7

IN WHICH… I’M A RECORD LOVER

1960s and 1970s singles are circular time capsules. Just placing them on to a turntable and swinging the stylus across and down transports me back to my formative years. While writing these words I heard the Beach Boys’ single, ‘Do It Again’ being played on BBC Radio 4, selected by Desert Island Discs guest of the week, Tim Martin, chairman of the Wetherspoons’ pub chain. Immediately I visualised myself on holiday at Butlins, Clacton in August 1968. It wasn’t that hard. A photograph of that very scene sits on my desk, reminding me just how badly dressed I was back then, in the summer of the record’s release. With my longish hair and scruffy sartorial style, I’d found myself something of a stylistic misfit. Not a mod, not a rocker albeit, even in those days, I was something of a mocker. Perhaps too often for my own good.

My short-haired, wannabe skin ’ed friend Paul, aka Chuff, and I had become friendly because of our shared love of football. We found ourselves teamed up with a rather intimidating bunch of genuine skinheads who, for some reason, had decided to befriend us. Possibly because we had somehow become pally with a pair of shatteringly attractive sisters. (Timid as ever, I’d ended up dating the younger one, Maureen, rather than the far more interesting, but louder, older one, Liz.)

I survived the week, but was never again able to hear The Nice’s rousing version of ‘America’ without immediately thinking of bacon and eggs, as it was invariably being played at ear-shredding volume in the cavernous restaurant-cum-canteen each morning when we arrived there. The camp disco – no pun intended – favoured reggae music.

My fledgling romance soon faded. Not, though, before I had tracked down a copy of Paul Revere & The Raiders’ difficult-to-find single, released in June 1968, ‘Mo’reen’ with its opening line, ‘Oh, Mo’reen, girl you look so clean…’ Which may have been not quite what I was hoping…

However, the romance was doomed, largely due to the distance we lived apart and my lack of a vehicle. I was firmly in North West London, where I’ve been ever since, and she was in Burton Latimer where they may still, as they did then, create Shredded Wheat and/or Weetabix. Not that it held her back for long, as she ended up a Page 3 model who at one time was shacked up with the maverick QPR footballer, Stan Bowles.

By this point I’d clearly decided to adopt the tactic of using vinyl records as emotional props and/or seduction methods. I recently found a cache of letters from 50 plus years ago, amongst which was one from Maureen:

‘I’m listening to Pick of the Pops on the radio and every time a good record like “Hold Me Tight” or “On the Road Again” comes on I get up and dance (that would explain the uneven handwriting, then!). It’s a shame “Rough Rider” isn’t in the charts, but I’m going to try to buy it from somewhere.’

‘Rough Rider’ by The Four Gees was a terrific reggae single on the President label. Eddy Grant wrote this track, along with other members of The Equals, with whom the then blonde Eddy would ultimately hit the big time. (He was also deeply involved with the Pyramids, whose ‘Train Tour to Rainbow City’ was almost as popular with my crowd at this time.) It would later be covered by reggae great, Prince Buster, who tried to claim it as his own work.

Obviously, I couldn’t have Maureen being unable to hear ‘our song’, so I dispatched a copy up to her. A postcard soon arrived:

‘Dear Graham. This is just to say thanks very much for the record. It came Monday morning before I went school. I even had time to play it 5 times before I went.’

Maureen and Liz went home while we remained at Butlins for another week, during which I met Lynda from Harlow. She later wrote to me:

‘I can’t get that record anywhere, but I’ll keep on trying as it reminds me of you.’

I promptly sent her a copy of ‘Rough Rider’ too. Not my fault it never made the charts, Eddy – I think I bought at least half a dozen copies. I must have come into some money around this time, as I was recently reminded by a female friend from those days that:

‘You bought me a Jimi Hendricks (sic) LP… sorry, don’t have it anymore.’ Well, that last little dig backfired as I was able to point out to her that whichever of his early albums it was is now a three- figure record and she’s managed to lose or give it away!

My relationship with Maureen continued until distance took its toll, but not before I’d written a short ghost story entitled ‘A Rough Ride’, immortalising that whole holiday, ‘dedicated to, and inspired by Maureen’. I’ll spare you the whole seven pages, but it does also namecheck ‘Ride Your Donkey’ by The Tennors; ‘Lickin’ Stick’ by George Torrence; ‘Beggin’ by Timebox; and ‘The Horse’ by Cliff Nobles. Singles which I frequently dust off and leap around the room to, like the 17-year-old I was then. The story didn’t have a happy ending.

I still own 100s of singles, a good proportion either now approaching or just having passed their half century, but still usually in better nick than their owner. Even those which I misguidedly took along in my luggage the first time I ever ventured to the Spanish Costas, when I traded up from Butlins.

Another friend, Brian Walker had become the proud owner of a briefcase record player, an ingenious piece of kit for the time, the design of which permitted a turntable and two removable speakers to be packed into a cunningly designed plastic briefcase. He didn’t seem to have many discs, other than a few very listenable Tamla Motown singles, whereas I had plenty, but nothing to play them on whilst seated on a hot Spanish beach in Salou. So we’d agreed that he’d bring the equipment and I’d supply additional music.

The combination of sand, sun, sangria and soppy sods like us resulted in several subsequently very valuable records being melted, warped, sand-blasted and sicked-on for a fortnight, with unfortunate consequences, particularly for a now much sought-after early release called ‘New Day’ by a then obscure band with a girlie name – Thin Lizzy. That record is now rated at £300 by the Rare Record Price Guide. Mine is probably worth under 300 pence, if that, as whatever I use in an effort to clean it, it still sticks and jumps all over the place.

It was one of those then still usable discs we were playing (as loudly as it would let us) on Brian’s machine when we held an impromptu party in our hotel room. I suspect we were playing one of our favourite reggae singles – ‘Ride Your Pony’, perhaps, or maybe ‘Train Tour to Rainbow City’ or even ‘Phoenix City’ by Roland Alphonso. This latter 1966 dance floor filler, with its irresistible rhythm, appeared on the Doctor Bird label, misspelled as ‘Pheonix City’ and was credited to Roland Al and the Soul Brothers. Or, and I still really like this one as well, it could have been ‘Al Capone’ by Prince Buster with its ‘Don’t call me Scarface’ refrain. This used to embarrass me because the girl I’d fallen for at the time, who lived four doors down the road, Walker Brothers-mad Pauline, did actually sport a facial scar, above her lip, which I thought just made her all the more sexy, but which, inevitably, allowed my mates to dub her (reggae ‘joke’!) ‘Scarface’.

Whatever we were playing, the racket had not gone down that well with those trying to relax in neighbouring hotel rooms. They complained to the manager who came up to find out what was happening. When he and a sidekick hammered on the door (I did later wonder why he hadn’t brought a key), we did the obvious stupid thing and endeavoured quickly to ‘hide’ ourselves on the narrow balcony. We didn’t take much finding, but the manager’s face was still a picture when he threw open the sliding doors to be confronted by sixteen teenagers apparently chatting quietly and sipping, er, lemonade. Even if some of them were doing so whilst standing on tables and chairs. From such incidents would the TV series Benidorm and The Inbetweeners eventually be created…

Back home, by now, in September 1971, and having recently lost my teenager status, I received a letter from ‘Bromborough, Wirral’ where Janet, who I’d met in Salou, lived. We were just good friends – the letter ended ‘Good night, God bless’ – and there were no kisses – but she told me:

‘I must say I like your choice of records. Brona and I are going to see Gene Pitney on Sunday. I think he is a first class artised (sic)’

You might wonder why I have even kept this, and the other, similar letters from half a century ago. But they, like the records, have a wonderful, powerful ability to time-travel me back to those influential, innocent days.

As writer Caroline Atkins put it in her marvellous recent book, What a Hazard a Letter Is:

‘Read one sent to you 20 years ago, and it takes you straight back to a specific moment in your life. Read one that you wrote 20 years ago, and it’s like a shortcut to your former self.’

I’m not sure anyone will ever regard emails and text messages, etc as being endowed with similar powers.

Records possess the amazing property of being able to hibernate for longer than a hedgehog, but still sound just as good, if not even better, than when you last played them when they reappear. The ones I took to Salou are the exceptions which prove that rule.

Sadly, none of them could now be described as being in mint condition…