As we draw a
close to 2015, and approach 2016, it’s dawned on me that it’s been 20 years
since one of the favourite periods of my youth.
I say youth, but
does 20 years old count as a youthful age!?
Both 1995 and 1996 bring back many memories for me – thankfully
most of them good! I remember feeling in just a bit more of a bouncy good mood
and seemingly much more confident in myself for some reason, having been quite
the shy lad for far too many years. I think that maybe the glandular fever,
anaemia and fatigue I’d had flirtations with over the few years previous had
finally been left in the past, and I never really felt I had anywhere near
enough the fun in my late teens as I ought to have had.
I can’t even specifically put my finger on why these years have
lingered longer in the annals than others. There were no life changing events, but
the time just had a buzz for me that for whatever reason I’ve not been able to easily
forget.
So what was it about ’95 and ‘96?
Maybe it was the music?
In the first half of the nineties, I found that there wasn’t a
particular collective of music that I could (or wanted) to fall into. There
were, of course, many fantastic songs during this period though – indeed one of
my favourite ever songs came out in 1994 (Baby I Love Your Way – Big Mountain), but largely
the charts felt just much of a muchness. And then out of the shadows of the
rumblings of the Indie scene, came its commercial cousin: BritPop
It had taken me a while to get into any kind of alternative
genres, as perhaps my tastes were limited? But once I’d listened to Blur’s ‘Parklife’ and Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’ albums, I – like
many others – fell straight in with it. Blur’s follow up album
‘The Great Escape’ came out in the
late summer of 1995 and I loved it instantly.
There was also a huge amount of hype that surrounded BritPop, culminating in a
media / press battle going on between the two powerhead bands previously
mentioned. I suppose it was a modern day equivalent of the 1960’s chart battles
between The Beatles and The Rolling
Stones (albeit not sales
volumes wise) although those two legendary bands were actually on friendly
terms with each other, and the same couldn’t be said about Blur and Oasis! It wasn’t just
those two bands though – there was suddenly a ton of good music around. The Different Class album by Pulp, to name but one
additional gem, had a number of songs that gave a keenly accurate soundtrack in
representing the time we were living in.
BritPop has rightfully gone down in history as an immensely popular phase
of music, and although it was all too short lived, it provided a helluva
soundtrack for the mid-nineties.
To compound the zeitgeist I went with friends to Wembley Arena to
see Blur in concert just before Christmas, and Pulp at the Brighton Centre a few months later. Bands at their peak
and in their prime, and both were cracking gigs full of energy. Oasis at Knebworth was
out of reach unfortunately!
It wasn’t all about BritPop though. Earlier in
1995, as a huge fan I’d been long awaiting the new Michael Jackson album, and when
‘HIStory’ was released, I
wasn’t disappointed.
I’d also been to see The Rolling Stones at Wembley
Stadium, and the self-styled ‘Greatest Rock & Roll Band’ could still do the
business and belted out their back catalogue in some style. And for
completeness, even The Beatles made something of a comeback,
having a hugely successful mini renaissance with the release of their Anthology
series – in fact in 1996 they ended as the biggest selling album artists for
the first time in nearly 30 years. Gradually building up my massive music
collection, I was grateful to receive their ‘Abbey Road’’ album as a
Christmas present in 1995.
Not only that, I was also happy as Michael Jackson attained the coveted
Christmas number one single (when it actually meant something!) with ’Earth Song’, holding off The Beatles’ ‘new’ track ‘Free as a Bird’, and the respective
versions of ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis and The Mike Flowers
Pops.
The range of music was immense, and I could waffle on about loads
more, but with the word count ticking up, I’ll summarise to say that we also
had the euphoria of Three Lions, taking the
already stunning Lightning Seeds further into orbit. Plus the
phenomenon of the Spice Girls:
Not forgetting Paul Weller’s ‘Stanley Road’ and the return
of George Michael – who’d been away even
longer than Michael Jackson. And of course, the Return of the Mack…
Maybe it was the
football?
This was also a monumental period for football. I’m not talking about
Euro ’96 though, although that WAS stirring for the memory banks in many ways
too, but ultimately football did NOT come home as we had ultimately wanted it
to. As alluded to above, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the football
anthem ‘Three Lions’ being played
from a pub or a car that summer – very catchy and emotive stuff.
No, I’m talking about the pitch invasion at Brighton and Hove
Albion’s Soldstone Goldstone Ground as fans drew attention to the
footballing world about just what was happening to our club.
Football often provides a backdrop to my recollections, but the
period 1995 – 1997 inclusive was about as intense as I suspect it will ever be
in my lifetime.
In April 1996 we played York City.
We’d heard rumours that ‘something’ would happen, but no-one expected the
scenes that followed at around 15 minutes into the game. I was in the North
Stand and watched on as thousands of fans poured onto the pitch in a bid to get
the game abandoned. The national media called it a ‘riot’, which it never was.
There was a family in front of us on the pitch eating strawberries and cream
from a picnic basket, whilst sitting on a rug. That is NOT the scene of a riot.
After a few minutes, the game was indeed abandoned as both goal crossbars were
snapped in half, making it impossible for the game to be restarted.
Thankfully it became quickly evident that hooliganism was not
alive and well in England
again, and that Brighton’s fans protests had
absolutely been a cry for help. Our club was being ravaged by money-men and
wrong doers, and we – the fans – were caring for it in a very animated way. It
carried on in a similar vein for another 12 months, when we ultimately proved
that off the field, fans united will never be defeated.
On the field it was very hard to get behind the team with such
aggravation going on, but once the directors had left the scene, the focus and
atmosphere at the home games in particular was spectacularly good, as we fought
for our very existence. For a passionate football fan, these were thrilling
times.
Maybe it was work?
Aged 20, I’d still not decided what sort of career I wanted to
have (at 40 I still haven’t!) but work was at least relatively care free and
fun during this time, as referred to in some of my earlier blogs:
Christmas at work in 1995 was the start of some proper
responsibility based grafting. My manager had broken her ankle just before
Christmas and had to take the whole period off work, so with the deputy store
manager having little faith in her understudy, I was asked to run the Deli over
Christmas. I loved my first taste of properly being in charge, and I pulled up
trees to make the counter as successful as possible over the main period of 21st-24th
December. Considering I was quite the novice, we did spectacularly well. I
finished at 5pm on Christmas Eve absolutely knackered, but I knew I’d done a
really good job and consequently I got my first ever promotion at work – with
my pay rising up to all of £6.50 an hour!
My achievement didn’t come without an element of jealousy from
others sadly. Two or three work colleagues, who up till then had been really
good friends of mine, turned on me simply because I wasn’t ‘one of the lads’
anymore in their eyes. Fair play to one of them, who some months later actually
apologised to me for saying I’d had an attitude problem.
I firmly believed that no-one had any grounds to be so unkind –
they turned on me just for effect. It made me think of something my Dad had
said to me years before, in that your work mates are never your friends – just
colleagues and acquaintances, and I should always bear that in mind. Maybe it’s
too much of a generalisation, but there are strong enough elements to compound
the theory on occasion. Bizarrely I got a second promotion at work just 6
months after the first and the new problem I had to contend with, was being
intimidated.
The store manager was literally a larger than life guy, and in
all honesty I don’t recall more than 3 or 4 conversations I ever had with him
in the few months we worked together. In the interview he asked me what I
thought about people with a big ego. I honestly answered that:
“I can’t stand that sort of person” – to which he
replied:
“Well you and me aren’t going to get along then!”
I still have no idea if he was joking. Either way, I spent most
of the first month hiding in the toilets on my own at lunch break.
And people say I wasn’t shy…!
Oh, and a top tip for y’all: Do NOT date work colleagues.
#learningcurve
Maybe it was miscellany?
In 1995 I started writing poetry. I’d never been that fussed
about reading poetry, let alone composing it, but I started in earnest and
began writing down thoughts and poems about relevant things to me and ended up
carrying on for years. It was always written in an emotional theme and always
with a lot hope and desire that one day I’d gain a particular kind of
contentment and happiness. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I more or
less ‘dried up’ writing at around the time my son was born. It seemed that
maybe as an unwritten statement many of my hopes had been reached.
I also had a car chase in the wee small hours with my lights out
one night in the summer of ’95! The least said about that the better…!
In 1996 I bought my first desktop personal computer. Hardly
anyone I knew had one – compare that to now, where people simply cannot operate
their lives without such similar derivatives. Ridiculously it cost over £2000!
I also played a lot of snooker around this time and frequently
went to ‘The 147 Club’ in Brunswick
Street, Hove,
which was always good fun. We always used to have a great laugh at the expense
of the bar staff there – in particular a guy we used to call ‘Serge’, after the
Bronson Pinchot character in the Beverly Hills Cop movies. One night a few of
us won the £250 ‘cash pot’ out of the fruit machine which was a nice little
bonus!
Maybe it was sociality?
I don’t know what changed, but from about mid 1995 I belatedly
started having a decent social life at last – even going out clubbing midweek,
whereas before I wouldn’t bother going out anywhere if I’d had a bath earlier
in the evening as it just felt like too much effort.
Quite often from 1995 and even more so into 1996 (even though I
usually had work the next day) I would end up nightclubbing down the Event II on a Tuesday or
the Paradox on a Thursday – the so called ‘student’ nights. The booze was as cheap
as chips (usually no more than £1.50 a drink) and there was a heavier emphasis
on playing a lot more of the music I liked. It was far more commercial than
would be heard on a Saturday at the same venues, so I was more inclined to
enjoy myself for that reason alone.
I even hit a spell of doing what most 20 year old boys should be
doing – namely being on the pull! Honestly this was a relief as I was starting
to think my middle name was Chastity. Friends and family even pondered that I
might be gay. I think my mum would’ve loved a big gay son!
It’s fair to say that I had no idea what I was myself though as
a) I had so little attention coming my way, and b) I was pretty uninclined to
try as I was too shy to ask anyone out anyway!
Anyways – actually managing to occasionally pull helped my confidence
no end and socially I felt I’d grown up a bit at last… though in my naivety I
recall getting stitched up very early in 1996. Me and some mates were at the
Paradox and I wound up buying this one girl drinks all night etc. only for her
to sod off without me come 2am
#morelearningcurves
I believe this was also the night when me and one of my mates got
out of our Taxi about half a mile from home and, (as drunk) fell over and had a
little sleep in the middle of the road! I reckon Taxis and any cars must have
just driven round us paying little attention – we must have been there for a
good twenty minutes though! I would guess it was the uncommon knocking back of
the Jack Daniels shots earlier in the evening that did for us…
Another nights’ exertions lead to the aerial of my first car (a
1978 brown Mini Clubman – RIP) being snapped off by one jealous colleague, and
an aggressive confrontation in a Sainsburys chiller by another jealous one! If
this was the norm, I’d clearly missed out on this sort of fun for years. #evenmorelearningcurves
Another funny night was had at the Irish pub ‘O’Neill’s’ (where,
incidentally, Brighton & Hove Albion was formed in 1901) with a
terrifically funny guy from work and his family and mates (all Irish.)
His brothers were playing in a band there, and we got absolutely
slaughtered on Guinness and I knocked back ten pints in just under two hours,
‘singing’ along to Irish songs I didn’t know the words to. I’d never drunk such
volume so quickly before, and I’ve not done it since either, but the atmosphere
was so good and everything just flowed perfectly. At around 10pm we staggered
over to the night club and had to straighten ourselves out to make sure we actually
got in – I remember being ordered to stop singing in the queue, or we wouldn’t
be allowed in. Nightclub bouncers were often a different breed, but I never once
got refused entry.
Maybe it was the Lime Green
summer?
1996 was a glorious summer – and for no other reason than everyone
seemed to be wearing lime green clothes for the duration, it was forever known
to me by that moniker. On the beach or seeing customers whilst I was at work…
it seemed to be the colour of choice everywhere.
Maybe it doesn’t matter…
I know that it Definitely Maybe wasn’t Maybelline.
But it was Definitely Maybe memorable to me.
