The Bradnam Blog

14 Jul 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 10: 1977 (bonus video edition)

If we go back some thirty-three years to the 7th of June, 1977, we find the UK strangely united behind our monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. That was the day that on which the country celebrated her Silver Jubilee, marking the occasion of twenty-five years on the throne. As I recall it was a national holiday and people across the country held street parties to celebrate Her Majesty's special day. It seems strange, thinking back, that this was a time when our monarchy was still held in high regard, and with a fair degree of affection. The subsequent decades put an end to that with a never-ending series of royal scandals, though it was touching to see some reverence for the Queen restored by the time of her Golden Jubilee in 2002. I guess it's not inconceivable that she will be around to celebrate a 75th (diamond?) anniversary in 2027!

Like many households, we too took part in a Silver Jubilee party, hosted by our neighbors in their back garden. Another neighbor captured some of the 'festivities' on video (on Super 8 film I believe). At that time in the UK, video cameras were kind of a big deal. I don't think i ever saw anyone else with any sort of portable video recorder for another ten years or so. As it was, I didn't get to see this footage until some 25 years or so later, when my neighbors received a copy of the clip on VHS tape and they then converted it into a digital format. Take a look at the video...

(download)

Featured in this video are my parents and my two brothers, along with our neighbors and their two kids. I'm the one in the turquoise colored top. Tony (the neighbors son and the youngest person in the video) remains one of my best friends, and as he was born in the house that features in the video, I can say that I have literally known him for all of his life. Note the presence of bunting and home-made hats, all in the Union Jack colors of red, white, and blue. Also note the entertainments: the classic garden game of 'reel-the-thing-in-between-your-legs' and 'negotiate-hat-obstacle-course-on-stilts'. i guess this is what we had to do to amuse ourselves while waiting for Nintendo to invent the GameBoy.

The sad aspect of watching this video is that my father died of a brain tumor about six years after it was filmed. I'm glad to have this video as this is probably the only time in his life that he was ever captured on film. How times change. Kids growing up today will no doubt discover that their life-on-film starts from the time their parents make YouTube videos from their sonogram. I guess it is only fitting that I end a Silver Jubilee video with an appropriate message of God save the Queen.

11 Apr 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 9: 1984

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.

22 Mar 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 8: 1983

Oh Chalkstone Middle School, how I miss you and your myriad shades of brownness. I am not clear whether the school based the color of it's uniform on the dark brown wood stain that was used to cover much of the exterior of the school, or whether the exterior color was deliberately matched to the uniform. It is sufficient to say that they were of a very similar brownness.

By the time I had joined the school, there wasn’t actually a strict uniform anymore. The combination of blue shirt, brown sweater, brown trousers, and brown blazer had been set aside for something a little more progressive...a colour code. If memory serves me correctly, we were allowed to wear anything that was brown, blue, black, white or grey, as long as there were no jeans and as long as it was mostly plain. I.e. no racy slogans, mottos or controversial fashion statements like the FRANKIE SAY RELAX T-shirts that were popular around this time. However, whilst we had the freedom to be able to mix and match from any of these colours, I was in the unenviable situation having inherited a large collection of 'pass-me-down' vestments from my two elder brothers who had both attended the same school before me. My wardrobe was therefore bedecked in swathes of blue and brown clothes. It would take approximately another 25 years before I could bring myself to voluntarily wear the color brown again.

This picture was the latest version of my annual school photo and my blonde hair had finally started turning a little darker (no doubt in order to blend in with the poo-brown colour of the uniform). Other bodily transformations are revealed by closing of the gap between my two front teeth. Overall, I have to say that I look pretty happy in this picture. Maybe the school was putting something in the milk?

We were still a couple of months away from Margaret Thatcher’s decisive second term election victory, and so while the seeds of anti-Thatcherism may have already been planted, they had yet to germinate and grow into the strident force that would affect many of my generation. On the other side of the Atlantic, President Reagan had just announced plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which became more popularly known as ‘Star Wars’. If you ever want to get an 11 year old boy to be enthusiastic about a costly (and ultimately unfeasible) policy that aimed to put orbiting lasers in space, then having it named after one of the most popular films of all time certainly helps. Even if the goal of SDI was to shoot the legs of helpless kittens, with a name like ‘Star Wars’, it would have had my support.

7 Mar 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 7: 1981

Another year, another birthday, and another reason for hanging out with ‘the gang’. We are now into the 80’s but brown still seems to be the predominant colour in our house. Note the absence of any girls in this picture. This would set the tone for my relationships (or lack of them) for the next twenty years.

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...).

16 Feb 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 6: 1980

And what better way to start off a new decade than with a hand-me-down clunky looking, rust coloured cardigan? It’s the sort of cardigan that you expect to see being worn by someone in their seventies...perhaps with a pipe in their hand.

This picture would have been taken at the start of my last year in primary school. I still have a memory of being in an end of year (1979) assembly and knowing that when I came back to school for the next term, that the year was going to have a whole new number (8 rather than 7). When you have only ever lived in one decade for nine years of your life, the change of decade seemed like a big thing. This would be my first experience of being ‘one of the old guard’, the pupils who had been around the block and who knew everything...or who thought they knew everything. There were four years worth of younger pupils, who would look up at us 5th years with a mixture of awe and respect. This would of course all change (later the same year) when we took the big step up to ‘middle school’ and became first years all over again.

My hair has started to darken in this picture and the eighties would see me lose those locks of blonde hair, to be replaced with more of a mousey-brown shade. The two front teeth (with requisite gap between them) gave me the appearance of a chipmunk. I appear to have quite a cheeky smirk about my face which strikes me as a little unusual; I usually think of myself being more of the shy, retiring type back then. I guess I was still happy that I only needed one digit to represent my age.

I recall that I first starting wearing glasses about this time, but I obviously had decided not to wear them in school portraits (as some following blog entries in this series will attest to). I think I should add that it was around this time that I first started taking notice of popular music. One song that stood out in this particular year was Babooshka by Kate Bush. A couple of years earlier, I had been positively terrified by another song by the same artist. I have very strong memories of the wailing chorus of Wuthering heights causing me go wild with displeasure. On one occasion (presumably when we watching Top of the Pops), her performance literally made me beg my parents to turn the TV to another channel (and this was an era when you really did have to turn a dial in order to change a channel). I'm happy to say that I very much like the song now. I guess Kate Bush was the Lady Gaga of her age. All together now: "Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy...”

9 Feb 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 5: 1978 (again)

Following on from the last blog entry in this series, here is another photo from my seventh birthday, and this is the photo that provides the evidence that it really was a birthday party. Do take time to appreciate the cheeky- grin-towards-camera, from my friend Tony. You might be wondering whether such a photogenic young boy would grow up to become a male model? The answer is no.

Notice that there is a cake with seven candles, which cleverly has been made to resemble a clock face with the hour hand so cunningly pointing to the number 7. I wonder if I was old enough then to be able to tell the time properly. I do remember that we had lessons at school with a cardboard clock face that the teacher would hold up in front of the class. She would then pick on people to guess what time the clock was showing. There was a point in my life where I could tell the time only if it was it was a multiple of 15 minutes, and so I would be in fear in case she held up a clock showing something awkward like 7:35.

What other things can we learn from the photo. The colour brown makes another appearance, but this time as part of the crockery. I’m now thinking that our whole house was a shrine to brownness. Amazingly, I can tell you that my mum still has some of those plates. They’ve managed to survive 30 years of ‘accidents’.

The other part of this picture worth mentioning is in the foreground. It is a paper napkin featuring a popular children’s character. If this party took place in 2010 then we might expect to see Harry Potter or Optimus Prime maybe. But in 1978 we had the cool-beyond-doubt portrayal of Uncle Bulgaria from the Wombles. Yep, in 1978, if you had the Wombles feature at your party (albeit in badly inked pictorial form) then you were the coolest kid on the block...at least that’s how I remember. Ah, you gottta love the Wombles. All together now, “Underground, overground. Wombling free..."

3 Feb 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 4: 1978

Ah, I have got myself into a little chronological muddle. This post (and the next post in this series) is from 1978 and so should have come before the last post from 1979. Oh well, I'm sure you'll forgive me...

This picture might look a bit strange so I’ll explain as best I can. The picture was taken during a birthday party at my house. It would have been my 7th birthday. Check out the lovely patterned curtains, and the general overpowering presence of the colour brown in the furniture and carpet. Brown was big in the 70’s!

I’m sitting on the far end of the couch, wearing the green safari outfit which I just loved (this wasn’t a fancy dress costume by the way). The dapper looking gentleman on my left was my neighbour and still my good friend Tony Lancaster He doesn’t wear the tie so much these days. The next guy has faded from my memory and if I had to come up with a name I might say ‘Christopher Powell’ but I have very little faith in that. He must have been at my primary school but I don’t think he was still around for my middle school years. Next to him is Mark Freeman who lived a few doors down the road from me. He had also made an effort to smarten up for the party, well at least he had shiny brown shoes on. The face on the end of the picture is Kevin Seabright...I think. We were best buddies for quite a few years and used to both be hugely into Star Wars (well wasn’t everyone back then?).

My mum, and Tony and Mark’s parents still all live in the same houses on the same street. So some things haven’t changed much over the last 32 years, though thankfully, the decor has. Given that I’m now living in a different country, it seems strange that all these parents have lived in the same houses (let alone the same town) for so long.

The strange facial expressions that we all seem to be adopting in the picture is because there was, off to the right of the picture, a magician! It was unbelievably cool to have my very own magician perform for me at my party. I think he was getting us all to blow at something that he was holding. I could be completely wrong, he may have just asked us to make silly faces for his own amusement.

Every seven year old should have a magician perform at a birthday party. You’re at the age where it is easy to be astounded by relatively simple acts of magic. I was very into magic for the next 10 years or so of my life, probably because of this birthday party

30 Jan 2010

My Life Revisited. Part 3: 1979

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s SuperNod! Brandon Routh eat your heart out. One year after my last primary school fancy dress contest (when I entered as a matchbox), it was time to go for something a little more dramatic. My mum did great work in stitching together a very impressive superman logo and making a cape. The rest of the costume was as follows:

1) Blue polo neck top (turtle neck if you are of a USA persuasion). These seemed to be a lot more popular when I was younger. Can’t remember the last time I wore one.

2) A pair of blue girls tights (I felt very awkward about wearing these)

3) Red swimming trunks

4) Red wellies (or rain boots if you prefer). These were borrowed from my neighbour’s sister as I recall

I remember that I kept the cape for several years after this as that was great for an instant Superman effect. Superman was very popular around that time (the original Christopher Reeves Superman film had come out the previous summer), and such popularity ensured there was another Superman entrant in the fancy dress contest. I think I won a prize for my costume, though I think they were fairly generous in giving out lots of prizes. I don't think you actually received anything at all, just the honour of being chosen as a winner.

My hair was still quite blonde at the time, and I would still be sporting the ‘pudding bowl’ haircut style for a few more years to come. Note that I'm standing on our 'crazy paving' patio. This seemed to be all the rage in the 70's though it's not particularly crazy by most definitions of the word. I bet it was invented by people who realised that there was a market for people who couldn't afford to buy paving stones that are all the same shape. And speaking of irregularly shaped, cheaper versions of things...do people remember buying bags of broken biscuits at the supermarket?

24 Jan 2010

My life revisited. Part 2: 1978

This is me, in my back garden...in a matchbox. While I was at primary school, there used to be a summer fete held every year, and for at least some of those years they held a fancy dress competition as part of the fete. These fancy dress competitions were not so much for the kids...they were for the parents.

But I think I have to applaud the inventiveness and technical abilities of my folks as they did all the work. As I was only six at the time, I doubt that I personally suggested going as a matchbox, and I further doubt that I had much involvement in the construction process. When anyone goes to a fancy dress party today, it seems that people most likely will just hire or buy their costumes. But in 1978, costume hire was not really an option (at least not in Haverhill, Suffolk) and so there was a need for ingenuity and considerable amounts of glue and tape.

I think that the bulk of this ‘costume’ was fashioned from the cardboard packaging of some self-assemble furniture. There was a quite a bit of attention to detail in that there was - at least as I recall - an inner box that could slide within the outer container. The detail on the front of the box is a fairly good (hand painted) replica of an actual brand of matches that you could buy in 1978 (for just three pence).

My parents also gave me a red swimming cap that I was meant to put on my head so that I would physically resemble a matchstick in the matchbox, though somehow I think I opted to not wear that on the day of the competition. I don’t recall winning the contest, but I do remember there being more than one prize so I may have won something (best costume in the ‘Smoker’s accessories’ category?). As I recall, there were lots of entrants in these contests...but there was only ever one matchbox!

20 Jan 2010

My life revisited. Part 1: 1977

This is the first of a short blog series featuring some old pictures of me from the distant past, along with some commentary on my memories of life at that time. This was first hosted on my iWeb blog, but for various rather boring, technical reasons I had to remove that blog. So I have to decided to repost them here.

Part 1

I was five or six years old when this picture was taken, it’s hard to be sure. This was a school photo which means that it would have been taken near to the start of the new school year. I would have been five at the start of the school year but this would be only a couple of months before my sixth birthday. So in all likelihood, lets say that I was six.

I had started my second year of ‘primary’ school. Different regions in the UK have different systems for schooling. In Suffolk, there were (or still are) primary, secondary, and upper schools. The primary school I went to had an optional (?) ‘nursery’ year (like kindergarten in the US I guess), which I also attended. So this was my third year at the school, though I was in the second year (hope that makes sense). My teacher that year was Mrs Jackson. My main memories of her, well my only memories really, were that she seemed very tall and wore jeans a lot.

At that time, we were learning to read and write but not English as you may know it. Our school embraced what seemed to be a widespread (at least in the UK) ‘experimental’ way of learning English. The system was called the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA) and looking back at it, it was very strange, not least because the alphabet has 42 letters! Still, I can’t say that it has done me any harm in my subsequent education. In a way, it is no stranger than the ‘texting language’ that many kids have adapted into everyday writing these days.

One of my main memories from that year at school was one kid (Chris Todd is memory serves me correctly) wanting to demonstrate to the class that he could make a cool and somewhat mysterious sound when he was walking. The teacher allowed him to demonstrate this in front of the entire class. She then broke it to him that this noise was simply the sound of the fabric of his extensively flared trousers rubbing together as his legs passed each other (we all had flares back then). I think he had thought that there an altogether more magical reason for the noise.