Ive just been watching a programme on sky entitled I hate the 60s It was once said that if you could remember the 60s era then you werent actually there. So here I am..Im just going to write now and to be honest? Ive no idea where this is going to end up. I was born in the middle of a blizzard on the last day of March 1952...that makes me an Aries but again, Astrology is a load of crap... We Aries people arent as gullible as you lot.. I remember the 50s clearly, it was an age of both austerity and ignorance.. When I look back upon those days, yes, I may have been poor but I never had any worries..how could I? World events didnt impact upon me and as I lived in an area of poverty I had no other yardstick to measure life by.. I only remember it as a shadowy warm time when I had all my family around me, it was a time when Christmass were magical, Birthdays seemed to crawl around and my days were filled with laughter.. School was something I looked forward to and loved, we kept pigeons, my paternal Grandad was alive, so was my maternal Nan and Summer holidays were spent in Geordieland.. The whole of Nechells was a playground, Oh..and it never, EVER rained. The 60s came along when I was 8.. My first real memory of the 60s was really New Year 1961, I was 9 years old and I remember the cover of the Dandy comic like it was yesterday, the front cover had pictures of people that when you turned them upside down, they showed a different face entirely..then Korky the cat did exactly the same with the year 1961 and amazingly....it still read 1961. The 60s werent really an age of enlightenment and personal freedom..sure, the Media reports of the day will try to convince you of that, but outside a very limited circle indeed, it was still the working classes with their nose pressed up against shop windows looking at things they couldnt afford. Few people had cars, my Uncle Les bless him, was one of the rare guys who actually did..not that we got in mind.. Most of us lived hand to mouth and we still took advantage of Pawnshops that littered the area. TV only had two channels and Radio was still a large part of our daily lives. My eldest brother and sister bopped to the sounds of Elvis, Cliff Richard and Emile Ford, the Beatles didnt really kick off until 63 and we had acts on Television that were really better suited to sweeping the stage as opposed to actually starring on it. The decade slid by, in the Summer of 63 I left my junior school and started secondary, that place was Loxton St, the original Dantes Inferno, a building were you hung up hope alongside your winter coat. Each night we took our coat home and left hope and a future hanging up in the darkness. I was at Loxton St for a whole year...then they opened up Duddeston Manor Bi-lateral, another place to smother and bury your dreams.. It was a place designed to supply factory fodder..to date I have never known a single Doctor, Lawyer or Scientist ever leave its hallowed halls. But life wasnt so grim back then..in fact I hold some of my happiest thoughts from those days, I met a few good friends that I carried with me for many years and I have wonderful memories that sustain me through my later life. I left School in 1967, I became an apprentice Plumber and looking back, I could have done a damn sight worse.. Imagine being in a job that has been failrly well paid and one that has also given me a freedom that most people have never known..not too shabby is it? I remember those brilliant clear frosty mornings of the late 60s, literally an intense blue sky, day after day, week after week and as Im a morning person anyway, to me..what a wonderful time. I could write a whole lot more about the 60s but Ill save that for another time.. Instead Ill end it almost 11 months early.. On January 24th 1969..my beautiful mother died..I have loved and missed her every single day.. The 70s came along, I was 18 years old. I had become really aware of music and its fitting that at my most receptive time the greatest song Ive ever heard hit the charts. When youre weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all What can I say? what pathetic words could I ever lay down that could do that song justice? Simply put, I cant. My two best friends had both met their future wives and I was really lonely, I spent 33 days out of every month watching television and letting life pass me by.. Those days were the beginning of my useless attempts at poetry and Ill include one now that I wrote when I was 19, to know the words is to know the man. When a darkened bedroom ceiling, Was a confidante and friend. When Patterns by Paul Simon, Was played over without end And the sounds of passing laughter, Came from folk without a care As the sound of summer evenings echoed softly through the air I was 18 years and lonely And it feels like yesterday, For nothing really changes It just seems to be that way. As I listen to my memories, In a room so all alone For I truly am an island All around a wall of stone If I weighed my life on honest scales.. My problems there to see. On one side, Death and dark despair. The other side.........just me. For nothing really changes, It just seems to be that way. Miscast and half forgotten.. In lifes badly written play. I bought a motorbike when I was 18, I used to ride around and around Nechells aching for someone to speak to me..they never did though, I was too shy to start a conversation and all the bloody bike did was let more people see me being miserable.. In 1972 I started drinking, only across the Ashted Hamlet but it opened up a whole new world, The natural progression from there was Town and in town I met girls and slowly (a bit like a Glacier melting) I finally developed confidence.. THEN I found out I was funny..(oh, I was always funny, I just never had an audience to play to) Like I just said, I started drinking in town..I just had the knack of picking the wrong pubs thats all..
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 06:26:47 +0000
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