In our teens, one of our number decamped from North to East London. He went to Leytonstone Sixth Form College, and thus began the Leytonstone Years. We seemed to spend an awful lot of time on the Central Line, high-tailing it over to East London - mainly because he had an awful lot of cute friends (this might have had something to do with the fact that most of us went to all-girl schools at the time - I can't believe it's taken me 20 years to cotton on to the appeal of an otherwise pretty ordinary suburb.) At first we circled round each other a bit territorially, like cats, but did some major bonding over cider and magic mushrooms at Glastonbury one year.
I'll always be fond of David Beckham, nanny-shagging, Golden Balls, vanity, dodgy haircuts and all, because his accent reminds me so strongly of that momentous meeting, the brief but beautiful coming-together of the North London girls and the Leytonstone boys. They were pretty fierce at imposing their musical tastes on us - my first memory of one Mr Austin was us playing My Bloody Valentine on the tape deck (remember those?) and him saying 'What's this crap then?' Their preferences were as follows:
The Meters
Otis Redding
Jimi Hendrix
Otis Redding
The Neville Brothers
Otis Redding
Sam & Dave
Otis Redding
Funkadelic
Otis Redding
Like that. It could have been worse.
I know for at least one of my readers, the following tune will be like Proust and his madeleine in musical form, but even if not, please clickety click - this is some funky music.
About teaching and crying
1 day ago
11 comments:
Oooh - those boys sound coool! That list reads as a rundown of what I liked to listen to too around that age. xx
Christ on a bike. WHICH school in North London??
Those boys do indeed sound very cool. You girls sound cool as well, though, with your My Bloody Valentine tape. Downloading now - we do like a bit of New Orleans funk here at Quinquireme Towers.
I should imagine that if you went to a single sex school boys always seemed strange and alluring, whereas we co-ed types knew that they were just spotty, overripe and annoying.
Mind you, at my school, anyone who liked music other than Pink Floyd circa The Wall or Fleetwood Mac circa Rumours was considered to be very strange and probably in need of a stay at a high security unit. People like all that stuff in an ironic way now, but at the time it seemed very dreary indeed!
They were cool - I went out with one. They never left though. Still there.
At my school, the only music I remember the girls liking was Chris de Burgh.
*shudder*
Fortunately I was guided in the right direction by my little brother, who made me listen to the Sisters of Mercy and XTC and Einstuerzende Neubauten.
You can't beat a bit of Otis. :)
RoMo - you are my arbiter of cool x
Mangonel, I was at Camden School for Girls - and you?
Jolly good, Patroclus. We were misfits pretty much at school. Thank heavens for boys, they are good at providing interesting music, I find.
Sar, right, if we'd have known back then...
Betty, I was at a mixed until 6th form, but the boys at school weren't my cup of tea at all. Schoolkids were so narrow-minded with music. Wonder if they are now?
Rad, he was only 26 when he died - 26! He sounds like he sings with a lifetime of experience...
I like the Meters.
Oh and nasal squeaky Essex accents rule.
Have you been to Leytonstone recently? A new Tescos killed it off almost single-handedly, though presumably being close to the 'Olympic Village' will be the final deathblow.
The boating lake's still good, though.
My memory of first meeting Mr Austen was after us North London girls had fully exhausted ourself by each declaring in a random and haphazard manner which of our body parts we wanted to pierce or tattoo. A hitherto silent Mr Austen, with his slow Leytonstone drawl (think Henry's cat) retorted, 'I'm going to have a crow bar inserted in my srotum'. And with that, I was in love.
Post a Comment