The Bradnam Blog

Another year, and another school photograph. If my calculations are correct then this photo would have been taken from my last year of middle school. Soon I would be taking that big step to ‘Upper’ school, a slightly less innocent and more salubrious place. Once again it would mark that transition from feeling somewhat smug and superior at being the eldest year in the school, to feeling scared and insecure at being among the ‘new boys’.

Of course the big news from this photo is that the era of brown is over. For reasons for which I still do not fully understand, I spent a few years of my life in the late 1980s with an unhealthy obsession towards all things grey. I could have stuck with brown, or explored shades of blue, black, or white...all colours that would have been permissible under the school colour code. But no, I went for that most boring, and unappealing of all colours. This photo captures me in one of many grey tops that I would come to own. This one has it’s rather fetching grey mesh overlay to accentuate the grey base layer.

The really sad part of this was that the greyness did not stop at sweaters and shirts. I also wore grey trousers accompanied with grey socks and grey shoes. Let's be honest, I was a vision in grey. When walking to school, I was probably indistinguishable from the concrete pavement on which my steps fell. Was this why so many people ignored me?

Thinking back to this era, I’m still perplexed as to what exactly the appeal of all of this grey was. The saddest part of my grey obsession was that it didn't stop with my wardrobe ... it even extended to interior furnishings. I remember requesting that my bedroom walls should be furnished with grey wallpaper and I also had a matching grey lampshade. It was a decor that said "Here's Keith, he's the most boring person that you will ever meet".

All this talk about my 'grey period' is starting to make me feel slightly nauseous. Fortunately I can put everyone’s minds at rest and reassure you all that this was just a passing fad. By the time we moved into the nineties, I had expanded my color palette and I spent the entirety of that decade garbed almost exclusively in hues of blue and green.