The memories were of the day I actually bought the LP - back in either February or March 1970. At the time I was still in my first job, working as a secretary for what was then the organisation controlling television - Independent Television Authority - later it encompassed radio as well the name was changed to the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Anyway, this job was up in London - opposite Harrods - and I was still living at home in Brighton, so had a long commute each day. To be honest, I seemed to have a long commute for all my jobs except one (Sussex University) until the late 1990s when I started life as self-employed. Anyway, back to the 1970s, the commute was usually almost 2 hours, with 1 hour on the train. That was an 'interesting' experience! On my first journey I found an empty seat on the 7.35 a.m. train and got peculiar looks from the people around me. It was only after I had used the same seat for over a month that I realised the looks were a result of me taking someone else's seat. Not that it was reserved, or that they actually knew the person who normally sat there, but you just automatically sat in the same place every day. Why? Don't ask me. The only time we actually did talk was the day I bought the LP.
Little did we know when we left Brighton at the usual 7.30 a.m. that a train had broken down in one of the tunnels through the Downs, and trains were stacking up. We travelled to the outskirts of Brighton and then stopped. Then moved a mile or so more, and stopped. This carried on with absolutely no information of what was going on - well you didn't get any in those days. I was crocheting a new dress at the time (well, it was 1970!) and virtually finished it whilst we were still just outside Haywards Heath station. After about 2 hours, we actually started talking to each other - what a shock! Never happened before or after! And by about 10.30 when we still hadn't moved for over 45 minutes, revolution occurred and all the passengers decided to climb out of the train - which had carefully stopped just a couple of hundred yards PAST the station, with the train behind being a similar distance BEFORE the station. Good planning, eh. We clamboured out and along the side of the track back to the station, with the railway employees shouting at us and these normally smart and sophisticated businessmen shouting back. Great!
So I had to catch a bus back to Brighton which took another hour, by which time I was pretty stressed since this was, of course, before the invention of the mobile phone (which, according to Wikipedia (yes, I just checked!) was not available to the general public until 1983) so I was not able to let the office know I wouldn't be in today. To calm myself down I went and bought this album in Brighton on my way back home. Great afternoon just playing it over and over again. And the next day my boss even apologised for not believing my excuse when I did actually get to a phone - the evening papers had been full of it.
God, it's a day for memories, whilst waiting for John to bring second helpings of the pork joint (VERY LOW PRICE! VERY BAD FOR THE DIET!) Walker started playing California
Saga/California by the Beach Boys, which we played as we were driving down that coast and seeing Steinbeck's museum!! In fact, as we drove down the coast to Monterey we were playing Beach Boys all the time - and then we stayed in a motel next to the Monterey County Fairgrounds where they held the 1967 Pop Festival. Shame that wasn't because we had been there, but it was still an important event in our history
Since I'm wandering along memory lane, I thought I'd go right back and start a life history - it's OK, not the whole life, that would be too long in one go. That's the problem with getting so old now, there's so much to remember and I would like to get some of it down before I start losing my marbles! This history isn't necessarily accurate, but just as I remember it with absolutely no research to back up my memories.
One of my first memories were of playing out in the rough ground at the back of our Council flat underneath all the washing lines, cutting my hand quite severely with a spade, running in to mum who was with a visitor (no idea who, but must have been someone official) and so poo-pooed my cries. I still have the scar on my hand to this day! That makes her sound very strict, which is wrong, she just had no time for exaggeration and honestly thought I was going OTT just to get attention. As the mirror image of that, I remember her not giving a damn about what people thought as she was shouting at me out of the window of our flat "Breath Eve, Breath!!!" I had suffered from bronchitis for about 6 months (something to do with enlarged kidneys I think, but why they should be connected I have no idea - remember I said no research here.) and one of the consequences was I had to remember to breath rather than it coming natural. So as I was playing away quite happily, I'd often forget to breath and collapse.
Other family, a half-sister who is 5 years older than me. She is from my mother's first marriage in Germany. I did have another half-sister from my dad's first marriage, but she died about 2 months before I was born. Pretty bad build-up to my birth for mum really.
As a young child I was quite shy - I remember crying my eyes out at junior school (I'd have been about 6 or 7) when we were merely doing a dance in a circle. I didn't know anyone there and I was scared! And I craved acceptance by others. This got worse as I went to secondary school, since I no longer fitted into the local gangs as a 'Grammar School Girl' living on a council estate. Just having homework was enough to make you stand out. Also, I couldn't fit in properly at school since mum wouldn't let me bring anyone home - or at least not without a few days notice so she could tidy up. When do teenagers plan that far in advance, I ask you?
All this estrangement was good for my education, though, as I spent most of my time studying and did really well at school.
Now, that sounds terribly sad, but it wasn't that bad - after all I didn't know anything else. Towards the end of my school career things began to look up. I made friends with a couple of schoolfriends who were involved with the Court School of Dancing, and got me to go along. Not only did I learn to waltz, tango, etc, but over the years I also learned that I wasn't too bad as a person, and that boys liked me. (The latter being the most important, of course!) The Court School had this great idea of a 'disco' on a Saturday night where the girls would sit around hoping to be asked to dance by some hulk before the half-time break. Why then? Well there was no alcohol sold on the premises, and if you'd 'scored' you might well be taken to the pub nearby for a half-time drink. Girls on their own just wouldn't go into a pub. It was at one of those Saturdays that I met Graham - the boy who was my first love (both emotionally and physically) - but that is getting ahead of myself a little.
The other way of meeting boys I had at this time (early-mid 1960s) was to go to the local cinema on a Saturday afternoon. It was the 'done thing' to go to the cinema mid-afternoon, and during the interval between the 'B' film and the main feature the boys would see what 'talent' was in and if you were lucky you'd be picked. None of these 'dates' lasted more than one or two meetings, though.
Back to my shyness and inferiority complex - this meant that I didn't believe I was intelligent enough to go off to university, and with a foreign mother who didn't really understand the education system, plus a working-class dad who finished school at the age of 14, no-one pushed me to stay at school after 'O' levels (as they were then). I went, instead, with my 8 'O' levels, to do a 2-year business studies course at the local technical college - financing myself with holiday jobs. Here I blossomed - I had a whale of a time and got a good grade, plus another couple of 'O' levels and an 'A' level in English Law (that one I'm really proud of). Back then, though (1969) the only career that non-university girls were really groomed for was secretarial work, so I became a secretary with what was then the ITA - the Independent Television Authority (now you can put the first bit of this blog in context).
We were the governing body that ensured 'standards' were kept within the independent television network - I seem to remember there was a committee who sat each day to both time and quality control all the advertisements that were going to be aired that day. What a job! Still, it meant that we had one of the very first colour television sets - a large one too. That is until 2 men in brown overalls came in one day and took it out the front door - they looked like workmen so no-one thought to query what they were doing!
Anyway, there I was feeling really grown up because I was commuting from Brighton to London each day and my world changed. No kidding, though some of the impacts would have happened anyway, such as the launch of colour tv (1969 for ITV for those historians amongst you, whereas the BBC had been broadcasting colour since 1967). The other event which would have happened anyway was the first moon landing. Now there was something absolutely mind-blowing, and the bosses very kindly allowed us into the 'viewing room' so we could watch it on colour tv. Have you ever seen those early pictures? (Silly question for most sf fans, I know!) Not much colour - the moon is mainly grey, the sky black, the sun white... the only colour I can remember was the stars and stripes patches on the arm of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Still, at least we could see that there was no colour!
I was only at the ITA for a short time, but it was full of firsts:
- Saw first landing on the moon there
- I was involved in the launch of decimalisation
- FIRST TRIP TO FRANCE!! That's where we come virtually full circle in a way. Not that I fell in love with the country on that trip. It was a bit weird - I went with a girl I used to work with at the ITA, although by then I had moved on and was working at Sussex University. It was a trip full of weird experiences.
- She had bought tickets on the train from London, where she lived, so I had to catch the train from Brighton to London to meet her, just to come back down to Newhaven again - but since they were combined train/ferry tickets I couldn't just meet up at Newhaven.
- We were on the train from Paris to the south of France (where her father had rented a house for 2 months) when I went into the toilet - an empty room with a hole in the floor in one corner and a sink in the other. I was so scared that I'd gone into the wrong room because there wasn't actually a toilet there, that I couldn't go. I managed to last over 6 hours without using that room!
- I realised for the first time that 'upper class' people weren't all pompous asses - her father had retired, but was called back by his employers - Barclays Bank - so he could organise the bank's move to decimalisation. He used to be Chief Accountant/Treasurer for the Bank! Not the sort of person that a council estate teenager usually meets.
- I found I didn't like coffee, didn't like wine, didn't like much French food at all! Amazing how things change!
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