Brierly Hill 90210

As a teenager in the Gloucestershire countryside, financial opportunities were few and far between. The only way to indulge my fledgling love of music was to buy a handful of 7” singles a year with saved up birthday and Christmas money. The cheaper alternative was to record songs to cassette tape from the radio. The Sunday night chart show was essential listening, with finger poised over the record button should something good come on, hoping the DJ wouldn't talk over it. That would have been Tony Blackburn in 1980. Or, if you were lucky enough to have a whole tape spare, you'd record the entire show and pour over it afterwards. Music was a valued distraction from “the troubles” and “Thatchers Britain” that seemed to take up most of the time on grown-up TV. Meanwhile I tried to find something to fill that last 3-minutes of side 1 on my latest C-60.