My Last Year

In 1984 we'd been to Scotland to see my cousins and my Dad's sister and mother. We drove round Loch Ness and there was a massive row between my parents. My mum actually asked for a divorce, though they are still married today.
It had been quite a nice trip though. I got to relax in and by the swimming pool quite a bit. There was a music system that played tapes in the swimming pool room, but there was only one tape and that was John Lennon from 1980. But that suited me fine. I enjoyed the tape. I also enjoyed meeting my cousin's step daughters who were all about my age.

We flew home, my Dad with a poached salmon which was given to him which he had to get into the luggage compartment without raising suspicion.

Back at school we were now in with a girls school out at Devonport. My next door neighbour went to this school so I was able to say hello to her from time to time.

It also meant our ski trip in the new year was going to be joint with the girls; which made it a lot more interesting.

Although this period of my life is covered in my other Blog - Growing up in Plymouth - I'll cover some aspects of it here too.

I've decided to start this blog arbitrarily at the time I felt I began my disconnection from childhood and 1984/5 was this time.

An important step in moving away from Plymouth and my family was the school ski trip I went on in early 1985.
http://beforethecat.blogspot.com/p/school-trip-to-austria-1985.html

Life with my parents had become unbearable. Being away from home with people of my own age made me hungry for more. I had London in my sights, but first the A Levels were upon me. My drive to go to London, in particular was not as strong as my need just to get away. At that stage I was willing to consider almost anywhere, including Liverpool, Staffordshire and other places on the edges of reality.

I was nagged into picking up a pile of propaganda brochures for each college; only Polys, I didn’t even try to apply for Universities – which was a separate process altogether, and extra work I could do without. Besides, my grades were never going to be good enough for university. I had to go to a little office in Plymouth near the Drake cinema and Theatre Royal roundabout. I sat in there and gleaned the bits of info I needed. Their entry requirements was pretty all I needed, what the proper names of the courses was, and who provided those courses. I quickly narrowed down the course to Electrical &Electronic Engineering, the subjects I was taking more or less dictated that. But the Polys more or less chose themselves – the ones who would take me on a very low grade requirement. Thames was very low but I think Liverpool was the lowest – I’m sure they said I could go even if I failed. 

What went with my application – I think – was a letter from my headmaster detailing all the “issues” I’d had – allegedly mental health issues, but actually undiagnosed autism issues. At one point in ’84 or ’85 I was diagnosed as being schizophrenic. I wasn’t. But also – clinically depressed – I wasn’t. In reality I was asked if I was happy. I wasn’t. I was frustrated by my failure to get on with people. I was self conscious about my looks. I felt stupid but inside knew I wasn’t. There were a lot of issues, and any depression I suffered was perfectly natural due to all the previous issues, and it’s no good treating the smoke and expecting the fire to go out. So despite going to see a therapist right up until my entry into Poly, I went to see this guy once a week and talked about what was on my mind. It was classic Freudian nonsense, talking about dreams and that, with him constantly asking “penny for your thoughts?” when I frequently clammed up. I felt bloody embarrassed about the whole thing. I hated it, it did more to make me feel like I was on another planet and not fit to live on this one, than anything else. And I achieved nothing through it.

I think I was getting a bit lost with my musical direction at this point. Having gone from pop and new wave through electronic, punk, post punk, two tone, Bowie, The Stones, Dylan, funk, psychedlia, The Beatles, Led Zep, Indie...suddenly I seemed to be back to having no obvious place to call my musical home. Still discovering new music from all the artists I’d discovered, particularly Led Zep, The Doors, Dylan, Talking Heads, Lennon, George Harrison, Stones, and so on, there was very little new i could pick up on. Odd really. The Tube was good for new stuff – saw J&MC for first time, and Tom Waits. What i needed was money so I could follow up with these discoveries by buying their records, and a friend or two who was similarly into the more obscure stuff. Both those things were to arrive within 6 months.

Parents had bought a new music centre - it couldn't play those new-fangled CD things but it played everything else and provided FM stereo radio. So I taped as much stuff from it as possible. Stereo was great! While I hated over-produced music for a time I became ensnared by it.

There was a particularly good show on Radio One sat afternoons – Richard Skinner and I think Andy Kershaw were on it. It was in some ways a music paper on the radio, and a bit like Whistletest in its outlook – not surprising as I think thingy from Whistetest was on it too. They actually discussed music. I heard James for the first time on this programme and Frank Sidebottom – both did sessions. On the negative side one of the early CD releases was Dire straits – who i already hated – “money for nothing” etc. Even now it makes me want to pull my own head off.

As preparation for going skiing – we had a little trip out to the ski slope near Torquay in 1984 i remember Everything But the girl getting played on the coach. I don’t think they were very well known then, but I already loved Tracey Thorne’s voice both on her own records, and fronting the Style council as she had done recently.

Someone taped me a copy of Queen's Greatest hits (Southern or Colin?) which had featured so heavily in the ski trip, I got some Springsteen from Colin, was listening again to some of the better-produced items form my own collection - Elvis Costello, late Beatles, etc.

I became slightly sporty at this point too. Cousin Mark had taken me under his wing and was teaching me to canoe; evenings on the Barbican or at Fort Bovi; The Dolphin pub; Cap'n Jaspers, even arranging for me to have my first snog just before xmas 1983, with a slightly fat girl who was at least 4 or 5 years older than me. I was barely legal.

I was sailing with Mark Wilkinson too in the school boat - i think maybe for just one term. we sailed on friday evening in some sort of league which we were always bottom of, until the last race of the year when Mark ran us aground; I was just following orders.

My social disconnection was becoming very apparent though. At the sailing club I just couldn't connect to people and didn’t know why. The urge to socialise was there, but the abilty wasn’t.- (Graham --?-- ). The depression I felt was because of this disconnection...now i know to be mild Asperger syndrome, but at the time it was an alarming deficiency which I just could not overcome.

This was probably my most sociable period though. I was by now very attracted to girls which was my main motivation. I even went to clubs. At the weekend I went out with "the lads" - which comprised as a core, me, Andy, Bill, and Colin though there were others. We would mainly go to a local old man's pub and talk, have a few pints, then move on to something a bit more trendy in central Plymouth, finally ending up in a club on union Street. the Academy was quite well known at the time around the west-country. i hated it, but considered it to be a necessary evil. It never did me any good though and to this day my head is polluted with the memories of power pop anthems and remixed Frankie songs.

The girl thing was now reaching a head for me – literally. Still no girlfriend but seemingly plenty of opportunities that I had failed to take advantage of. My sister had a few friends who were quite nice and occasionally heard on the grapevine that some girl or other had seen me and was vaguely interested. One of those girls was the sister of the very one that my best friend Andy had obsessed over for years, but never got round to talking to.He even bought tickets to go to a play with her, and then failed to ask her. He asked me instead. The play was Educating Rita, with Tom Baker as the lecturer, after all Andy’s other obsession was with Dr Who. This was before the film with Julie Waters. I really enjoyed it. Another play I saw around this time was “Lonesome Tonight” by Alan Bleasdale, about Elvis Presley. Martin whatsisname out of the professionals played old fat washed up Elvis, and one of Blakes Seven played one of Presley’s guys.

There was a girl on the ski trip who was interested in me. There were a few who thought I was “cute” but none seemed to consider me as dating material except this one girl. When she hurt herself skiing I helped her walk back to the hotel. It was quite a long walk and I had to put my arm round to her to physically help her. I was so stupid that I couldn’t see the reasons why she asked me to help, out of about 30/40 boys and girls, including her friends, and the teacher. Still it’s a nice warming memory whenever I’m feeling down of a short but touching relationship which lasted about an hour. I can’t even remember her name, but I still have a photograph of her.

A Levels came and went - I dropped out of Further maths and felt utterly relieved, on the pretext that the chain came off my bike when I was cycling to the mock exam and I was made late - weak I know. But it left me able to concentrate on physics, maths and chemistry. i was never any good at chemistry, and in retrospect should never have taken it, but it was forced on me by tradition and the time-table.

In the end I only got 2 A Levels - if i'd taken the subjects I wanted - Maths, physics, art, biology, I'm sure I would have passed all 4, and with better grades. god knows how badly I'd have done if I'd been forced to keep up the Further Maths.

Perfectly timed was Live aid - almost immediately after the end of term. I remember meeting up for the last drink with loads of my schoolfriends - and live aid was the main discussion point in the early part of the evening, especially queen. My brief flirtation with queen was already over by the summer, and I hated them again. Thought Queen's performance was embarrassing, and suspected their motives for performing as it immediately revived their career with, what was, quite frankly, pretty ropey material: Radio Goo goo Gaa Gaa. Do me a favour!!

I'd joined the Labour Party in 1983 partly as a result of what happened during the Falklands War. I was disgusted that life could become so cheap in the name of winning and election. Thatcher had led the Argentinian government into believing that the UK would not defend the Falklands, and then the massive operation to take them back became a patriotic call of arms to the British - wartime spirit - must not criticise "our boys", etc. I saw the worst face of our establishment - illegally sinking a ship which killed hundreds and then gloating oevr their deaths - are not their boys worth the same as our boys?

So I joined the Labour Party when I probably should have joined the local anarchist group. This was the first step to my politcal disillusionment. The Labour Party was not at all democratic - the membership wer well to the left of the leadership, and always had been.

I had juggled studying for O levels with helping to campaign for Labour - but of course the exams took precedence. I thought Labour's manifesto was the best politcal document I'd ever read - it was green and socialist. Only realised years later that the party leadership had given the left a free hand in writing this manifesto in order to deliberately lose the election...and to be done with the left wing for good as a result. Blair's New Labour was born here. Labour lost the election. It was inevitable after the pro US group of MPs had been encouraged from across the Atlantic to split from the LP and form their own party - the SDP. It was pathetic really but somehow the not at all biased press got behind them and touted them for government!!

Then the miners' strike began in 1984 - which taught me much - about misuse of power and spurious economics,how little a part rationality plays in politics - and how politicians can hold grudges against whole communities for over a decade.

I spent the remaining time in Plymouth helping to run benefits for the miners and other causes, & going to meetings of a group called Clause 4 working to prevent our local parties from being strangled by infiltrating Trots. Somehow I managed to keep links with both the Militant faction and the moderate anti-Militant faction. Doubtless this would have caused problems for me if I were to continue to be active in Plymouth, but I knew already that my days in Plymouth were numbered. I also stayed involved with my local party – Alan Delauney and Maurice Hickey among others. There byelections to be won, book stalls to be manned, fund-raisers to be organised and I had the great honour of meeting Michael Foot and shaking his hand. This was on a Tolpuddle commemorative march down to the plaque in the Barbican. The Labour Party could always be relied on for pointless symbolic marches over historical issues, but less so if you wanted support for something more important such as the miners’ strike, which the LP leadership (Kinnock) at the time refused to speak in support of or offer any practical help to people whose lives were being destroyed.