It was a glorious night of discovery and it changed my life, I was never sure if that was a good or bad thing.

I try not to dwell in the past but as you get older, you do have a history. It never looked wonderful at the time but looking back, much of it was glorious.

I lived for awhile in the middle of nowhere. I would have been about 15 or 16 and the nearest neighbour was around 1/2 a mile away. I remember sitting in my bedroom looking out the window towards a town in the far distance, wondering when my life was going to start. I remember it so clearly, I felt like I was in limbo, neither child nor adult, living in what felt like purgatory. It is amazing how a feeling can stay with you, if only I'd known that my life had started but I have spent so much time waiting for things to happen to me that I became completely absorbed in what might happen rather than creating what I wanted to happen.

As a young lad, as with most teenagers, I had a bedroom covered in posters and above my bed was the Iron Maiden poster for the single for "Number of the Beast", Eddie holding the severed head of the Devil. I remember the day I bought that, I woke up during one of my "O" levels and decided I would get the bus into Aylesbury with the sole intention of buying that poster, as soon as the exam was done and I did. I wish that I had kept it but as with everything, childish things tend to find their way into the bin.

I remember getting into rock music, I was a firm Thin Lizzy fan and was already into AC/DC (Powerage, still one their best and most underrated albums). I was introduced by a couple of reprobates at school and they lent me a good armful of singles overnight. I listened to them all, such classics as "Paris by Air" Tyger of Pan Tang, "Restless" Gillan, "Number of the Beast" Iron Maiden and many others. It was a glorious night of discovery and it changed my life, I was never sure if that was a good or bad thing. I grew my hair and lived the music, getting the obligatory tattoos as soon as I was old enough, I had the leather jacket, went to the gigs and surprised people by actually being not a bad person. I liked a drink but didn't do drugs as I couldn't stomach them, the smell made me ill and on the occasions I did try it, I was dreadfully sick.

It was a time of simplicity, there were no smart phones or internet and telephone calls were a static affair, all coiled wires that became tangled till the cord became a knot of plastic and the calls were expensive, there had to be a real justification to make a call but we got by, we had a social life that was pre-planned and it seemed easier, more personal. God, I sound so old!

It was about living and the future always looked scary although I couldn't wait for it to happen to me. I'm not even sure when it did happen to me. I remember depressing times of greyness when I was lacking identity and doubting myself. It was a time of square holes and I was a round peg. I had long hair, no qualifications and tattoos. I owned a bad suit and spoke too fast, it was not an easy time to be me and it involved some time not working and other times working in dead end jobs or retail. I wanted a future, to earn lots of money but I didn't want to sacrifice or compromise my soul. It's funny how even now my music can dictate my life course and here I sit, infront of a desk with short hair, looking reasonably smart and respectable and inside I am the heavy metal kid I always was, hating the idea of compromise but old enough to know that I am, roughly, where I sometimes wanted to be. I was never the poet that I longed to be but that was the insecurity of words on the page, too personal, too close to the mark and I would guess that I couldn't have taken the rejection of it being rubbish, back then and maybe, even now, I think that is part of the reason that I never show it to people, maybe I hope to be discovered after my death when the stones of criticism can't hurt me. I am a little more thick skinned nowadays. years in sales will harden the heart to rejection and in the end you would rather a simple "No" than "maybe..."

I am not really sure on the purpose of this post, it is a ramble on various thoughts and a trip back, a journey I don't make very often but it is also my look back at some very dear friends that were with me for some of this journey, I won't mention their names but I think I learnt about friendship from them, a couple of people that I will always value even if I never see them again, although Tescos is a very busy place for old faces.

Just for the record, I am in perfect health as this does almost sound like a self written obituary!