At back left, wearing the Spider Man top is Stephen Pontin, he used to live next door to me. Then it’s me with another classic pudding-bowl haircut. I am taller than it suggests in this photo, I don’t quite know why it came out with me looking like a little munchkin out of the Wizard of Oz. On my right - and showing how cool he is because he doesn’t need to even look at the camera - is Mark Freeman. He lived four doors down from our house, and I think that his parents still live there. To his right I think it is Jamie Newman who was in my year at school (and possibly in my class).

Into the front row, and on the left we have Kevin Seabright...I can’t work out if that is a polo neck sweater underneath a deep V-neck sweater, or whether it’s a single sweater designed to look like it’s two sweaters. Then we have Mark’s younger brother Chris. There’s something about his hair and face in this picture that intensely reminds me of this little fellow. Completing the line-up is my friend Tony (who lived next door to me as well...but the other side to Stephen). He is also showing that he is too cool to be in this photo, as he has his eyes shut. Notice the nipple-clamp attachments on his cardigan.

We are so wide-eyed and innocent in this picture (apart from Tony, obviously). Our chief concern at this age was accumulating Star Wars toys, eating sweets, and heeding the wise words of the Green Cross Code Man. We were still years away from being aware of the dangers and stresses of AIDS, property repossession, and crack cocaine (though taking a second look at Chris’s face, I do wonder...).