Destiny

In all the years I have been blogging, I've used humour to hide things, it will be quite a journey for me to reblog all of those entries as I attempt to "write my book" before it is, well, too late.

At the closure of 1975 my fate was sealed, although, for all of us, fate is exactly that and it is only at a later time that we go all retrospectacle and attempt to make a better story of it all.


It was the beginning of five of the most emotional years of my life with some good and some very dark times. Within a year I would be married, have a daughter and be on the edge of quitting my apprenticeship.

The other side of the coin, young missus Weldon would be yanked from her Northern life, lose her mother under terrible circumstances and would be isolated in a tiny, cold flat in the South of England with a baby and a black and white TV.

When I don't believe in Love

Christmas 1975.

It was a time that my Mum and Dad where still at Pottery Lane in Whiston, my Dad close to his roots and my grandad (my mums dad) was still living there, my younger brother Paul was a bright light and my older brother Rob was changing his direction in life by dropping a career at the solicitors office and making waves back at art college.

The little secret that myself and my girlfriend, Janette had, was still a hidden thing, she was pregnant and with great fear I had decided that I would marry her, regardless of our history together. Pages from her diary had been burned and we chose to face the future together and I did believe I was in love.

In truth, abortion had been mentioned, from my side of the fence, but my girlfriend fortunately was a religious person. The termination would have reset the pair of us and we maybe would have stayed together or gone our separate ways, however, if that had happened, the following June a pair of zero deep black eyes and a shock of dark hair would not have been staring up at me from that hospital warming cot.

It was the beginning. and the end of something.

Home Taping killed Music

In December 1975, it appeared that the big "in" thing was the compact cassette tape, the run up to Christmas spent either buying them, recording on them or giving/receiving them as presents.

In a time when money was never around, or it was and I just threw it to the wind, the entertainment value of the cassette recorder was almost as big a novelty as my girlfriend, the difference being that my cassette tapes could be transported down to London with me, to be enjoyed nightly on weekdays, unfortunately, the girlfriend stayed in the North of England and unfortunately could not be enjoyed nightly, by me anyways...

The progressive disc jockey, John Peel, was a godsend. His late night show, probably on Radio 2, was the catalyst for musical interest, Genesis, Queen, Supertramp, Oldfield all appeared on a regular basis.

John Peel did something back then, he would play new albums, live. Introducing them in such a way that you could hit the record and play buttons on your cassette machine at the exact time the needle was placed on the record.

This was the prize of the week and I'd often stay up late to record such albums as Ommadawn by Mike Oldfield or compile tapes with fantastic tracks like Seven Seas of Rhye from Queen, I know what I like in your wardrobe from Genesis or Lady, from the Crisis what Crisis album by Supertramp.

The recording was then played, over and over for the following month and either retained, with the tabs out, as a keeper, or redubbed with new stuff. Often, small pieces of tape covered the empty tab slots while new wonders would replace the old jaded tracks.

All basic stuff, but back then in the times when music seemed a lot more important and albums cost a fortune, the humble cassette tape held the stuff of magic.