50 years ago today

19 years old today

Probably my ‘official’ photo from 1967 for my passport and ID cards. Possibly the only time I wore a suit and tie that year. Hair still struggling to grow out of my school cut but the sideburns are doing rather well. I hoped the spectacles would make me look intellectual but John Lennon style wire spectacles were much desired.

Nineteen today. Celebrations were overshadowed by the fact of me leaving home soon and my Father becoming seriously ill.

My girlfriend gave me a silver Saint Christopher medallion; a nice one, set in a silver ring and personally engraved ‘with love’. A gift for a traveller which I treasured for a long time. I can’t remember how we celebrated; we were not part of any group we could go to a party with, but we did occasionally go dancing. I would be leaving for London within a week.

The Station Inn opposite Selly Oak station used a large room for ‘socials’ which meant having someone play records to dance to and the occasional live band. I definitely recall seeing Jimmy Cliff. There was also a band called ‘Way of Life’ who appeared at the Station Inn earlier in the year with a great drummer called John Bonham[1]; by the end of 1967 he had joined up with a guitarist called Robert Plant to form ‘Band of Joy’.

The Station Inn had ultra-violet lighting which would make white knickers glow in the dark unless you wore a dark skirt. This lighting had other strange effects. At that time, there was an attempt to market dry shampoo which meant combing a white powder through your hair. This was impossible to remove completely and young women would appear with an ethereal halo due to the ultra-violet. 

The Station Inn a few years later; behind the five windows was the music room. For a short time, this was on the Birmingham’s music club circuit. Now renamed ‘The Bristol Pear’ but I am not sure why.

My Father had been ill for several years with heart disease. About four years earlier he had suffered a heart attack which left him weakened and short of breath. He had to give up his job as a milkman; heaving full crates of milk had become impossible. However, Cadbury’s gave him a sitting down job measuring the size of chocolate particles using a microscope which required much less effort.

Nevertheless, he spent the next few years short of breath, occasionally in pain and on constant medication. There were several scares when he would be taken to hospital by ambulance. Nowadays, with the availability of better medication and surgery, Dad would have been restored to better health. For us teenage brothers and sisters, we had to avoid upsetting him in case of triggering a heart attack; this was difficult, at a time when we would be naturally rebelling, to have to tread so carefully.

Just before my birthday we had to call the ambulance again. Dad survived and was allowed home a few days later; at the age of 55 it looked as if he might be housebound for the rest of his life. It was not a particularly happy birthday.

[1] Do I have to tell you he was one of the greatest drummers in the world in one of the greatest bands in the world, Led Zeppelin? On this day, 25 September 1980 John Bonham died after consuming 40 shots of vodka.