Where I first heard...

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Every now and then, a song pops up and I know where I was when I first heard it.

You Tube has just suggested Lola and I know where I was to within a few yards. It was a Friday in 1970 and it was on the radio when the school bus ran out of fuel a few hundred yards after picking us up. This was in Cyprus and the journey to school was a daily treat, much more exciting that anything Alton Towers would dare offer - fifteen miles of dramatic roads, traversed as fast as possible.

The chap driving that morning was the owner of the small firm that provided our bus, he had four at the time, and actually worked part-time with my father on the base. He prided himself on the mechanical condition and reliability of his vehicles and was horrified when he realised what had happened. He was a Turkish Cypriot, living in Limassol, this was before the partition, and one of the coolest people I've ever known.

As the actual situation became clear, one of the lads ran home for a fuel container. Luckily, there was a filling station a few hundred yards away and the bus was going again after about fifteen minutes, with enough to get it to the filling station. After filling up properly, we headed off at tremendous speed, even though we were used to some dramatic driving on normal days. He was determined to get us there with the minimum delay, and he had another job to go to anyway.

During the journey, plans were laid for a hasty evacuation of the bus in a safe manner, we would leave from the front seats first, so there was no crowding, "like paratroopers" as he told us, exit and remain to the left of the bus, so he could swing right and head off immediately, without running any of us over.

Normally, we got off the bus a few hundred yards from the school, in a service road, and walked the last bit, but he was going to head straight in, to get us there with the minimum delay. I know it was a Friday, because that was the only day there was a full school assembly, outdoors, on a tarmac playground, to the right of the entrance road.

Halfway through some hymn or other, we hurtled into the school grounds - in order to execute his intended right swing about, we immediately turned left, off the paved road, and began the right turn on an area of loose rock, eventually coming to a halt in an all-enveloping dust cloud. We evacuated the bus within seconds, as planned, and he zoomed off.

However, the dust was so thick that we could only see about six feet initially, and nobody had kept their sense of direction in the excitement. We knew approximately where we were, but all sense of direction had gone, we could only wait for the dust to clear. Eventually, those nearer the road began to see enough to move towards the assembly area, and the rest of us could see them and followed.

According to outsiders, we appeared like characters from a Western film, emerging from a desert dust-storm.

Lola always brings that back. A great day.

 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Another one that I can pin down to a few yards - oddly, it involves the same bus as the story above. This started just as we swung into the stop - on time, this time.

It was immediately obvious, though nobody had heard it before, that this was an 'important' record that would last and we all sat there and listened through to the end.


It was just here.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Another 'first' has popped up - I first heard this on my tenth birthday, as I walked past a café in Bristol. It had just started on the juke box and I stopped, as it was clearly something that I hadn't heard before - the sitar was a bit of a shock at the time. I stood in the doorway and listened to it all,


I'm fairly sure that it was here, if you wish to re-enact it - it's within a few yards, anyway - it seems to have still been a café a few years ago.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
'Paint It Black' was the day's earworm during a Sunday School trip to Dan-y-Ogof caves on July 23rd 1966. The reason I can pinpoint the day was that the 1966 World Cup was on and someone had a radio and was listening to the Portugal / North Korea game.

I'm not sure if I can contribute to "When I First Heard", but I can to "When I Rediscovered" ....

Probably around 10 years ago, I was in Waterstones in the Guildhall when this gem came on their system - something I hadn't heard since probably the mid-1970s and which I'd totally forgotten about.

 

Jade-clothing

Well-Known Forumite
This was in Cyprus and the journey to school was a daily treat, much more exciting that anything Alton Towers would dare offer - fifteen miles of dramatic roads, traversed as fast as possible.


There are some 'interesting' roads in Cyprus aren't there. This one was up to the Adonis Baths. Second scariest journey of my life!
 

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
'Paint It Black' was the day's earworm during a Sunday School trip to Dan-y-Ogof caves on July 23rd 1966. The reason I can pinpoint the day was that the 1966 World Cup was on and someone had a radio and was listening to the Portugal / North Korea game.

I'm not sure if I can contribute to "When I First Heard", but I can to "When I Rediscovered" ....

Probably around 10 years ago, I was in Waterstones in the Guildhall when this gem came on their system - something I hadn't heard since probably the mid-1970s and which I'd totally forgotten about.

Poly canteen music - I doubt I've heard it this side if 1980, yet I remember the whole thing, but I wouldn't have had the slightest idea who it was by or even what the title was. Good find.

There are some 'interesting' roads in Cyprus aren't there. This one was up to the Adonis Baths. Second scariest journey of my life!
Lost a wheel off an Austin Cambridge in a place like that - found that he had no spare - took an hour and a half to find it and get it back up the hill - then found we only had two nuts and they were stripped - had to bash them a bit oval between two rocks to get them to grip enough to hold the wheel on.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
I'm not sure if I can contribute to "When I First Heard", but I can to "When I Rediscovered" ....

Probably around 10 years ago, I was in Waterstones in the Guildhall when this gem came on their system - something I hadn't heard since probably the mid-1970s and which I'd totally forgotten about.

Another one I'd forgotten about and then "rediscovered", this time about 15 years ago one March. To use up some leave, I'd started started taking a lot of time off in March, mostly during Cheltenham week. I remember calling in Baswich Library and borrowing the ELP Greatest Hits CD and being re-introduced to this ....

 
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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Another one from the Poly canteen Tannoy - sitting by the window with a cup of 'coffee with'. A couple of weeks later, we had the real thing on the other side of the room.

 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Another one that I can remember where I was when I first heard it.

The old Co-op Department Store had a cookery section in the basement, accessed via some stairs from the Crabbery Street side entrance and this came on the Tannoy, a few minutes after I had entered.

I had no idea what this song was all about at the time, not being a TV person, and, at the time, the room had me, the two staff members and about five other customers - all the others being women who almost certainly didn't watch South Park, either, if they even knew what it was.

I began to wonder if I was hallucinating as I heard the lyrics, as nobody else seemed to be aware of what was going on.


Over the next few days, the song was referred to a few times in the media and I was able to quiz a teenager about it and confirm that it had actually happened as I had perceived it. I was relieved to decide that I had not had a stroke or some sort of seizure.

Phew!
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
First heard when I was training at the Shipping Federation Engine Room Ratings Training School situated on Pier Head, Liverpool. We used to hang out in a typical sixties café right opposite the Shipping Federation Office. It was the backend of 1965 and I was 18 at the time.
Visited Liverpool and Pier Head a couple of years ago on a Radio/Electronics Officers re-union. WOW has that city ever changed … all the buildings I remember training in LONG GONE. But I have to say, I was impressed by the way Liverpool has rejuvenated itself. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

 

Tilly

Well-Known Forumite
You need a password

Then you press a button a box down by your knee

Then you go down the steps to the basement


There's a coat rail

Pull it

A door opens


You're in
 
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