As mentioned in part one, I only have hazy memories of how I got a love of music. In reality it's just something that crept up on me. In part one I talked about a piano, a wind up gramophone and piano lessons. I think I experienced all those things without ever realising a love of music.
Having a love of music wasn't a definite decision. I didn't wake up one morning and think "today I'm going to love music."
So it was a slow process. I vividly remember getting a transistor radio and every Sunday taking it onto a small piece of lawn that we had at the back of our shop and listening to Pick of the Pops and a rundown of the pop charts with Alan Freeman who made the whole thing sound like a drama. I sat on a blanket and I was one of Freeman's pop pickers, listening for the movers and shakers, the new entries and building up to the number one.
I even made my own charts where songs went up and down not according to sales but on how much I liked them. I wish I had kept these in these days of playlists but they were obviously thrown away years ago.
I also remember Radio Luxemburg from the Grand Duchy with DJs Baby Bob Stewart and David Kid Jensen who I was surprised to find out is only two years older than myself. I expect he is now known as David "grandad" Jensen.
And of course there was Top of the Pops. Putting all these things into some kind of timeline has proved difficult. They all seemed to crash in on one another.
But it was probably The Pirates that got me really into music. Radio London, Radio Caroline, Radio North Sea International and a few more. They introduced us to personality DJs like Tony Blackburn, Simon Dee, Dave Lee Travis, Johnny Walker and, my favourite, Mike Ahern.
I listened mainly to Radio Caroline. It was a breath of fresh air, playing all the latest releases and keeping everyone up to date with American and British music in the great days of pop as it evolved into rock. Today the early days of the Pirates sound very dated.
So let's try to unscramble those dates:
Radio Caroline and Radio London both began in 1964. Radio One started in September 1967. Radio Luxemburg goes all the way back to 1933. Pick of the Pops surprisingly goes back to 1955 and became a staple of Radio One from 1967 and Top of the Pops started on BBC One in 1964. Which is all very confusing.
So let's go back to the start of the Pirates in 1964. I was 11 when Radio Caroline began and 12 when Radio London hit the airwaves. Just the right age to be impressed by the bonhomie of the new style DJs. I particularly remember the competition on Caroline entitled Caroline Cash Casino. This was a series of cryptic clues to an object or a person. Each day that a correct answer wasn't received, the jackpot increased. I think you had to send in your answers to a PO Box in London via snail mail. No internet in those days of course.
I only remember one of the answers which was Tommy Cooper's Fez. No idea why that has stuck in my mind. But back to the music. I would have been listening to Caroline during the day (in the school holidays of course) and Luxemburg at night. The problem with Luxemburg is the signal kept dropping out. It was awful trying to listen to it on a trannie.
I remember sending in a request to the Bob Stewart show for my girlfriend of the time Lindsey with the message. "Thanks for all the fun times." It went slightly awry. I expected some slushy ballad to be played but got Cum On Feel The Noize by Slade which really isn't a love song.
So you think I got an evil mind
Well I'll tell you honey
And I don't know why
And I don't know why
So you think my singing's out of time
Well it makes me money
And I don't know why
And I don't know why
Anymore
Really this wasn't very appropriate and then Stewart made it worse by assuming that my message meant we had broken up, which wasn't the case - that came later but not because of the request I would like to add.
I don't think I have ever made another request to a radio station.
I specifically remember Caroline bigging-up the new single by the Beatles which they would play for the first time at 3 pm. I was rampant with anticipation (oh matron). So this must have been 1968 and the single turned out to be "Lady Madonna." On first hearing I really didn't like it all that much. I've kind of grown into it but it still isn't one of my favourites from the Fab Four.
I was angry when Radio One started. The Pirates were, in the words of Messrs Lennon, McCartney, Starr and Harrison, Fab. They went where others feared to tread and I couldn't think of any more romantic life than playing music from a ship. I later found out that there were feuds and problems on board and a lot of egos sloshing around. I will let you know about this in a later edition.
I seem to remember (and I might have got this wrong) the Thatcher Government promising to legalise the Pirates as an election promise. But of course they didn't keep that promise and their answer was to take many of the DJs into the BBC fold by introducing Radio One. It became part of the establishment and, for me, that seriously watered things down as the music played was controlled by playlists. Of course I later learnt about Payola on the Pirate Ships where payments were made to get records played, but as a spotty teenager all that nonsense was above my head.
I did listen to Radio One but not with the same sense of enthusiasm, apart of course for Pick of the Pops.
My youth was sprinkled with other tv pop programmes of course. Oh Boy (which I don't remember) which started in 1958 and ran until 1959. It may well have been on in our house but I was too young to remember. Then there was Ready Steady Go (1963-1966) which I do remember. It was compered by Cathy McGowan who is now the partner of Sir Michael Ball (he actually hasn't been knighted but should be for being an all round good chap). I also remember tuning in weekly to watch Juke Box Jury (1959-1967) and have mentioned this before.
At times it was cringingly bad. There are some clips on You Tube of panellists with terribly plummy accents. There's one of husband and wife (but not for very long) David McCallum ( would you believe he is now 88) and Jill Ireland (who died when she was just 54) and also husband and wife Nina and Frederik. They were all terribly posh and spoke about "it being a very fine tune." This was in reference to the new single by Pinky and Perky which they all voted a hit.
The essence of the programme as many of you will know was the panellists heard about a minute of a song and then gave their views on it and declared whether it would be a hit or miss. They indicated this by pressing buttons which lit up a panel with one side being a hit and the other a miss. Then the terribly posh host David Jacobs worked out via the votes whether it would be a hit or miss. If a hit he pinged a bell and if a miss he honked a horn. Pinky and Perky was voted a unanimous hit. This was in 1960.
The song was actually Eany Meeny Miney Mo. While the disc was playing the cameras cut to the audience who looked frightfully embarrassed at being there.
Frederick said he liked rock n roll so liked the song (bet you never thought of Pinky and Perky as rock n roll). Jill Ireland declared she found it "charming" and David McCallum came up with the revelation that he liked animals and Pinky and Perky sounded better than pigs usually do. That's a priceless clip.
And for the record, Frederik got involved in the drugs trade and was shot dead and the Pinky Perky song didn't trouble the top 20 and was a decided miss which just proves how much they knew about music.
Two songs that I do remember from around that time were Why by Anthony Newly and I'd Do Anything from the musical Oliver. No idea why they stuck in my mind.
At the age of 11 I went off to grammar school and my musical tastes began to alter - but only slowly. This period in my life will feature in part three in a few days' time.
* * *
In my short piece about Olivia Newton-John, I mentioned a song of hers which resonated with me at a point in my life. I have now tracked this down. It was called "Sad Songs" and I wrote the lyrics out in my diary at the time.
This was in May 1978. I had just left a job I loved at Beccles in Suffolk and taken employment with a press agency in Nottingham - a job that I hated from day one. So why you ask did I move from a job I loved to one I hated? Well with hindsight it's easy to see that this was totally the wrong move. But at the time I viewed things slightly differently.
I had been working at Beccles for almost three years and the same jobs were coming round for the third year and I felt I was getting stuck in a rut and had to make the decision on whether to stay in that rut or cast my net wider.
So I applied for the job in Nottingham. It was the wrong job in the wrong place. I have nothing against Nottingham and enjoy a visit to Trent Bridge for cricket but it just wasn't my kind of place and I was there on my own before my wife joined me. Therefore I was pretty miserable on a number of levels and when you are miserable in a place, the worst thing is going back to what you consider to be your real home (in this case Norfolk/Suffolk). I was on call 24 hours a day and my life felt out of control.
I was staying with the photographer with whom I was working until we could buy a place of our own. On May 18th I must have been listening to the radio and Sad Songs came on. It seemed totally apt to my situation at the time. Here are the lyrics.
It's early in the morning
Today I'm moving away
Sitting here for the last time
Makes me feel so strange
My life here has ended
Like a pulled up weed
Don't play no sad songs
They'll make me cry
This situation reminds me
Of when I went away to school
My friends they all called me
And said I've been made a fool
My girlfriend she left me
For my best friend
Oh don't play no sad songs
They'll make me cry
Coz sad songs are tearing up my heart again
Loneliness is standing in my path again
Oh, I can feel it coming
I can hear it calling out my name
I don't wanna remember
What I'm leaving behind
The radio plays a sad song
And it brings it on
Loneliness surrounds me
Like clouds bring rain
Oh, don't play no sad songs
They'll make me cry
Coz sad songs are tearin' up my heart again
Loneliness is standing in my path again
I can feel it coming
I can hear it calling out my name
I can feel it coming
I can hear it calling out my name
Sad songs are tearing up my heart again
Loneliness is standing in my path again
Obviously my circumstances changed and subsequently I haven't played this song for decades until yesterday when I reprised it. The lyrics no longer have meaning for me as this is no longer how I feel.