Features

My head spins when I think of 1969: girlfriends, college, music, theatre, writing, travelling and working. It seemed that there was so much to do and so little time in which to do it. 

The summer of that year fills an enormous place in my memory: it was the last summer when I had no responsibilities and nothing to tie me down. 

War & Peace

I had become politicised at college (I had gone to Brighton for my teacher training) by the Vietnam War and the previous year’s invasion by the Soviets of Czechoslovakia. 
I’d marched, sat in, protested and argued for the whole academic year of 1968/69. 

After my spring term in that year, my tutor had warned me about becoming overtly political in the classroom. But, what the hell. I was firmly addicted to the first part of the dictum: if you’re not a socialist before you’re 25 then you’ve got no soul, if you’re still a socialist after you’re 25 then you’ve got no sense!

Although I was convinced that we should give peace a chance, I thought however that John and Yoko, with their “bed-in for peace” in Montreal, were complete ‘pillocks’ and did nothing for peace movements except bring ridicule. 

And, when Northern Ireland erupted into massive violence in August 1969 and the British Army was deployed there I felt that peace was slipping hopelessly beyond reach. 
There were wars in Vietnam, Nigeria, Zaire, all around the Middle East following the 1967 6-Day War, and (for goodness sake) there had even been a “football war” between Honduras and El Salvador. 

But how could a young man, just about to leave his teens, be depressed by the international situation - when there were pubs to be visited, girls to be chatted-up, so much music to listen to and so much overtime available to students willing to work their butts off to maximise their summer earnings?

Listen to the music

And music – oh, what music. 
There were 2 LPs that defined the year for me although I didn’t discover either of them until October. 

The first was The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”; and whenever “Here Comes the Sun” is played I still fleetingly revisit Maureen and have my heart broken in Sussex Square. 
The second was Fairport Convention’s “What We Did on Our Holidays” which has been with me in turn in 5 different formats since 1969; and I still get choked up when Sandy Denny begins to sing “Fotheringay”, or feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when “Meet on the Ledge” begins.

I saw The Who perform “Tommy” (and was deaf for the best part of 2 days!) before they went to the Isle of Wight Festival; I spaced out to Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” performed by a then local band with a breathtakingly good organist; I mocked Lulu’s “Boom Bang a Bang” victory in the Eurovision Song Contest.

I was carried away by the guitar virtuoso performances of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn in Pentangle’s visit to the Winter Gardens; I played Buffalo Springfield’s “Retrospective” LP almost to destruction; I soared to the harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash; and I laughed and sang along with the outrageous Jake Thackray at the Duke’s Head. 

Home

I still marvel at how liberal my parents were. They were dyed-in-the-wool working class: dad was a postman and mum was a school cleaner; but they were determined that my brother and I should do everything we could to offer ourselves the opportunity to move out of the working class if we so wanted.

Neither of us particularly wanted to: my brother had an apprenticeship as a plumber and I was between my second and third years of teacher training.

And then there was TV.
I laughed my socks off at Morecambe and Wise, (though not at Dad’s Army); I mourned the imminent transformation of Patrick Troughton as Dr Who in June, but was dazzled by the first episodes of Star Trek in July, and then mourned again when Dr Who began its slide into twaddle with Jon Pertwee’s earth-bound, dandy Doctor at the end of the summer.

In the skies

There were 4 Apollo missions in 1969 (from 9 to 12) with 11 being the first moon landing in July. 

The missions were exciting and I oohed and aahed with everyone else - but they felt so very distant from my life and, to my mind, the life of almost everyone outside the USA. 

People have recently been reminiscing about where they were when Armstrong stepped off the ladder; well, I was fast asleep. I had to be up at 5 to start work at 6. I had managed to get a job with the local Corporation and had been allocated to vehicle 414 which had an early start each day. 

On my first day I was puzzled when all the men in the mess room exchanged knowing looks when the allocation was read out but I quickly learned that there were 2 reasons for the looks. 
The first was that the driver/ganger was a very dangerous-looking Hell’s Angel called Terry (who turned out to be great fun, utterly unpredictable, an appallingly erratic driver and a brilliant keyboard player), and the second was that the principal role of vehicle 414 was to pick up all the dead animals from the roads, woods, houses and vets and then take them to the incinerator. I vomited hugely on that first day, but thereafter it didn’t bother me.

When vehicle 414 finished at 3pm. I used to volunteer for overtime and spent many hours cleaning out the huge wheeled dustbins that had been brought in for repair in the workshops. I would finish at 6 and cycle home, have some tea, watch a bit of TV and then listen to music until I fell into exhausted sleep.

Above all, that summer on the Corporation is defined by Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air”, played on Radio 1 through the transistor radio hanging on the rear view mirror in vehicle 414, watching Terry play the keyboard solo on the dashboard and then joining in with him and the band for the final chorus.
I still smile every time I hear that song.

Life & Times

I don’t remember rain at all that year! 
As well as a summer of work in the sunshine, I spent a week with Judy sleeping rough in London; I hitchhiked to Paris with my then-best friend John; I chased the deer and was then chased by the wardens in Knole Park with Paula; took part in a 5 mile three-legged race in Brighton with Ruth, and I walked for hours through the early autumn mists in the fens around Cambridge with Mary. 

I appeared in “Waiting for Godot”, “Arms and the Man” and the never-seen-again new play called “Next Time I’ll Sing to You” in which I had to act almost an entire scene in a passionate clinch with another Judy and got so involved with the action that I had to be prompted each performance when it was time to leave the clinch… 

I wrote, produced and appeared in the pantomime at my final teaching practice school at the end of 1969, and then got a short-lived teaching post at the school in 1970 (based, I’m sure, on my willingness to do all the school productions).

It was 1969 that marked my transition from teenager to man. I loved it.