4. Teenage Kicks

Any self-respecting teen of the mid 1970s knew that the right look was essential to their friends’ respect, not to mention his or her romantic prospects. I was no exception. Long before Wham! made it big, I developed a taste for eyecatching clothes and put together a distinctive wardrobe that reflected my outgoing personality.

At the age of thirteen that meant high street fashion in Watford, our nearest shopping centre. But fortnightly visits with Mum and Paul eventually turned into solo sweeps of Watford Market. These trips ushered in a lifetime of interesting clothing choices, not to mention one or two regrettable outfits to match one or two regrettable hairstyles. Shopping excursions to Watford were something to look forward to. The streets were busy and thriving, especially near the bottom of the high street where I would linger by the coffee roaster’s shop to inhale the wonderful aromas wafting from inside. It was a little oasis of individuality on a parade of otherwise familiar names like Woolworth’s, Our Price and Safeway.

Anyone with an eye on fashion knew to avoid the main drag and visit the nearby market in search of the latest must-have designs. It was here that that I made my first major fashion faux pas: a pair of needlecord trousers in a gaudy shade of bottle green with a high waistband and four buttons. Stuffing my hands into the deep pockets made me look like a hunchback. Not that I was bothered in the slightest. All my friends looked similarly idiotic. Matching the trousers with a pair of platform boots, we thought we were the coolest things in Bushey.

Some purchases were more extravagant than others. I’d saved up £8, a small fortune in 1975, for a pair of oxblood-red rockers. Whenever an important date appeared in my social calendar I’d put them on, hoping to impress my mates, or any girls I might meet. Within six months they were out of fashion.

In my own mind at least, carrying it all off posed few problems: I was brimming with self-confidence. Where that came from, I can’t be sure exactly, but my home environment probably played a part. My mother had me when she was just eighteen and later went on to become a teacher; she was somebody who was clearly capable of dealing with whatever life threw at her and getting on with it, and some of that must have rubbed off on me. Overall, though, my confidence was allowed to flourish at home and I wasn’t held back in any way. Both my brother and myself were allowed to express ourselves however we wanted (within reason), whether that was model-making, playing football, music or anything else. And while it was always clear that my dad thought academic success was important, there was no real pressure.

Me sporting a ‘wet look’ jacket. Probably going to get a lot wetter-looking soon judging by Paul’s kagool!

I’m not sure it was quite the same for Yog. His father was a very strong character and seemed to have a very narrow view of how life should be led and what his son needed to do to be a success. That Yog was perhaps a more sensitive boy than I was would only have exacerbated the effect of that. As I became older, looks also began to play a bigger part in the development of my self-esteem. While I didn’t think I was a particularly good-looking kid, I wouldn’t have regarded myself as being ugly either. But once girls started to notice me, aged seventeen or eighteen, my self-belief increased. I’d also always gleaned confidence from the way people treated me: I’d been taught to be polite and considerate and as a result adults tended to respond to me positively. And I wasn’t overawed by anything, which became a very useful trait when starting a band. Musicians need rock-solid confidence to express themselves and project their character through music. Pushing demos on record-label staff or asking for gigs needs self-belief. Just walking onstage requires a bit of chutzpah.

So while expressing myself wasn’t really an issue, it wasn’t entirely clear from some of my styling choices what I was trying to say! Though when it came to clothes I definitely wasn’t the only one with issues. With his glasses and unruly barnet, Yog had been in need of an urgent makeover from the moment he first arrived at Bushey Meads Comprehensive. The two main offenders were his glasses, which he hated, and his hair, which he hated even more. It became an untameable mass of wiry frizz when wet, so rain was a particular hazard. Possibly easier to deal with were the specs. Yog became one of the first people I knew to swap his glasses for contact lenses, and being able to finally cast off the loathed ‘bins’ was a game-changer. His self-esteem seemed to have lifted considerably when he returned to the classroom in 1977. Contact lenses didn’t seem to have affected some of his aesthetic choices, though. I became convinced he was colour-blind when he arrived at school one morning wearing a brand-new coat.

Me doing my Nick Heyward impression!

‘I really like the green colour,’ he said, even though everybody around him could see it was definitely brown. The colour red seemed to cause him trouble too, but it wasn’t until years later that Yog discovered he actually was colour-blind.

Despite all this, I never had to leap to Yog’s defence at school, nor he to mine, certainly not in a way that was later described in the lyrics to ‘Young Guns (Go For It!)’ – ‘Back off, he’s a friend of mine!’ He settled in well at Bushey Meads and got along with most people. As it went, Yog and I rarely took the mickey out of each other either. I knew how sensitive he was about his hair, glasses and physique, and so ‘Yoghurt’ was about as close to the wind as I ever sailed. When it came to our clothing, however, all bets were off.

The Bushey Meads Comprehensive disco took place a few times throughout the year. Held in the assembly hall, it was an event that in our imaginations had all the glamour of New York’s Studio 54, or the Roxy in Covent Garden. It was also the only place where we could all get dressed up, which made it the essential thermometer of cool. But earning the respect of your peers was no longer the only reason to invest in some stylish clobber. The female form was now every bit as important to us as the FA Cup or Star Wars. We were approaching our fifteenth birthdays and our libidos were in overdrive. The need to dress well was suddenly essential, especially as the school disco presented an opportunity for a slow dance at the evening’s close. My success rate was underwhelming, but the odds never stopped me from trying.

There was one thing missing from these occasions, however – Yog. Despite my nagging he rarely joined us because he lived so far away. His dad often worked late shifts at the family restaurant and Jack, from what I was told, wasn’t keen on providing a taxi service for his kids. So Yog missed out as his schoolmates boogied to the sounds of Chic, Donna Summer, the Jacksons and the Bee Gees beneath the school hall’s threadbare light show – mainly a series of silent films projected onto one wall and some multicoloured bulbs to light up the DJ. And Yog was nowhere to be seen. I was determined to drag him into the party.

Over the coming months, disco was everywhere, helped by the release of the Oscar-winning movie Saturday Night Fever in December 1977. Starring John Travolta and featuring a soundtrack by the Bee Gees, its script was set within New York’s club scene. Travolta’s character brought the music to life as he strutted through the city streets. The soundtrack’s lead single ‘Stayin’ Alive’ had ignited the school disco the previous year and was all over the radio and Top of the Pops. Yog and I loved it. There was a taut energy about it that was absolutely irresistible. Then ‘Night Fever’ came out in February with a sensuality and slinkiness all of its own. Everyone in our class at school was talking about the film. It was a sensation, offering a glimpse of the world of sex, style and glamour that was unmissable. Saturday Night Fever lit a fire in us.

Empire Cinema, Watford.

There was just one stumbling block. The film was X-rated, which meant we needed to be eighteen years old to buy a ticket. Given that in 1978 I was barely fifteen and Yog was several months younger, our attempt to fool the Empire box office staff was likely to fall embarrassingly short. We pressed ahead, hoping that by coming across as sufficiently urbane and worldly, we could hoodwink them. One way to achieve this, we thought, would be for each of us to rock up with a girl on our arm. The promise of tickets, free popcorn and endless soft drinks somehow convinced two girls from our year to join us.

On the night of the film, I was nervous with excitement. I’d put together a clownish get-up of peach chinos, so tight that sitting down was tricky, a wide-collared shirt and black leather, metal-tipped, pointed shoes. I was perfectly on trend. As we approached the Empire, we decided that, given my confidence in the scheme’s success, I should do the talking. Yog and our accomplices trailed behind, looking furtive. I stepped up to the ticket booth, pulled myself up to my full height and lowered my voice.

‘Four tickets to Saturday Night Fever, please . . .’ I said, pushing a five-pound note towards the cashier.

She stared back at me over the rim of her glasses, entirely wise to underage kids attempting to bluff their way into an X-rated flick. The crumpled fiver was eyed like a half-eaten sausage roll. This isn’t going to work. This isn’t going to work! An early bus ride home beckoned. I flashed a smile and she smiled back. Bingo! She pulled four tickets from the wheel and nodded towards the theatre doors. The four of us had bluffed our way in. Playground notoriety was guaranteed!

If our two companions had been nervous that some fumbling attempt at sexual exploration might take place in the back row, they needn’t have worried. We weren’t in the slightest bit interested. Once settled into our seats, Yog and I became completely absorbed. For weeks afterwards it was the focus of endless classroom debate. Back at Yog’s house, he and I recorded a series of spoof radio sketches inspired by the movie. Twisted by our sexually inflamed teenage imaginations, a scene in which John Travolta’s character Tony Manero pulls took on a life of its own. Tony Manero gets a girl in the back of his car. He starts to fumble around under her dress only to discover that she is, in fact, a bloke! It was all pretty puerile stuff, but it seemed hilarious at the time.

Musically, Saturday Night Fever was liberating. It legitimised dancing as an authentically male pursuit and provided a way to get close to women – in every sense. Until then, dancing was seen as faintly unbecoming of a red-blooded male. Saturday Night Fever changed all that. Being a bloke and getting on the dance floor was suddenly cool. Emboldened by our success at the Empire, Yog and I then talked our way past age restrictions and onto the floors of local nightclubs. Later, when our confidence was high and our parents’ attention low, we visited basement dives in the West End, all of them hanging onto the coat-tails of Studio 54 and Saturday Night Fever. The summer of 1978 was beginning. Punk offered a rival outlet for teenage passions, but we were hooked on disco. For the next year there was nothing Johnny Rotten or Joe Strummer could say or snarl to alter our course.

All I needed was a girlfriend, so when my classmate Jody invited me to her house party, several over-the-shoulder glances during Maths convinced me my luck was very much in. I fancied Jody, and Yog and I were looking forward to the party. He planned to crash at mine afterwards. On the night, I was certainly dressing for success: peach needlecords, which looked as if they were sprayed on, and a paper-thin, peach angora slash-neck sweater. The outfit was very much at the edge of acceptability for a suburban lad at that time. Quite what my parents thought as I left the house was a mystery. I doubt Mum was too fussed. My father was probably appalled. After arriving at Jody’s place, I drank from a bottle of Bacardi, chatted with friends and mingled with dancing couples already tipsy on cider and rocket-fuel spirits. Suddenly, Yog grabbed at my arm. There was something he had to tell me.

‘Andy, I don’t know how to say this,’ he said, looking a little sheepish. ‘It’s my mum and dad. They don’t want you to come around to my house any more . . .’

I laughed. At first I thought he was joking. It hadn’t taken a genius to realise I wasn’t quite Lesley’s cup of tea at first, but I’d grown to like Yog’s mum, and she liked me. Unfortunately, she also knew I could be a distraction, mainly because my attitude towards education was very different to Yog’s. He was keen: top O-level grades during the coming school year were within his grasp and his mum and dad felt that he could eventually make it to a fairly decent university, but only if he was able to stick on the straight and narrow. No distractions, no negative influences. That now seemed to include me.

‘The thing is . . .’ he continued. ‘If you can’t come to my house, then I don’t think I should come to your house, either.’

I was completely side-swiped. ‘What?’

Yog’s logic escaped me. But before I had the chance to argue, he walked away with a shrug, disappearing into a garden of dancing kids. I was stunned. One minute I was at a party having a great time, dancing and mucking around, the next I’d been banned from seeing my best friend. Yog had landed a psychological haymaker, one that looked set to break us apart – and just in time for the coming summer holidays, too. Already well oiled, and now distressed, I proceeded to get even drunker. I was soon slumped against the kitchen wall where I tearfully explained what had happened to another good friend and, more embarrassingly, Jody’s mum. The evening became a traumatic blur. My last clear memory of the party was of being hoisted out of the middle of the street by Anthony Perkins’s dad, who happened to be a policeman, until a hand took my arm and pulled me aside.

To my surprise, it was Yog.

‘Come on, Andy,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Let’s get you home.’

It was 3 a.m. The streets of Bushey were deserted, but together we staggered to my house, Yog patiently shepherding me as we went. By the time we’d crept into the house it was daylight. I’d spent a lot of the journey home in the undergrowth pleading with the Good Lord for a swift and merciful death, but when I glanced in the hallway mirror I appeared to be relatively unscathed. The same couldn’t be said for Yog. There was dirt and litter on his clothes, which hung from him like a patchwork of soiled tea towels. The smell he was giving off wasn’t particularly nice, either.

‘Bloody hell, that was a rough night, wasn’t it?’ I said, smiling.

Yog looked me up and down and laughed. ‘Andy, how do you do it?’

I shrugged. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, look at us! I could make a dinner suit look like a tramp’s pyjamas after one outing. But you? For the last two hours you’ve been rolling around in the bushes and there’s not a hair out of place . . .’

He was right. I’d suffered an emotional bruising, though. But Yog’s kindness on the way home had been a measure of his friendship: we were best friends, no matter what his parents thought, and it was going to be next to impossible for them to prise us apart. I was more convinced of that than ever.

And so was Yog.