Unreliable Memories

In my head, I sometimes still imagine myself to be about twenty-one. My brain and my body, however constantly remind me that I am in fact, approaching three times that age. Just about the only exercise I can still indulge in is walking (and in truth, that is becoming increasingly problematic, with various muscles and joints seizing up, or aching). I tried running last week, through necessity rather than choice, and after a couple of hundred yards I was hopelessly out of breath, and my legs were on fire; I literally could not run for my life.

As frustrating as it is when your body won't do what you want it to, it is understandable, with age. Routine tasks, like vacuuming and cleaning are becoming more onerous and being broken up by regularly sitting down with a nice cup of tea at an alarming rate. I appreciate that that is probably inevitable, having passed three-score years, but what is less palatable is the increasing unreliability of my brain, most specifically my memory.

As one gets older there are things that take on new meanings. An "all-nighter" is now when I go to bed and don't have to get up for the loo during the night. "Getting lucky," is walking into a room and remembering why I'm there, and of course, the biggest lie I tell myself now is, "I don't need to write that down, I'll remember it." That last one is why I have a small notebook which, while it is mostly for shopping lists, is invaluable when I need to make a note of something that I would otherwise kid myself I could remember. Having a shopping list is important for two reasons; it disciplines me to buy only what I need - it really does limit my impulse buying - and it also means that I am far less likely to come back from the shops without the one thing I really went for in the first place. I have also had to resort to a diary, something that I eschewed for the many years in which I could remember appointments, social events and the like, but now find that I would completely lose track of without one.

I used to regularly take part in quizzes, and would take great pleasure in dredging up some obscure fact to answer a question. Lately, it has become increasingly more difficult to drag some things up from the depths; the data is still there, just elusive and difficult to retrieve. And there are some things that I try to call to mind that only surface when I am not consciously trying to remember them, hence waking up in the morning and suddenly knowing what the answer was to four down in that crossword I was doing the day before. Names are becoming particularly tricky these days; I think that they have always been one of my blind spots, but increasingly, whether it is meeting someone after a long time, or just simply thinking about someone and trying to identify them, I find putting a name to a face is getting harder and harder.

While my memory for facts is still generally okay, if sometimes a little slow, my memory for conversations, which has never been especially good, is now awful. My wife, on the other hand, has a brilliant memory for conversations, which she often uses in evidence against me. A few years ago we had to replace our microwave oven, and looking at various models, I suggested one. Val reminded me that when we had bought the one we were now replacing, we had talked about different types and dismissed the one I was suggesting. "That was seven years ago," I replied, amazed that Val remembered, but not surprised that I did not.  I suppose that the possibility exists, albeit an unlikely one, that given my unreliable memory for this sort of thing, Val could have invented that conversation on the basis that I wouldn't remember one way or the other.

 In truth I sometimes struggle to remember a conversation from seven days ago, so no chance with one seven years ago. Actually, I do sometimes have a good memory for conversations, except what I remember turns out to be out of date.  For example, perhaps Val and I will discuss what time to go out, and will settle on ten o'clock, but then will have a further conversation and alter that to ten-thirty. I will remember the first arrangement, but forget the second conversation and will therefore be waiting impatiently by the front door at ten, while Val gets ready, with me convincing myself that she is being tardy. "Don't you remember, we originally said ten, but then said ten-thirty?" she will ask. No, patently I don't remember.

Like many people, passwords are an area where my memory frequently lets me down. There are some that I use frequently that I have little problem remembering; others, used less often, are more of an issue. I have had to resort to a spreadsheet (password protected, of course) to keep track of the growing number (119 at present) of them, all of which have different requirements in terms of length, upper and lower case characters, numbers, special characters, etc, etc. Even so, I still have some that I appear not to have recorded, or which I have had to change and failed to update my records. This results in the use of the 'Forgotten Password?' option. Frustratingly, it seems all too often that when I update such passwords I inevitably get a message saying "New password cannot be the same as previous password," and recently was actually refused a password I wanted to use on the grounds that the site deemed it too easy to guess. The maxim that passwords should be easy to remember but hard to guess is a good one, except making a password that is hard to guess usually makes it equally difficult to remember.

There is one area in which my memory is sadly all too good, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I am able to recall in excruciating detail, incidents from both the distant and recent past where I have said or done something embarrassing. You know the sort of thing, saying something indiscrete about someone to a third party, only to discover the object of your remarks standing right behind you. These are the sort of memories that rise, unbidden, at random moments. I guess I am also reaching that age when I can call to mind not only these uncomfortable memories, but can also recall other, less embarrassing incidents from years ago, but not something that happened yesterday. Equally, my increasingly unreliable memory is often at odds with what other people recall, or proven faulty when confronted with written evidence of an event.

All too often I get nagging thoughts that I have forgotten something important, and even writing this blog, I'm sure that when I got the idea there was something that I felt that I should include, but now can't remember. Give me a while, it will come to me...

The 1970's: Part Four - Work, Rest, and Play

The 1970's are remembered by some as a sort of Golden Age in England. Although the music was good, the 1970's was a decade that style forgot when it came to fashion, and one  probably best remembered for the Winter of Discontent, rampant inflation, unparalleled industrial strife, IRA atrocities, and Britain being dubbed 'The Sick Man of Europe.' It was the decade of my teenage years, and although there is much to look back on with fondness, there was much about the 1970's that was a struggle and not all that pleasant. The decade was one of change and transition, for the country and for me

In the classic episode of Hancock's Half Hour, Sunday Afternoon At Home, Hancock laments that Sundays in England are boring. "It's not like this on the continent," he says, "it's their big day over there, all the cafes open, football matches and race meetings, everybody's gay, ha, ha, ha, ha. Not over here though. Everything's shut up." That was broadcast in the 1950's, but Sundays in England were still the same in the 1970's. Just about the only shops open were the newsagents - and they closed at lunchtime - and the pubs, having opened at noon, closed between two o'clock and seven. 

Most Sunday mornings my Dad and I would go for a walk while Mum prepared the lunch. Strangely, we often seemed to arrive at The Orange Tree pub at about noon, when they opened. My Dad would get a pint and buy me a lemonade or a Coke - a rare treat in those days - although by the time I was about fourteen, he would get me a cider, which I would consume surreptitiously in the pub garden.

Sunday afternoons were as boring as Tony Hancock suggests. Television - and we had just the three channels then - seemed to consist of an unremitting diet of old films, religious programmes like Songs of Praise, and gardening programmes, such as Percy Thrower's Gardeners' World. The films always seemed to be Westerns or war films; 633 Squadron and The Dambusters appeared to be permanent fixtures in the schedules. Even though by 1970 a quarter of a century had passed since the end of hostilities, the Second World War seemed to have a significant effect on people still, although for many, like my parents, there was some justification as they had, after all lived through it and in my Dad's case, been a combatant.* Mind you, even today many people, most of whom were not born till long after it, still invoke that conflict, for instance when England play Germany at football, or during Brexit negotiations.

The decade was one of great change for me, as I began the decade at secondary school, took O levels and A levels, and started work. Despite the fact that unemployment reached one million in 1972 - the first time since the 1930's - and had reached 1.5 million by 1978 - when I left school in 1976, it seemed that getting a job was relatively straightforward. In part, this was because many industries - including banking - were labour intensive; automation and computerisation had not yet taken hold and banks, insurance companies and the like took on large numbers of school-leavers every summer. I had two interviews and accepted a job with Midland Bank. Inflation was still a major problem - it reached 24% in 1975 - and large pay rises were the norm, in fact between my accepting the job with Midland and starting work, I received a pay rise of 20%. Having money was something of a novelty for me, although being used to doing without, I remained quite frugal for a while, more regular socialising put a bit of dent in my budget as Friday and Saturday evenings in the pub became part of my routine.

From school...

...to work.

The 1970's were my first experience of commuting. When I was transferred from my first Midland Bank branch at Gants Hill to Queen Victoria Street in the City of London, I had to use the railway regularly for the first time. Liverpool Street Station, where my train from Romford terminated, was dirty and dingy, still smoke-stained from the age of steam, not at all like the light and airy terminus it is today, while the trains were unreliable and decrepit (regular commuters today might think that little has changed).

Liverpool Street Station circa 1970

Romford Station in the 1970's. The sign "Frequent Electric trains To London"
was a hangover from the days when steam was being replaced.

While Sundays were boring, Saturdays were the day of the week I looked forward to the most, and the reason was football. I had started watching Romford FC in the late 1960's, and in the 1970's my Saturday afternoons were spent on the terraces at Brooklands watching my heroes in Blue and Gold.  In 1972 I started going to away games when money would allow- a trip to Wimbledon's old ground at Plough Lane was my first -and once I had started work and had more funds, went on the Supporters' Club coach to most Saturday away matches. Football, and going to pubs, were my normal social outlets, but the mid-1970's were a difficult time for my football club, which had spent heavily on the ground in a bid to gain promotion from the Southern League to the Football League during the 1960's, a gamble that did not pay off. Saddled with huge debts and falling attendances, the club sold their ground, pinning their hopes on a new stadium, which never materialised. In 1978 Romford FC played their last game and folded. Having the club one has always supported suddenly go out of business is almost like a bereavement. Initially, I flitted from game to game as a neutral, before eventually finding myself at Leyton Orient most weeks, and I was a season ticket holder there until Romford reformed.**

Romford FC 1973-74

Although football on Sundays was rare in the 1970's, cricket -in the form of the John Player Sunday League (JPL) - was a sport that thrived on the Sabbath. The JPL began in 1968, and along with the Gillette Cup and the Benson & Hedges Cup (B&H), limited overs cricket proved to be more popular in terms of attendances than the County Championship. Sunday League cricket at grounds all over Essex proved to be my introduction to the sport, and although Essex were usually among the also-rans in the Championship, they thrived in the one day game, winning the B&H in 1979 (their success in the one day game was accompanied by their winning the County Championship in the same year).

Getting tickets for that B&H Final proved to be a bit of a trial. Essex sold their entire allocation to Members, and I wasn't one. The venue - Lords - had none for sale, but more in hope than expectation, I phoned Surrey, who were Essex's opponents, who miraculously had plenty spare. I think about a dozen of us got tickets through them and went to the game. By coincidence, the day of the final was also the day on which I took my first holiday without my parents - a week at a B&B in Hove - and most of us who had been at Lords took the train from Victoria to the South Coast after the final.

Perhaps the most significant change that the country underwent in the 1970's came in the last year of the decade, when, on 4th May 1979, a Conservative government under the nation's first female Prime Minister was elected. Margaret Thatcher - until then best known as The Milk Snatcher for ending free school milk for children over the age of seven in 1971 - is revered by some, reviled by many. Whatever one may think of her, she had a profound effect on the nation and the changes that ensued in the next decade.   

The Conservatives swept to power in 1979, playing on fears of mass unemployment under Labour.

For all that the 1970's were a struggle at times and for all the shortages, looking back I can see that I had a lot of fun too. I had money for the first time, I had many friends with whom to share my interests, and apart from work, I had few responsibilities. The 70's weren't so bad after all.

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* In 1992, the club was reformed, entering the Essex Senior League, and is still in business. The last twenty-seven years have been spent sharing grounds with other clubs, although a ground of their own is planned, but is still some way off being built. See https://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.com/2013/04/romford-1-manchester-united-0.html

** See  https://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.com/2013/06/through-france-on-cheese-sandwich_5.html

The 1970's: Part Three - From The Immigrant to The Immigrant Song

The 1970's are remembered by  some as a sort of Golden Age in England. But the 1970's was a decade that style forgot when it came fashion, and one  probably best remembered for the Winter of Discontent, rampant inflation, unparalleled industrial strife, IRA atrocities, and Britain being dubbed 'The Sick Man of Europe.' It was the decade of my teenage years, and although there is much to look back on with fondness, there was much about the 1970's that was a struggle and not all that pleasant. The music was good, though.

One of the many things that my parents did not own when I was growing up was a record player, so for the most part, the music that we listened to at home during the 1970's came from the radio. At some point, my parents bought a radio-cassette player, but I didn't have one of my own until about halfway through the decade; by and large, I listened to what my parents wanted to listen to. BBC Radio 2 was my parents' station of choice, so mostly it was easy listening, middle of the road stuff. My Mum's favourites were Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald, although my Dad sometimes branched out into light classical music and swing band tunes that he had enjoyed in his youth when he went to dance halls. If I had a preference it was for artists like The Carpenters - their Greatest Hits album was the first cassette I owned - and Neil Sedaka, whose songs, The Immigrant, and Solitaire were great favourites of mine. By the by, I only recently learned that The Immigrant - a Top 30 hit released in 1975 - was dedicated to John Lennon, who was embroiled in a dispute with U.S. authorities over his application for permanent residence in America. Some would say that the lyrics are as relevant today as were back then.

Neil Sedaka

There was plenty of musical diversity in the 1970's - from disco to glam rock, from prog to punk, there was something for everyone - and when the Sound Broadcasting Act 1972 was introduced, the BBC's monopoly over the airwaves was broken, and commercial radio stations began broadcasting. In London, that meant the London Broadcasting Company (LBC) for news and Capital Radio for music. They became my stations of choice. 

Capital had DJ's like Kenny Everitt, Tommy Vance, Nicky Horne, and Roger Scott, and they were the people informing my musical opinion, as they introduced me to types of music that my parents would never willingly have listened to. But it was at school - specifically the Sixth Form, which I entered in 1974 - where my musical tastes evolved. In the common room we had a record player and four LPs in permanent residence. Close To The Edge by Yes, Led Zeppelin IV, The Beatles' Abbey Road were on heavy rotation; the fourth album, a Gilbert O'Sullivan disc, was played rather less frequently. And students would bring in records from home, so I was soon exposed to bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, and King Crimson.  My introduction to this sort of music was not auspicious; Close To The Edge did nothing for me initially, but after hearing it frequently - it got a spin most days - I learned to love it, and it was the first prog album that I bought. I'd gone from Sedaka's Immigrant to Led Zep's Immigrant Song in quick time.

Three of the albums we had in the Sixth Form. I can't recall which Gilbert O'Sullivan one we had.

Once I had started work, and had more disposable income, I started buying more records - and a music centre - and began going to gigs. The first band I saw live were Genesis, at Earls Court in 1977 - nothing quite like starting with one of the big guns - and that show remains one of the best I have ever seen, although Ian Dury and The Blockheads at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1979 runs it close; I always say it was less a gig, more a party with a live band. Dury was part of the new wave genre, and one of the few artists ostensibly part of the punk movement that I liked - The Stranglers were about the only other punk act that I listened to.

Genesis live at Earls Court. Photo: Andy Phillips

 

The late, great, incomparable Ian Dury

These days it seems that I rarely see a jukebox in a pub, but in the 1970's they were an integral part of the pub furniture, and my favoured watering hole, The Golden Lion in Romford, had a particularly good one. Most Friday nights I could be found in The Lion as it was known, listening to songs like Because The Night by Patti Smith, Are Friend Electric? by Gary Numan's Tubeway Army, Rod Stewart's Maggie May, Golden Earring's Radar Love, and Blondie's Heart of Glass which were, among others, an integral part of every one of those Friday evenings. Even now, when I hear any of those tracks I imagine myself back in The Lion. 

The Golden Lion, Romford. Photo: The Londonist

Music has the power to transport one back to the time when one heard a song regularly, or for the first time. Whenever I hear Hey Jude, or Michelle by The Beatles, for instance - songs which were actually released during the 1960's - I think of Romford FC's ground at Brooklands, where they were played regularly before games in the 1970's.

Brooklands, one time home of Romford FC

The 1970's also produced some of the popular Christmas records ever released. Songs like Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade, Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, and I Believe In Father Christmas by Greg Lake being just three released in that decade that still get serious airplay forty years on. As soon as you hear Noddy Holder scream, "It's Christmas!" - and every December you can be guaranteed to hear it pretty often - you know the festive season has begun. And the 1970's produced two of the top ten bestselling movie soundtracks of all time in Grease and Saturday Night Fever. For my money, the latter is one of the best albums of all time regardless of genre.

Naturally, not every song released during the 1970's was a timeless classic; for every School's Out (Alice Cooper)there was a Grandad (Clive Dunn), for every song like 10cc's I'm Not In Love there was something like Lieutenant Pigeon's Mouldy Old Dough. But music is an intensely personal thing; my opinions and tastes may not be the same as yours, but that makes neither of us right or wrong, just different, so if Grandad and Mouldy Old Dough are your thing, then good for you (just don't inflict them on me).

Without doubt though, it is during most people's teenage years that what becomes for them the most influential and memorable music is produced, the sort of music that generally sticks with people in later life, certainly in terms of style, even if newer artists producing those sort of sounds come along and are added to their list of favourite artists. For me, prog was the genre that I embraced, growing from that first less than favourable playing of Close To The Edge to today, when my collection is heavy with modern prog acts like Big Big Train, Frost*,  and Riverside along with bands like Genesis, and Yes who were huge in the 70's.

Next time: Work, Rest, and Play

The 1970's: Part Two - Strikes, Shortages, and Substitutes

The 1970's are remembered by some as a sort of Golden Age in England. But for all that the 1970's produced some great music, it was a decade that style forgot when it came fashion, and it was a decade probably best remembered for the Winter of Discontent, rampant inflation, unparalleled industrial strife, IRA atrocities, and Britain being dubbed 'The Sick Man of Europe.' It was the decade of my teenage years, and although there is much to look back on with fondness, there was much about the 1970's that was a struggle and not all that pleasant.

My abiding memories of the 1970's are the various shortages. At some point or other during that decade there was a shortage of something. Early in the decade there was a strike by tanker drivers which led to shortages of oil. This was actually quite welcomed by me and my school friends, since the heating at North Romford Comprehensive School was oil fired, which meant that if there was no oil, there was no heating, and the dispute taking place during winter, if there was no heating, then school was closed. From the window of the living room of the flat we lived in at the time, I could see the lights if they were on at school, and every morning I would peer out; if the lights were on, then school was open, if the lights were off then there was a good chance it was closed. The mile and a bit walk to school was well worth it if I got there and immediately had to turn round and walk home again!

Miners on the picket line. Shortages of coal and oil caused frequent power cuts. Picture: The Guardian

In December 1974 the nation's bakers went on strike in pursuit of a 66% pay rise (yes, that's right 66%, the 70's were a decade of rampant inflation and huge pay rises); shortages of bread inevitably ensued. In 1977 the bakers went on strike again, and although I do not recall how we dealt with the first strike, I recall that in 1977 my Dad decided to bake his own bread. Flour was difficult to get hold of and so he bought, from some health food shop like Holland & Barrett, a bread making kit. I suspect that the kit he bought did not contain wheat flour, but some gluten free alternative, since although what came out of the oven looked like bread, and to a degree tasted quite like bread, it had the consistency of cake. It was difficult to slice, it was almost impossible to butter, and when made into sandwiches, disintegrated at first bite.

In 1975 there was a potato shortage. Old potatoes ran out due to a wet November in 1974, while a subsequent lack of rain meant that new ones were not ready in time. Potatoes were naturally a staple of school dinners - no meal was complete without chips or lumpy mashed potatoes - and a shortage of spuds tested the ingenuity of the school cooks. Their solution was to replace potatoes with Ready Salted crisps, which are really no substitute when paired with sausages or fish.

Crisps, not really a proper substitute for chipped, fried potatoes.

By 1979 I had been at work for three years, and having started at Midland Bank at Gants Hill, near Ilford, had been transferred to the bank's Queen Victoria Street branch in the City of London. It was while working there that I was sent by my Mum on a mission to get some milk, which was then in short supply. The City is not renowned for grocery stores - well, not then it wasn't, the supermarkets now have shops dotted about, but not so in the 1970's - and I wandered about fruitlessly for some time before, eureka! a shop selling cartons of milk. I bought two pints and proudly took them home. It was only on closer inspection that I realised this was UHT milk (hence it being available); it was our first encounter with the stuff, and we were not impressed, so much so that I think we poured it away.

In 1974 there was a sugar shortage; imports of cane sugar from the Caribbean fell by 30% and supermarkets and other retailers rationed customers to two or four pounds of sugar a time. I confess that I had forgotten all about this shortage, which I can only put down to my not then being a big tea drinker.

Former football referee Dennis Howell, then MP for Birmingham Small Heath, became a household name in 1976 during Britain's driest summer for 200 years when he was appointed Minister for Drought. For 15 consecutive days between  23rd June and  7th July temperatures reached 32.2 °C somewhere in England, and parts of the South West went 45 days without any rain. We sweltered indoors and roasted outdoors, but fortunately where we lived we didn't suffer the severe water shortages that had some people queuing at standpipes. Just days after Howell's appointment, severe thunderstorms brought rain to some places for the first time in weeks. September and October 1976 were both very wet months. It was perhaps the most effective political decision made by a Labour Prime Minister, perhaps any Prime Minister, ever.

Dennis Howell inspects a standpipe.

In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) introduced an oil embargo against nations thought to have supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War; this included the United Kingdom. The price of crude oil rose from $3 per barrel to $12. Coupled with a strike by Britain's coal miners, this resulted in power cuts and a three-day week being introduced by Ted Heath's government. [1]Television stations closed down at 10.30pm, pubs were shut in the evenings, and the use of floodlights at football matches was prohibited.  When the power cuts came, my parents and I decamped to the kitchen and put the gas oven on for warmth. My Dad would read the newspaper and I would try to do my homework, both of us doing so by candlelight.

On January 6, 1974, FA Cup ties were played on a Sunday for the first time, and some midweek games kicked off in the afternoon,  rather than in the evening. Suddenly football fans were having to find excuses to get out of school or work to go and see their teams play, although this didn't affect me as Romford went three months without a solitary midweek match.  Romford were scheduled to play Maidstone United on Monday 25th March 1974, with a 5.45pm kick-off, but any conflict I might have had between school and football was resolved as the ban on the use floodlights was lifted, and the game went ahead at 7.30pm.

Romford's game against Maidstone United was the first midweek fixture the club played in three months following the lifting of the ban on the use of floodlights.

West Ham's cup tie against Hereford United in February 1974 kicked off at 2.15pm on a Monday afternoon. Over 42,000 bunked off school or work to see the game.

The 1970's were a decade of much change. It was the decade of Watergate, and the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich. Britain entered the European Economic Community and elected its first female Prime Minister. Elvis Presley died and South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko died in police custody. Star Wars was released and The Beatles broke up. The 1970's were like the curate's egg - good in parts.

Stephen Biko

Next time: From The Immigrant to Immigrant Song: A musical journey from MOR to prog.

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week