Between meeting Martin in 1980 and taking my 'O' levels in 1983 several lucky things happened to me. Lucky in the respect of acquiring more music and fleshing out my knowledge of music.
My elder sister had started Sixth Form College in 1980 and, before long had embarked upon a relationship with a boy from a nearby town who had more new music for me. His name was Chris. He wore old jackets and overcoats from charity shops. He was like no one I had ever met and his record collection nicely complemented my growing array of tape cassettes of Martin's punk and new wave records. Chris brought around albums and singles from bands from the North West who were gathering press interest. I gladly accepted copies of Dragnet, Grotesque, Totale's Turn and Slates by The Fall and Unknown Pleasures and Closer by Joy Division (their singer just committed suicide, you know).
I purchased Crocodiles by Echo & The Bunnymen and Kilimanjaro by The Teardrop Explodes. I was about 14 years old. Everyone at school thought I was a twat.
Top of the Pops and the weekly Sunday evening Top 40 radio show kept me in touch with what the kids at school liked: The Specials, The Beat, Adam & The Ants, Madness, Ultravox, Blondie, Visage, etc. But my extra-curricular activities set me aside from everyone else. I was able to make connections.
Me: "You do know that Visage is made up from members of Magazine and Ultravox?"
Kids at school: "Who are Magazine?"
Me: "And of course, Rusty Egan and Midge Ure were in The Rich Kids with Glen Matlock from The Sex Pistols."
Kids at school: "Yeah, but isn't Sting cool?"
Like I say, everyone at school thought I was a tedious twat. I didn't really care, I'd given up trying to be popular. Anyway, other things had started to happen. I had started to venture further afield on Saturday afternoons, on the Merseyrail train into Liverpool and specialist record shops like Probe and Penny Lane.
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