1973 he fell from a fourth-floor window due to being very and drunk ever since he has been paralysed from the waist down. I had never heard of him until I heard this song in 1983. It was writtenContinue reading “It’s just a rumour that’s been spread around town”
The world turns around
Every year Grant Thornton recruited a group of trainees. You not only had to be good at the job but you also had to pass the tough exams each year – failure more than once would mean you were definitely gone. The trick was to recruit the right number of graduates to balance the lossesContinue reading “The world turns around”
I’m Hearing Only Bad News
What does Africa mean to you? What do you think when you hear Africa? Famine? Dictatorships? Poverty? Corruption? Perceptions count for a lot and particularly those that are embedded in someone’s mind at a young age. For my parents’ generation it is was the end of Empire and the emergence of a wave of dictatorsContinue reading “I’m Hearing Only Bad News”
I Don’t Want to Break These Chains
In 1993 John and Dave did not go on holiday. Neil and I booked to go to Malia – even then a lively party town in Crete. Not long before we left for the holiday Ken Berry asked if we minded him coming out. I knew him a bit as he was part of extendedContinue reading “I Don’t Want to Break These Chains”
In a hanging garden, change the past
What is the most destabilising force in the Middle East? Until the last few years it would be the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinians. Now I’m not so sure. Islam has two major branches – Sunni and Shia (the split originates in a dispute over who should lead the religion after the death ofContinue reading “In a hanging garden, change the past”
Miss me madly and I’ll be yours
John Hawkins loves Altered Images. Michael Ball loves Altered Images. John Peel loved Altered Images. He was on Top of the Pops saying that they would be the band of the 80s. Well they weren’t. I’m not even sure that there was a band of the eighties. The Jam had a sequence of Top 5Continue reading “Miss me madly and I’ll be yours”
With summer at our ears
Once upon a time (and maybe again in the future now the pandemic is in effect) foreign locations were exotic. In the 1970s and into the 1980s James Bond films were built around filming in foreign locations and beautiful women. Filming series in the Greek islands in the 1970s and 80s was the BBC’s ideaContinue reading “With summer at our ears”
Five Miles Out 