u3a Rewind stories archive

I was awoken from my damp sleeping-bag at the one-and-only Weeley Festival, ["The Great British Woodstock"] on 28th August 1971, as BJH and their 40 piece orchestra opened with "Mockingbird". A life-changing moment! I was 17 and had just become a lifelong-follower of BJH and many of the other rock and progressive acts that were performing. I avidly read Melody-Maker or NME regularly, looking for gigs!

It reminds me of our happy times at Seaburn fairground. I went as often as possible with my sister and sometimes with my best friend. We loved going on the dodgems, racing cars and the waltzer and loved chatting to the boys who worked on the rides.

My friend and I were into folk music, played guitar badly! We were 16/17 and dying to see Donovan at the Star Club in Hamburg where I grew up. As we were too young to go on our own our parents had to come with us- absolutely cringy for all of us but we saw HIM . Only time I ever went to the Star Club which is sadly long gone.

As a teenager, I had quickly cycled through phases of liking soul and Motown, then hard rock followed by prog, and then a dalliance with whey-faced singer-songwriters. When I heard the “Born To Run” album, and this track in particular, my first reaction was “I didn’t know you were allowed to write songs like that!”. That opening harmonica riff still gives me shivers.

Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1988-0719-38 / Uhlemann, Thomas / CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped

Working in Woolworths as a teenager, customers selected records which were played aloud at the record counter which I was near - serving in those days behind another counter. Good memories taking me back 70 years

momento mori from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

This takes me back to 1960s. Saturday morning under 16s disco at Watford Top Rank nightclub. Rows dancing, boys wearing Ben Sherman shirts and green stay press trousers, girls wearing tonic suits or Prince of wales check dresses.All wearing highly polished oxblood loafer shoes and silk hankies held neatly folded and pinned with a gold tie tack in our top pockets. I now do a chair dance version with my u3a armchair exercise group.

I was introduced to Bob Dylan's songs at the youth club I belonged to when I was around 14 or 15 in about 1965. I was blown away by these songs. They were so much more meaningful than the pop music I had listened to previously. Times they are a-changing was my favourite and is still relevant now.

This song is symbolic of the last four weeks of my first year at Manchester University. The first two weeks of June 1967 were spent taking my end of year exams followed by a fortnight long Workshop Technology course - a unique song for a unique time!

Although they didn’t play in on this occasion it reminds me of my first visit to The Cavern. It was a lunchtime session and it cost me one shilling to enter. And the first group I saw there were The Beatles. How lucky was I; the chance of a lifetime?

Photo: Andypugliese, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The first Stiffs live tour at Leeds University Union in 1977: Dave Edmunds, Larry Wallace, Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric and Ian Dury. I was 17, and getting into Punk Rock. Ian Dury playing drums and shouting “Stop f***ing spitting!” Pogo-ing the night away.

By Jean-Luc - originally posted to Flickr as Ian Dury, CC BY-SA 2.0, 

Working in Woolworths as a teenager, customers selected records which were played aloud at the record counter which I was near - serving in those days behind another counter. Good memories taking me back 70 years

Whilst the 60’s produced some great singles and albums, musically 1971 was a memorable year for me. I had won a language scholarship to go to Germany before starting university and it was there that I first heard The Doors’ Riders on the storm playing on the radio. To this day, it remains one of my favourite songs ever.