On this date 24 years ago (26 April 1992) Leeds United won the last Football League Championship before the arrival of the Premier League. I have followed the team since the 1960s, and this feels like a good day to copy my childhood memories about the club from my book “1000 Memories” to this Blog.… Continue reading A Sporting Anniversary
Poof: I think that’s how it’s spelt, though it might be puff. It’s a word people used in the 1970s to describe a homosexual, along with its 2-syllable alternative “poofter”. People used it in a similar way to how we use the word “wuss” these days. A kid doesn’t want to dive off the low… Continue reading Word of the Week: poof
In my piece about Good Friday 1972 I wrote “We went to Woolworth’s to buy Easter Eggs, like we always did.” We would also pick up hot cross buns at one of the bakers on the High Road. In the 1970s it was usually Landgrebe, and by 1980 there were new bakers, called The Baker’s… Continue reading Good Friday Memories
We got up really early in the morning. It was still dark. We were going to West Ham, almost as far as you could go on the District Line. Leeds United were playing and the game started early, 11 o’clock or something. Dad, Jim and I travelled all the way to East London and when… Continue reading Good Friday 1972
[There are over 4,000 words here] The call came on Tuesday, early, before the school run, before I wake my son, my uncle died in the night, the uncle I’m named after, he died aged 86, north of Dublin, funeral for Thursday, arrangements by phone and text, later there was a long chat with my… Continue reading A Funeral Day (10 March 2016)
My subject is memory. I wrote “1000 Memories” to record some of the many thousands of things that have played on my mind over the years. It ends during the month of my 14th birthday. Chronologically, the next step is “1000 Teenage Memories”, to take me through my last years at school and onto my… Continue reading The Biograph, December 1980
[There are over 1600 words in this post.] Writing about “What’s so funny about peace and love and understanding?” last week I described something as “A Moment”. It’s how I summarized watching Nick Lowe perform the song at Hyde Park in the summer of 2013 with my son, then aged 8. Nearly 15 years ago,… Continue reading Moments
The Compartments 