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Of course, during this time the scene was
beginning to expand and with it my appreciation. I still remember
the night in 1979 when Hilly announced the confirmation of the
first Caister for which you received a pass in the form of a star
badge (yeah, that would work nowadays, eh Brian?). For that we'd
get Hilly and regular warm up Jeff Young while Froggy,
who was making a name for himself down the road at Zero 6, was
also there but who were these other exotic creatures with names
like Chris
Brown and Sean
French? Well I was only young.
And I did have a wedge.
Pretty quickly I realised I'd become married to the scene, so
much so that it caused me to get divorced from an impressive list
of girlfriends. I ended up going to the Showstoppers holiday in
Cape D Age alone, after being given the "it's the South of
France or me" ultimatum. While a few others failed to come
to terms with the fact that Sunday to Wednesday was the pictures
or saving up, but Thursday,
Friday's and Saturday's was
for the other `alf & clubbing.
During those years I also received a promotion from the
Funkin Idiot's tribe (uniform: silk shorts, jelly sandals, whistles
and shaving foam) to the respected Southend Soldiers who can count
amongst their many conquests an appearance on the radical yoof
show Revolver (compare: Mr Chris
Hill).
During the early eighties the circuit really started to grow with
regular all-dayers and constant trips to the likes of Flicks in
Kent, The Royalty In Southgate and Frenchies in Camberely, and
frankly I didn't want it all to end. Well it didn't but it did
reach a genuine peak for me at Caister 10 where there were 4 days
instead of 3, a finale on the footie pitch in glorious weather
and the loss of my Caister Cherry for the genuine bargain price
of six prescribed pills and a warning from my Doctor not to drink
for six months.
Although I was a Caister kid through and through right up to the
end of its first era, the backstage politics of which I was blissfully
unaware saw the original Mafia way of life split off into the
likes of Prestatyn and Bognor, which were OK, sure, but they weren't
Caister.
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