I was born in the town of Guildford, in Surrey, on a cold, wet, Thursday in December 1965. The youngest of six children.
Harold Wilson was the Labour Prime Minister, having won the General Election by a small lead in 1964. Manchester United were the League Champions and Liverpool the FA Cup holders. The Moors murderers had been charged in October and The Beatles played their final tour of Britain, performing two shows in Birmingham on the day I was born.
Elm Cottage in Frimley Green, where we were brought up, was large, raucous, full of music, laughter, arguments, animals, family and friends. My dad, who was raised on Barra in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, was the village doctor and played the bagpipes. My mum, raised near Belfast in Northern Ireland, ran a nursery school from our house, sixty children in the morning and then another sixty in the afternoon. She played the mouth organ and sang.
Elm Cottage
In order of age, the Bartlett kids are Michael, Trina, Sam, Calum-Iain, Tom and me.
Dad converted a bus he bought from the Aldershot and District Traction Company Ltd. He put in bunk beds, kitchen, shower and a toilet. He used it to transport mum and her five children on holidays in Scotland and Cornwall, when I was born, we also went to Ireland. My cousin Marks was sometimes there too. Mum had help with the children, a young lady by the name of Gillian. Sometimes there were as any as nine of us heading off on an adventure..
On a family holiday in Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland when I was eighteen months old, I stole sips of mum’s Martini at a ceilidh. My parents had befriended a local family, called the Coynes. All wonderful musicians. On this occasion, I was later found, lying on my back, blowing into a tin whistle. Johnny Coyne turned to my mum and said ‘she’s got the music, that one’. Dad recorded these sessions on a 1/4” reel to reel tape recorder and my out of tune squeaks can be heard under the proper whistle playing and tapping of feet.
(I used some of that 1/4″ recording at the end of ‘Benbecula’ on ‘Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy’ by It’s Jo & Danny in 1999.)
I started primary school at the dawning of the new decade, in January 1970, having just turned five. Each week-day morning my brother Tom and I, would walk through the village of Frimley Green to catch the coach from outside Hobbs newsagents. After decimalisation, Mum would give us a £1 note to change into two 50ps at the Mons sweet shop on Mondays, our dinner money for the week ahead.
Paul McCartney announced he was leaving The Beatles in June 1970, the same month Edward Heath beat Harold Wilson in a surprise Conservative victory in the General Election.
The primary school I went to was in the process of becoming a middle school. This meant as I completed each year in the bottom class, there were no new pupils starting under me and the top class stayed on. As Infant 1 became First 1 became A1 I remained in the first year for three years in a row. Much to Tom’s amusement, as he left to start secondary school, Salesian College in Farnborough where he joined Calum-Iain and Sam.
Edward Heath was replaced by his predecessor, Harold Wilson as the British Prime Minister in a Labour victory.
I asked for ‘Streets of London’ by Ralph McTell for my ninth birthday. My first record. It was a year until I bought my next one (‘Sailing’ Rod Stewart), then, saving up and buying singles more frequently; David Essex ‘Hold Me Close’,’ Sutherland Brothers and Quiver ‘Arms of Mary’, The Rubettes ‘You’re The Reason Why’, Chicago ‘If You Leave Me Now’ (a favourite of Noel Edmunds on ‘Swap Shop’), ‘Fernando’ and ‘Take A Chance On Me’ Abba, ‘Romeo’ Mr Big, Julie Covington ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’.
I would stare at their labels, getting to recognise various record companies. The orange and black of CBS, the beige and red of EMI, the rainbow of MCA.
Mum was busy running her nursery school, along with feeding and clothing all of us and she gave me the weekend job of housework. Cleaning the rabbit cage was added when Tom resigned his post. Sometimes I helped dad in the garden. My wages were thirty-five pence an hour.
On Fridays, at the end of the working week, mum invited her staff to stay for a drink round the oak table in the rumpus room. Mrs Nelson, Mrs Bubb, Mrs Wildsmith, Mrs Last. Their kids would be there too. We would play, they would laugh and unwind for half an hour before heading home. Mum had a money tin she kept the nursery fees in, paid in cash at the start of each morning or afternoon. On Fridays she divided the coppers (2p, 1p and halfpennies) out among us – Calum-Iain, Tom, me and the staff children. One child each week. If it was your turn it could be as much as £2. Carrying both hands full of lose brown change up to my room, I would count it and write down how much I had. Aunt Eileen had given me a set of three pens for Christmas with my name on, ‘Joanne Bartlett’. I opened my notebook and wrote down my projected earnings for Saturday in red, savings, including the coppers, in blue and any records or anything else I wanted, in black. After I had finished the housework, watched ‘Swap Shop’ and read my Krazy comic I would see if someone would take me to either Camberley or Aldershot to go shopping. Sometimes I caught the bus.
Below – Mum, Aunt Eileen and one of our cats and ‘Krazy’ comic.
As my record collection increased, so did my trips downstairs to play them on the family stereo. Our lounge was a converted stable and, aside from Dad’s piping, parties and Christmas, (when the fire was lit, the tree up and Chinese lanterns hung from the beams), rarely used. I was able to sit on the brown patterned carpet, enjoy my music and sing along undisturbed. If I had a new record, it would get played first and a few times in a row, while I started to learn the words. Sometimes I would get up and jump around while singing. I kept my singles in a 7” wire rack and always knew how many I had. Flicking through them, choosing which one to put on next. The stereo was at one end of the room, by the piano; a baby grand Aunt Eileen and her daughter Dolina kept at our house. A faded, golden, velvet sofa with matching armchairs and a worn Persian rug were at the other end, by the fire place. Dark wooden beams, light green, shaded wallpaper. The view into the garden was through the oversized windows of the sun lounge my Dad and Jock Andrews had built a few years previously.
And if we look through the round window….it’s the lounge.
During the school summer holidays, there was a heatwave and drought. There were riots in England and a Peace March in Northern Ireland. James Callaghan became Prime Minister when Harold Wilson resigned. The Damned released the first punk rock single, ‘New Rose’ and the Sex Pistols swore on national television.
A picnic in our garden, featuring family, friends, a blue hamster cage and the rabbit hutch in the background.
Sam got ‘Ratus Norvegicus’ by The Stranglers. I had seen ‘Peaches’ on Top of the Pops and liked it, so I would sneak the album from his room to play downstairs. Lying on the floor with my head in front of one of the speakers, while my friend Steven did the same with the other one. We were 11 years old and had never heard anything like this before.
Even the cover was unlike anything we’d seen, we’d stare at it for ages, trying to make sense of everything.
In between school, household chores and playing records, I spent a lot of my time in my camps in our large garden. Divided into the nursery half, which had a long sand pit, the ‘M3’ for the children to ride their tricycles on, a row of sycamore trees, a cement paddling pool (with slide), a wooden shed, (‘the boys’ hut’), climbing frames, swings, apple trees and the little football pitch (where Mum trained Nursery United). The family half had green lawns, holly trees, flowers, the pit, the Wendy house and the majestic conker tree, which welcomed you when you pulled into the drive.
In 2020 I edited 3 hours of Super 8 footage of the Frimley Green Carnival from the late 1970’s to early ’80s and put music to it. Mum can be seen with her Nursery United football team at 2mins 46 seconds in.
I inherited a tree house from my older brothers which was in the sycamore nearest to the boys’ hut. Climbing onto its roof, I was able to grab a couple of branches and manoeuvre myself into the tree. An old fishing net we had brought back from Barra was now a hammock. Two doors were nailed flat here to stand on. Further up the tree I had an old metal army chest tied securely and used to store things. There was another wooden structure, slightly higher up, with a few cushions in. Me and either Steven or my cousin Christopher would sit here. Sometimes on Saturdays, I would take my transistor up and listen to Kenny Everett on Capital Radio. There was a white rope with a laundry basket at the end, so I could haul things up and down. Finally, a broom handle, now flagpole at the top of the tree. One of Sam’s friends, Johnny Moore, had built this Crow’s Nest section for me, finishing it off with a small red nylon triangle on a pulley to use as the flag.
I also had an underground camp. Basically, a hole Steven and I had dug, with a discarded, door-less wardrobe on top and a strip of carpet covering the cold dirt. The day after we made it, Steven’s Granny sent him over with a packed lunch for us to eat, sitting inside. I would also lie in there with a torch and read books. ‘Pigeon of Paris’ was a favourite; I liked the illustrations by Quentin Blake.
Myself and Steven outside Elm Cottage at nursery school home time.
In December 1977, I got ‘No More Heroes’ by The Stranglers on 7” for my birthday. Seeing the white sleeve with the red wreath reveal itself, as I unwrapped it, I had a sense that I had arrived. Or at least, was starting to.
I bought singles by Kate Bush, The Boomtown Rats, Blondie, Squeeze, B.A. Robinson, E.L.O.. I listened to Roger Scott on Capital Radio while I did my homework. I got my first albums, ‘The Kick Inside’ by Kate Bush, ‘A Tonic For The Troops’ by The Boomtown Rats and ‘Out Of The Blue’ by E.L.O. My brother Tom sold me his copy of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ by The Beatles for ‘all the money you have’ which was 47p.
Brian Clough won the League with Nottingham Forest. The ‘Picnic at Blackbushe Aerodrome’ took place with Bob Dylan playing to 200,000 people in Camberley. British car plants were starting to get in trouble. There were strikes at the BBC. Scotland were knocked out of the Argentinian World Cup. I had been convinced they would win.
I had an Umbro Scottish football top which I wore with my cut off denim shorts. The first match had been played as we travelled back from a family holiday in Ireland. Mum asked the crew of the boat if Tom and I could watch the match on their t.v. under the deck. We were allowed and watched in dismay as Peru beat them 3:1, much to the crew’s delight. Even with the classic Archie Gemmill goal against the Netherlands, Scotland were knocked out in the first round. I had ‘We’re On The March With Ally’s Army’ by Andy Cameron, ‘Oh Le Oh La’ by Rod Stewart and ‘Argentine Melody’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber on 7”. I stopped playing these once Scotland were out in June.
Me, mum and Moira Baird standing on the septic tank, outside the Harbour Cottage at Ault on Barra. Me in my Umbro Scottish top worn with my cut off denim shorts.
December 1978, I got given David Bowie’s ‘Breaking Glass’ 7”, from the live ‘Stage’ album (The one where he looks so cool in that MA flying jacket). That end refrain, ‘I never touched you…’ the voices repeated with just the bass drum, made my tummy tickle. I also got given Buzzcock’s ‘Promises’ from Anthony Bailey and then ‘Singles Going Steady’ that Christmas.
Each summer we went up to Barra. Dad’s father had been the doctor on the island and he and his two siblings, Gregor and Catriona were brought up there. Over a few years, Dad and Jock Andrews converted some old, ruined crofts into cottages. Then, Dad and his business partner on the island, Gerrard Campbell, rented them out as ‘Hebridean Cottage Holidays’.
Myself on the small island of Vatersey next island along from Barra, photo taken by my dad in 1969. See my Dad’s Barra photos 1967 – 1978 here.
There were six cottages at its peak and along with our extended family members, we would stay in them every August. Tom and I were friends with Alistair and Sheila Baird, who lived in Skallary House. Once on Barra, we spent most of our time together, having adventures and fun. They would come with us on family trips to the beach or with Moira, their mother and her brothers James and William, to parties in our cottage, where Sheila and I would sing ‘Flower of Scotland’ together. In the summer of 1979, Alistair sold me all his 7”s by The Jam; their singles from ‘In The City’ to ‘Strange Town’’ in picture sleeves. A couple of times I bought singles in Oban, before boarding the ferry for the six-hour journey to Barra, and had to wait four weeks until we got home to play them.
Tom with Harbour Cottage behind him and Southbank across the little bay.
Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. More strikes, more bombs. The Clash released ‘London Calling’.
I now had lots of records. Particularly 7″ singles. If I was a fan of the band, I had to have the record the day it came out. Fridays then. I sometimes got the coach home from school, St. Tarcisius, got my bike and cycled the three miles back to Camberley to buy a few 7” singles. In the end Mum and Dad wrote to the head mistress and asked if could be allowed out on Friday lunch times to buy them.
I went to my first gig on 22 December 1979, The Police and Squeeze at the Lewisham Odeon in Southeast London.
It was a Capital Radio ‘Tickets For Toys’ concert. My cousin Christine Olga (who is three years older than me), went up to London with her friends and managed to get the tickets by giving toys to Help A London Child. They had to sleep on the pavement as they’d got there the night before, joining the queue. Sting came round at about 2am with hot drinks for everyone.
So, thanks to Christine Olga, Squeeze, who played before The Police, were the first band I saw live.
I loved Squeeze. By then, I had two 7”s by them, ‘Cool For Cats‘, in pink and ‘Up The Junction’ in lilac vinyl.
The previous summer, I had started a Record Club. I arranged that we were allowed to bring singles in, to play on the school’s record player on Friday afternoons. ‘Cool For Cats’ was a favourite of mine. Me and Marcus Wallace knew all the words including the bit when Chris Difford goes ‘it’s cool for caaaats’ at the end.
The Record Club was short lived. It got banned after I was off sick one Friday and the boys in my class ran it without me. They were all found dancing on the desks and singing along to the Tom Robinson Band ’Sing If You’re Glad To Be Gay’ at the top of their voices by a horrified teacher (it was a Catholic school and the teacher was Sister Bartholomew). I think they thought they were being punk. Possibly a few of them were gay and glad about it. Anyway, that was the end of the Record Club.
After Squeeze had played (it was Jools Holland‘s last gig), the air of anticipation intensified.
The album ‘Regatta de Blanc’ had just been released and The Police were number one in the charts with ‘Walking On The Moon’; the follow up to their previous number one, ‘Message In A Bottle‘. People started randomly shouting ‘Sting!’ and cheering every time a roadie came on stage to adjust something.
Then, the lights went down, the cheers went up and they were on stage. We danced and jumped in front of our seats and sang along. We smiled at each other and threw our arms in the air. An hour or so later, we spilled out into the cold December night. I had been to my first gig.
My second was May the following year, to see B.A. Robertson at the Hammersmith Odeon. I was at secondary school now with Christine, and we went with her friends again. I had ‘Bang Bang’ on 7”, in a special fold out cover that went ‘BANG’ when you flicked it, (you sometimes got these free with comics). He kicked footballs out into the audience during ‘Knocked It Off’. I danced and sang. We went round the back after the gig, to see if we could get our programmes autographed. Lots of us, leaning on B.A.’s waiting car. It was taking ages though and we had to go and get the train, so we left and ran to the tube station, got to Waterloo and then Farnborough.
Camberley had a band in the charts at around this time. The Members had even been on ‘Top of the Pops’, with ’The Sound of the Suburbs’ and ’Offshore Banking Business’. The Carroll children were six boys. My siblings and I had all gone to primary school with them, although the older ones had left by the time I started. My sister Trina had been in J.C., from The Members, class, my brother Tom and Tom Carroll were in the same year and Dominic was two years below me.
The Members had played at the Civic Hall in Camberley in 1978, when ‘The Sound of the Suburbs’ (a beautiful clear vinyl 7”) was a hit and my brother Sam (who had been in the same class as Meesh Carroll) had gone. I was jealous. A couple of years later, they played the larger Civic Hall in Guildford to promote their album ‘1980 – The Choice Is Yours’, which I had bought and was delighted to get a free skinny tie with. I went to this gig with Tom Carroll, and the youngest brother, Dominic, who was twelve.
We went to the stage entrance, up the stairs from the car park at the back of the hall to say hello to J.C. before the gig. Dom stood with us and asked for a guitar so he could show his big brother something. He impressed us all, making J.C. laugh, as he played a few Members songs on an unplugged electric guitar.
The gig was packed. I went as far to the front as I could, pushing and squeezing my way through. One guy kept shouting ‘dedicate the next song to Merton and the Tube Disasters!’. They didn’t, J.C. just looked a bit perplexed every time the bloke shouted it.
I was going out with Tom Carroll, which was very handy as he had great taste in music and could drive.
He took me to see Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark at the Top Rank in Reading. I had the 7″ of ‘Enola Gay’ which I loved, but that’s all I had heard by them. They played ‘Electricity’ in the set and then again as the encore – my first time hearing it and it was thrilling.
Two days later we went to see The Jam in Bracknell. A local gig for us, Tom had bought our tickets a few months previously and we were really looking forward to it.
The Jam were my favourite band. I now had all their singles. I was too young to have been there in their early or middle years. The first album I owned by them was ‘Setting Sons’ (bought for me from my Christmas list ) the follow up, ’Sound Effects’ had just been released. Supporting them was a band from Brighton called The Piranhas, I had their single, ‘Tom Hark’ which had been a big hit that July. The 7″ had two tracks on the B side and knew all the words to all three songs and I enjoyed belting them out along with the band.
Then, The Jam. Everyone was packed tightly into each other. Your hands on the shoulders of whoever was in front of you. Joining in conversations, ‘have you seen them before…?’. Then Paul Weller’s Dad, John comes on, ‘now, let’s hear it for the best fucking band in the world! The Jam!’
My God what a night. I returned home sweaty and elated. I had jumped up and down for the whole gig, elbows in my face, using other peoples’ shoulders to propel myself upwards.
My brother Tom was having his 18th birthday party at our house that night. We came back from the gig, gushed and played records by The Jam to pogo to and tell everyone what an amazing concert we had just been to. Alistair had come down from Scotland for the gig. He then came back to Elm Cottage for the party and to stay a few days. ‘Your Mum introduced me to chicken liver pate, which I loved, and she gave me a box of crackers and a pack of pate for the train back to Aberdeen.’
More gigs followed. Local bands in pubs. Lots of us on a coach to go to the Moonlight Club in West Hampstead to see Prime Suspect. Classix Nouveau and Theatre of Hate on the same bill in Guildford, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, Dolly Mixture, Bauhaus, The Birthday Party, The Jam a few more times.
I had outgrown the wire rack for my singles long ago. Added to that now, were a couple of cardboard boxes I had cut up and stuck with brown tape to make the correct size.
Tom Carroll had started a band. They rehearsed at Fleet Church Hall on Sundays. He ‘phoned me and asked if I’d like to go along and see them later that afternoon. They’d only started playing together the previous week. It was an old Victorian hall with a stage, on which there were drums, amps and guitars. Dominic and Kieran were already there and playing noisily when we arrived. Dom was thirteen now and wore a Harrington jacket with a pork-pie hat, the other two were seventeen. Tom climbed the four steps to join them and picked up a guitar. I sat on a chair by the wall and watched. Initially there was more talking, a few clatters and strums, while they worked out what each of them should do. They played a couple of their own songs – interesting bass lines and scratchy electric guitar. Dominic and Tom swapped between bass and guitar. Tom suggested they have a crack at ‘Start!’ by The Jam and asked me if I fancied having a go at singing it. I was already up and walking towards the stage as I said ‘yeah, alright.’
I realised how unlike bands I’d seen live or had records by they were. I had never appreciated the rehearsal phase before; I suppose I thought groups came fully formed. Dom was on bass – I could hear that yes, this was ‘Start!’, so microphone in hand I started to sing. I was quite shocked at how tuneless my voice was. I was self-conscious and knew I had to relax, to get to the melody which I could hear in my head. The boys were all concentrating on their parts making their own mistakes, so they didn’t seem to notice me feeling my way through.
A few days later Tom asked if I would like to join the band. Nervously excited, I went along again the next Sunday, this time as an official band member.
I was saving up to get a red leather jacket like the one Chrissie Hynde wears on the cover of the first Pretenders album. I now decided on a change of plan – I was going use my savings to buy a guitar. I had chosen a cheap Spanish, nylon stringed one but Tom pointed to the Smash Hits posters on my bedroom walls and said, ‘Don’t get that, get an electric like they all play’. He lent me a Gibson LP guitar the brothers at his house had. All six Carroll brothers are great musicians. I started to learn the guitar. Tom taught me a few barre chords, how to play a major, how to play a minor and that was that. I was off.
Soon I got a bass, a second-hand Fender copy from Kingfishers in Fleet.
Somewhere along the way Tom and I split up plus, he was going to university so couldn’t commit to the band anymore.
Kieran, Dom and I wanted to continue, so I suggested that we rehearse at my house in Frimley Green. There was always something going on at Elm Cottage so the thought of my band playing in the lounge didn’t bother anyone. The sound was much better in the smaller, carpeted room and we were able to talk things through and try out ideas in comfort.
We still rehearsed on Sundays. After a few hours, mum would call us in to the dining room, where assorted family members and friends were already lively in chatter. We would enjoy a slightly self-conscious roast lunch with them before heading back to practice for another hour or so.
We booked ourselves into a studio and got ready to record three songs. Kieran drove us over to Matinee Music, an 8 track off the Oxford Road in Reading, run by Chris Broderick. I played my bass, Rudy played his beautiful brown Rickenbacker, Kieran drummed and wrote some of the lyrics. We were still playing two of the songs that Tom had written, they were his bass lines I had learnt, plus a new one, ‘Lazy Boy’ that Dom and Kieran had written on which, I played own bass line. I put the vocals down after everything was recorded and loved it. Singing in a studio. Being in a studio. When I got dropped home at about 11pm, mum and dad were already in bed. I was so happy, I grabbed my tape player, went into their room and played all three tracks to them. I couldn’t believe it, we sounded real, I loved ‘Lazy Boy’. I was very chuffed.
The Essential Extras I’m 14 on vocals and bass, Dom is 13 on guitar and Kieran is 18 on drums.
We had a name – The Essential Extras. Kieran sent the demo off to a few record labels. He got a letter from A&M saying they really liked the music, and could we send them some more? I took the letter to school and showed it to my friends
I couldn’t sing and play the bass at the same time yet, making any live plans tricky. I invited the cool and good-looking Ann from my class to be the lead singer. The actual music sounded great and the idea of two girls in a band, one playing bass and one singing was a good one.
We wrote four new songs and went back over to Matinee Music to record them. This time I didn’t sing. Dom played an acoustic 12 string on one and I had written some lyrics for Ann on another. Kieran wrote the lyrics to the other three. I assumed everyone could sing, but annoyingly, Ann’s voice was shrill, so our follow up demo didn’t get us a deal or even a response.
We carried on though.
Our first gig was a party at my house, in the rumpus room, to about thirty friends. Dom wore his stripy mod blazer and played his Rickenbacker, I had very bright bleached hair and wore a yellow string vest. Next, preparing for the whole wide world, we played the Working Men’s Club in Camberley. I broke a string on stage and watched as my fingers instinctively went to a different string higher up the neck and hit the right notes. That felt good. I had borrowed an amp from my brother’s friend, Andy. After the gig, I left it on the pavement while I went in to get more gear. When I came back the amp was gone. When I told him the next day, Andy said I had to give him £150. I walked up the road, to Lakeside Country Club and asked if there were any jobs, please? The lady at reception ‘phoned someone, ‘yeah, she looks fit.’ I got the dish washing gig, starting the following Saturday night. ‘Wear old clothes.’
I was in the fifth year at school, studying for my O Levels. Aside from the chores at home, this was my first job. I had a timecard and would punch in and out on a clunky blue machine, which felt very proper. Lakeside was later famous as ‘the home of British darts’ but in those days, it was a classic nightclub on the dinner and entertainment circuit. Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Sammy Davis Jnr., Bob Monkhouse and Frankie Vaughan had all appeared there in the ‘70s. When I worked at Lakeside, Bernard Manning, Jim Davidson and Freddy Starr were all regulars. If they cleared the tables near the front of the stage the waitresses would sometimes come into the kitchen crying, Bernard Manning making rude jokes about them. One night, they all refused to go back out and customers started to complain about the cluttered tables.
Lakeside Country Club
There was a house band who would be sound checking as I walked through the main dining room on my way to the kitchen. I enjoyed that feeling of a club before it’s open, everyone buzzing around with something to do. Working in the large, busy kitchen was exciting. I started at 6pm, and usually finished at about midnight, later, if it had been packed. I worked two or three nights a week, including the weekend.
Often, I manned the industrial dish washer on my own, sometimes with someone at the other end. It was knackering work. I got covered in peoples’ left over food and dirty water from the machine, slipping on the floor as I ran from one end to the other to grab the surprisingly hot clean plates and then load it up again. When I got home at midnight on my first night, a busy Saturday, I went up and told mum about it. She was in bed but had stayed awake, waiting for me, we laughed as I recounted my exploits.
After I’d been at Lakeside a few months, I got better jobs. Arriving a couple of hours earlier, making huge trays of coleslaw and generally helping the chefs prepare for the night ahead.
I still had to do the dishes though. I was able to get some school friends shifts working with me. We all enjoyed having the money. I went to Farnborough Hill Convent and the Spanish chefs loved the posh girls coming in to work. Each evening when we arrived, one of the female managers out front would say, ‘Here they are, the Mafia!’ and laugh, like it was the first time she’d said it. Friends who worked would come back and stay at my house afterwards. Sometimes we had school the next day. Between university, travels, jobs and visits, various siblings, cousins and friends would come and go at Elm Cottage all the time. When we got in, there would usually be family members and their friends in different rooms drinking tea, whiskey or cider, playing records, talking loudly and generally having fun. We would get ourselves some tea and toast and happily join in, the perfect ending to a hard night washing dishes.
When I paid Andy back for his amp, I kept working there for another year or so. It meant I had money for records, gigs and clothes.
I also got my own record player. The deck was in my bedroom, and I put it through a large, newly purchased guitar amp. A Sound City, plugged in to a 4 x 12 speaker. My room wasn’t very big, so the volume would be on 1 (or 2 if I was jumping up and down). I would plug my bass into the amp and try to play along with my records, calling my parents up to listen when I thought I had had learned something.
This sat on top of a large 4 x 12 speaker and had my record deck plugged in through one of the jack inputs, along with my guitar and bass.
There were so many places you could buy records. Harlequin, Tower (not the chain) and Sperrings in Camberley, Elephant in Aldershot, Boots, W.H. Smiths and of course, Woolworths. There were also boxes of ex jukebox 7″ singles on newsagent counters and random local shops everywhere. I was always coming home with 7” singles.
For the harder to find ones, I sent off via adverts in the back of the N.M.E. – Adrians, Beggars and Small Wonder and if that failed, the labels themselves. I couldn’t wait to get home from school to see what the post had brought, so exciting getting those small brown mailers. By then I had several singles on the revered Postcard Records in Glasgow, including the debut release both of the label and Orange Juice, ‘Falling and Laughing ‘which was sent to me by label impresario, Alan Horne. I had read a review on the ‘Independent Bitz‘ page of Smash Hits (I loved Smash Hits) and knew I had to have a copy. It came with a flexi disc and hand printed card and is still my most treasured 7″. I also had lots of chart singles, ABC, Spandau Ballet, Visage all adding to my growing collection.
The S.A.S. stormed the Iranian Embassy, we watched it live on telly. The UK slid into recession with unemployment at two million. John Lennon was murdered the day before my birthday. The news came through from America, on my 15th birthday morning. Johnny Moore ‘phoned Sam while I was opening my presents. Johnny loved The Beatles and was upset.
The Essential Extras called it a day. Dom and I went our separate ways for a while.
After a few months, when I was 16, I formed The Service. Me was on guitar and vocals; Danny Hagan was on bass and Mick Highgate on drums.
The next year, I was studying for my A Levels and completing the lower 6th at school, while also rehearsing with the band. One evening I asked my dad, ‘can I leave school and concentrate on music?’ he thought about it for a couple of minutes, and to my amazement, said ‘yes’. I was somewhat taken aback, I hadn’t expected him to agree at all, but found myself moving forward and putting the pieces together. My parents wrote to the head mistress and my last few weeks as a schoolgirl ticked away. I took the end of year exams and did well – coming first in English. I focused more on the band and worked harder at writing songs.
Me aged 16 when i formed The Service
Dad had now put a double door at the entrance of the lounge to help soundproof the room. Danny and I had started writing songs together. He wrote the words, and I wrote the music. In those early days, Danny would finish his part first, hand me his sheet of paper and I would then put the lyrics to guitar and melody.
The Yorkshire Ripper was arrested to a national sigh of relief. More car plants closed. 30,000 people marched against unemployment in Glasgow. Bucks Fizz won the Eurovision Song Contest. There was a riot in Brixton. More than 100,000 people took place in the March For Jobs. More riots in London. Rioting in Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield, Nottingham and Toxteth. Watching it on the news, black smoky silhouettes surrounded by flames, screaming, lots of police.
Severe snowstorms hit the UK as temperatures plummet to the lowest in any December on record since 1874. I had tickets to see The Jam in London but couldn’t get there as Farnborough Station was closed due to the snow. I had seen them the night before but was still bitterly disappointed.
By the time I was seventeen, The Service were playing locally on a regular basis. The Prince of Wales in Aldershot, the King’s Head in Guildford, Fleet Country Club. Pubs that are now gone. Mini supermarkets, sheltered living accommodation or flats replacing them.
The Prince of Wales in Aldershot.
Parties continued at Elm Cottage. Tom’s friends, my friend’s, Sam’s friends. Trina was living in Greece at this point, Calum-Iain was training to become a doctor and Michael was away at university.
My friends Helen and Emma at an Elm Cottage party.
That September, when I should have been starting the Upper Sixth, I invited Dom to join me on guitar in The Service.
A month later, we recorded our fist demo. Two songs, at an eight-track studio called Grumpy Bear in Bracknell. One, ‘Money Making Man’ went on a vinyl compilation album made up of local bands, organised by the studio. Everyone paid to record there and then gave the guy £50 and received twenty albums to sell or give away. Quite a neat idea.
The other track was called ‘Too Much To Hide‘ and was released in 2020, by Berlin label, Firestation Records as part of the ‘Some Greater Love’ album, made up of our early recordings.
Dominic changed his name to Rudy. J.C. came to the studio when we were mixing the tracks, to check out his youngest brother’s band. He was very enthusiastic, and we were thrilled to have him there.
I immediately started making lots of cassettes on my friend Tracy‘s tape to tape player, sitting in her bedroom in Fleet, drinking tea while they copied. I didn’t like doing it at double speed as they sometimes sounded funny. So, we would copy them in real time and turn the volume down while we chatted. I then spent the next day making and photocopying sleeves and sending them to record labels or venues from the gig adverts in the ‘N.M.E.‘ and ‘Melody Maker’. I phoned a few, including The Marquee, only to be told you needed an agent to play there. I would trot down to the post office in Frimley Green clutching lots of padded envelopes, filled with tapes and dreams.
Sam and Tom were big Manchester United fans. Manchester United won the FA Cup in the replay against Brighton. Bryon Robson scored two of the four goals in their 4:0 victory. Mrs Thatcher won a landslide victory over Labour’s Michael Foot, who retired later in the year and was replaced by Neil Kinnock. Six people died in the I.R.A. Harrods bombing.
On my 18th birthday our debut gig as a four-piece got reviewed by pop columnist, Adrian Creek in ‘The Camberley News’. All the local bands wanted to get in this section, I read it every week. I walked over the village green to buy a copy at Fennell’s newsagents. Then ran home, unfolding the paper as I bound in through the front door and started to read it as I bolted up the stairs where I showed it to mum and dad.
‘Band Come On By Leaps and Bounds’
Like any good young band, The Service sing about love, relationships and heartbreak, and the titles themselves are very evocative of teenage years.
‘No Chance (With You)’ and ‘Too Much To Hide’ are two perfect examples. More importantly their music is fresh, hopeful and optimistic – the songs may sometimes be sad, but their undoubted enthusiasm always bubbles over’
That week Danny and I went up to London, carrying my cassette player, some demos and photocopies of the review with us on the train. We headed over to Fulham, as we wanted to get a gig at the famous Greyhound pub, leaving a tape there, we then looked for other places that put on bands. We walked for miles. Finding a few live music pubs, playing them the tape there and then. It worked. We were offered a Saturday night residency, £50 a night, at the King’s Head in Fulham. The first gig was to be Christmas Eve, followed a week later, on New Year’s Eve. I was extremely excited when I got home I ‘phoned Tracy straight away – ‘guess where we’re playing on Christmas Eve..? London!’
One of the other pubs also phoned up to offer us a gig on Christmas Eve, The Swan, funnily enough, right opposite the King’s Head. I called up a band we vaguely knew called Joker’s Wild, and offered them the slot. We were also called by someone by the name of Steve Royal ‘like the family’ he said. He had been passed on our tape by the Greyhound. They were putting out a compilation album and offered us a chance to go on it. It would cost us £250. For that, we would get a gig and 50 copies of the album to sell. Similar to the one we had done previously, plus a gig at the Greyhound, we said ‘yes please!’.
Mum had a minibus for the nursery school football team. We were able to borrow it to get to gigs, Danny drove. For our London debut, we took a couple of my school friends up with us, Clare P., Marie-Lou and her boyfriend, Aidan. It, being Christmas Eve, was a riotous affair, one of the locals fell, drunkenly, from her bar stool and continued to clap and cheer as she lay on the floor. We played two sets and after the first, ran across the road to see Joker’s Wild. Their main gag was the fact that their singer did a back flip mid-performance!
Mum and my brother Michael (or Dad) would pipe the pudding in at Christmas.
Clare P. my sister Trina and brother Tom Christmas 1983.
Our set was mainly our own material, but we also played a few cover versions, ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ by the Four Tops, ‘Heatwave’, The Jam version and ‘Rat Race’ by The Specials. On New Year’s Eve we attempted ‘Auld Lang Syne‘ with Clare P. joining us, playing the brown , beaten up piano on stage.
Marie Lou, who sent me some great photos in 2021
Indie Through The Looking Glass 