Sogger’s Blog

My home town is buried is the hollow of a valley that comes upon you quickly: one minute you are driving along, looking into the middle distance at the giraffes and tigers in the animal park with  the Irish sea in the background, when suddenly you get to the lip of a hill and gaze down into a town consisting of rows and rows of grey terraced houses. Get to the bottom of the hill and you go along the dilapidated main street, past the houses that once were shops where the different shade of the pebble-dash can’t quite hide the fact that once there was a shop window. Eventually you pass a building that has served many purposes over the years, but as I drove down the main street seeing that its purpose has changed for the worse, moving into private hands, I feel moved to badly describe its role in my life.

For as long as I have known, this building was the community hall. You entered through wide front doors into a lobby with a cloakroom, passing through double doors into a large main ballroom with a stage at the far end, and a smaller annexe and a kitchen and cloakroom off to the side. It wasn’t one of those bright, modern airy buildings, all glass and pine parquet - it was pure dark wood panelling, windows high-up by the ceiling - the type you need the long poles to open - all desperately old-fashioned, even in the 70’s.

My first childhood memory is of being at playschool in the main ballroom part of the community hall and being sent to the smaller annexe as a punishment after having buried another child’s head in the sandpit. The main ballroom was where they had the slides and other big, interesting stuff; in the annexe was where they had the small stuff and the small children, so it really was a punishment, and it stayed with me for a long time.

Thinking back now, the community hall played a really important part in my (limited) social development. Most importantly, between the ages of 12 and 16, at various periods was the “Youth Disco” or “Under-16 Disco”. I say “at various periods”, because it was often closed down for several months at a time after a fight or some such event. Between the ages of 12 and 16, you try out every fad, drink, drug or sexual opportunity that is on offer (for the record, in the early 80’s in an isolated northern town, this corresponded to: “lots” of fads, “lots” of drinks, “no” drugs and ” very few” sexual opportunities).

At the youth disco at the age of 13, I first touched a girl’s breast - I will remember the moment until I die. She was called Maria, had blond hair, wore a white blouse and sat on my knee at the foot of the stage in the ballroom as Soft Cell played Tainted Love. Fully expecting a slap on the face for such audacity in a public, albeit darkened public place, I stopped and asked incredulously, “Do you mind?”. No reply was all the encouragement I needed and I never looked back. You will forgive me if I allow myself to sigh with nostalgia every time I hear “Tainted Love” (even when Marilyn Manson is murdering it).

Throughout those years, I was variously a false punk, a false heavy metal fan, a false new romantic and a false non-descript aloof character. The only common theme was a face-full of yellow erupting pus. You were allowed to experiment with each genre, because every disco was the same: start off with the standards of the day: let’s say, Human League, Nik Kershaw, Heaven 17, Haircut 100, Wham or other such classic acts. Then clear the floor for the Sham 69 and Sex Pistol fans to bounce up and down, banging into each other, and pushing themselves apart, maybe spitting on each other for good luck. Punks finished? Don’t worry, we’ll be back with an Undertones and Clash session later.

On with the head-bangers now: Highway to Hell, Ace of Spades, Run to the Hills for the youngsters, Rush, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath for the ones with older brothers. This is when the boys (never girls) with the longer hair would gather in a circle, bend at the hip, one foot in front of the other, thumbs in their jean pockets, and shake their heads in a clockwise movement in a figure-of-eight shape. There would be three or four such circles around the dance-floor as everyone else cleared the space for them to strut their stuff. No-one ever commented on how ridiculous they looked. Live and let shake.

What did the others do while they were rattling their brains around inside their skulls? Take time out for a glass of lemonade? Get some water to replace the sweat from the exertion of stepping side to side in something resembling dancing (a movement I still practice today on the rare occasions when social norms force me to pretend that I enjoy dancing)? Well, no. There was no bar as far as I remember. All drinking had been done beforehand: Woodpecker Cider from huge plastic bottles was the order of the day, usually drunk in one of the back streets around the community hall or the nearby fields. How we got hold of these I can’t remember. Probably an older sibling or theft.

So no alcohol inside? What about drugs? Oh yes, we had drugs. In fact, a friend of mine was once thrown out for smoking something that looked distinctly illegal to the bouncer. The fact that he was rolling a cigarette with PG Tips tea-leaves inside was not altogether believable to him, but was actually true. His street cred was upped no end as he was frog-marched out to the street and warned that he would be reported to the police if he was seen in the vicinity again.

The headbangers cleared the floor and the final set-piece play started as 10CC told us that they were definitely not in love and George Michael informed us that he was never gonna dance again (this was true for the headbangers who were still trying to find their way back to their chairs). This was the most awkward moment of the evening and was usually a female-only session; males generally watching from the sidelines with a tightening knot in their stomachs, wanting to hit the lucky few who had escaped acne and managed to grab someone. Relief came for all as the cycle finished and began again, usually with Wigwam Bang and its Silver stream, allowing us to do a little thrust of the hips as part of the standard movements, showing off our potential sexual prowess. Next it was into the Chicken Dance and there was no stopping us…

But it wasn’t all fun. Once I was head-butted: I was talking to someone, and the school bully, no doubt looking for trouble, asked the boy I was talking to, “Should I bury him?”, “Yes”, he replied, and I next found myself on the floor with a lump already growing on my head. The boy who did it is dead now. Died in suspicious circumstances, apparently - fell off a cliff.

So it was with a little regret that I saw that the community hall was no more as I drove past last week - it’s a funeral parlour now - the last resting place of many people before being buried, much like many of my memories of the youth disco…

Well, who would have thought that I would become a professional photographer, even if, in this case, professional means “unpaid”. Schmap.com recently sent me an email informing me that one of my photos from Flickr had been “short-listed” for inclusion in the next version of their Lyon tour guide, asking me kindly if I would like to be considered. I thought it was a nice concept, cheap for them, and a way of getting some free publicity when the selected “photographers” went off, happy with their moment of fame informing others of the website.

Today, I got another email telling me that my photo has been included, so I am happy to provide you with a link to the site and to my photo in particular. To get to my photo, go to section 1 of 8 on the bottom “Croix-Rousse”, and then when you zoom in on the photos, scroll through them until you get to the one by yours truly. To save yourself the bother, you can also find the original below.

I have had a browse around their site, and it is very nicely done - well written and with a great selection of photographs!