Blog #1,000 Desert Island Jelltex

Hello and welcome to my 1,000th blog. I have been trying to think of how to make this special, and so what I thought I would do is list my eight favourite tracks, or tracks that link to important milestones in my life. Some tracks you will know, others may come as a surprise, as in true Desert Island Disc style, these are not all my favourites, but as I said, important track to me and my life.

I was born as the only child of two only children, which means there was only ever six of us who gathered for Christmas and other occasions. I was quiet if happy. My Father worked in the building industry, as a carpenter. Eventually, he went back into industry, the shipbuilding industry, until that was privatised and went bust within two years.

My father was a union shop steward, and so my political beliefs are very socialist in outlook. As a result of my life since, I have visited many stately homes and country houses, with the occasional palace thrown in. And I see how the landed gentry and royals benefited from the enclosure act, corralling common land for their own use and profit. Whilst the common man suffered in poverty.

Billy Bragg is someone I loved since his first album, Life’s a Riot, and saw him live at least once. Memory can play tricks on us at this age. A World Turned Upside Down is based on a true story how a group of people, The Diggers, set up their own common land in defiance of the landowners. No surprise when they were wiped out by the landowners and local militia.

In 1649
To St. George’s Hill,
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Came to show the people’s will
They defied the landlords
They defied the laws
They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs

We come in peace they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the land in common
And to make the wasteland grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it will be
A common treasury for all

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command

They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feed the rich
While poor men starve

We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Nor pay rent to the lords
Still we are free
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory Stand up now

From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers’ claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
You Diggers all
Stand up for glory
Stand up now!



When it comes down to my all time favourite track, it comes down to picking between Love Will Tear us Apart and Song to the Siren. It’s like choosing between a favourite between your children, I would imagine. Maybe not that bad, but you know.

In the end it is Love Will Tear us Apart that gets the mod. Everything about it is perfect, from the simplicity, the apparent uptempo melody, the mournful bass from Hooky, and then the most devastating lyric detailing the breakdown of a relationship.

When it came out, I was into rock, AC/DC, and so did not appreciate it until years later. By then me and all my friends were huge Joy Division and New Order fans, and some would discuss the meaning for Ian’s words for hours on end. At the beginning of 1993, after winning some money, I topped up my record collection with all of Joy Division’s records, something I have not regretted, even if I don’t play them that often, they are always there.

So, this is for all my friends from school, all those who I am still in contact with, those I have lost contact with and those who are no longer with us. So, for Jim and Chris:

When routine bites hard,
And ambitions are low,
And resentment rides high,
But emotions won't grow,
And we're changing our ways,
Taking different roads.

Then love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.

Why is the bedroom so cold?
You've turned away on your side.
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect runs so dry.
Yet there's still this appeal
That we've kept through our lives.

But love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.

You cry out in your sleep,
All my failings exposed.
And there's a taste in my mouth,
As desperation takes hold.
Just that something so good
Just can't function no more.

But love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.



In 1990, I joined the RAF for what turned out to be 15 years. In that time I went to such diverse places as Southern Italy, The Falklands, Las Vegas and Wolverhampton. It was, for the most part, wonderful. Of course I met some wonderful people, and some not so wonderful ones too. Without two friends who joined up first, and told me what it was like, I would never have thought of joining, but it is something I never regretted.

There are many songs that remind me of my time in the RAF, and in a surprise move it was almost Shania Twain’s That Don’t Impress me Much that nearly won out. Back in 1999, during a detachment to Nellis AFB, we took along a ‘baby’ engineering officer with us, to act as the fourth person in the prep team, in the understanding that she was there to prep, not to be an engineering officer, and be under the command of our Sgt, Dave D. Needless to say, things did not go to plan, and the four man team was regularly a three man team as Rach did officer type things, or could just not handle the pace and heat of working in the desert. The biggest song at the time was the afore mentioned Shania Twain one, and so John Weller and myself began singing a new version which began: “So, you’re an engineering officer, that don’t impress me much”. We bought the CD from the BX, and had it start every time we got into the wagon.

It drove Dave mad trying to work out what we were angry about and why this song, so we did tell him in the end. Working 15 hour days in 110 degree heat in the desert was hard, hard work, especially when the liney were on Deci shifts. However, work hard and play hard, and we went out every night to a casino or another for some drinking, fine eating. This lasted for two weeks, on three hours sleep a night, until we all broke on my 34th birthday in Club Rio when we all fell asleep at a table and were asked to leave. At nine in the evening.

Back in September 1990, during basic training at RAF Swinderby on the Lincolnshire wolds, the on camp bar, The Newcomers Club, has a video jukebox, and my favourite track of the time, and the one song that takes me back to those carefree days is Hard to Handle by the Black Crowes. The video was a montage of scene from a tour in sometown USA, and took me away from the endless drill, PT and GSK that made our days.



I have been married twice before. I am not bitter about it. I am bitter that my two ex-wives married for other reasons other than love. I am sure that either of them, if you were ask them, would say something different. I can only speak from my point of view and this is where my words are coming from.

I never thought I would marry, but then into my parent’s home came this Yugoslavian woman, whom they had met on holiday in Yugoslavia. She stayed for a couple of weeks in 1988, and again for what should have been six months in 1991. It is clear now that her parents were aware that war was coming, and she wanted to find herself an English husband so she could stay here. There were three candidates, me, Dougie and James. And I was chosen, possibly because we saw each other during the weekends when I came home from the RAF. I fell hook, line, sinker and copy of the Angling Times for her, and was naive to believe that we would live happily ever after.

It did not pan out that way, and we argued more and more, until the summer of 1994 it became clear things were going to end badly. I left the married quarter on May Day 1995, and instantly felt better about things. It was clear that I was never going back. She realized about a month later when I was constantly putting off any decision about moving back.

The divorce came through over the festive period between Christmas and New Year at the end of that year, when I was home celebrating what turned out to be Dad’s last Christmas. After he died in April the next year, I got posted back to the UK, and never saw Andrea again, although she did contact me about eight years ago, seeing if I would take her and her children back, (she re-married, and quickly got pregnant after we spit).

By this time I had met someone else, and somehow we ended up getting married, in what really was an attempt to save money. We had bought a house in Lowestoft, and travelling back and forth from Wiltshire, where I was now posted, was killing my bank account. Marriage did not make things any better, and in the end we hated each other more than I ever did Andrea.

When I got my fitter’s course in November 1999, I knew I was never going back, I found out about her affair, and put in motion divorce proceedings. It was messy, drawn out and spiteful, at least on her part. And she used her son in the battles, with him telling me the last time I saw him in May 2000 that: “Mum says I mustn’t tell you that I love you any more, or call you Dad”. I can honestly say I never used him in any way against her, God knows it would have been easy.

Sadly, she was slowly killing herself with diabetes, which took her less than four years later, as the doctors had predicted with before the final stroke, losing her legs, her sight. Such a waste and a child motherless at 16.

I found this via my Bank Manager who told me ‘under the circumstances’ they were prepared to close our joint bank accounts. What circumstances? So I was told she had died, and I found her obituary online.

Back in 1996, whilst in Vegas with the RAF, I picked up a copy of A Few Small Repairs, and the final song says everything I felt about both marriage breakdowns. To make a relationship work or fail takes both sides, I take my share of the blame.

Well I don't tell jokes
And I don't take notes
You been sayin'
There ain't much hope
You got nothin' on me

I got friends uptown And they don't talk down They've been keepin me safe and sound We got somethin' to be

So in case you hadn't noticed
I'm alright
Not like it was before
Things used to be so hopeless
But not tonight
Tonight I'm walkin' out that door

I'm not gonna cry
When wavin' goodbye
And I know this time
You got nothin' on me

Well it ain't that tough
To score the usual stuff
One heartache is more than enough
There ain't nothing to see
Nothing

I got friends uptown
And they still come 'round
They've been keepin' me safe and sound
We got somethin' to be

So don't you try to save me
With your advice
Or turn me into something else
'Cuz I'm not crazy
And you're not nice

Baby if you do Keep it to yourself

I'm not gonna cry
And I'm wavin' goodbye
And I know this time
You got nothin' on me

(No nothin' on me)

I'm not gonna cry
And I'm wavin' goodbye
And I know this time
You got nothin' on me

I'm not gonna cry
And I'm wavin' goodbye
And I know this time
You got nothin' on me



Jools and I have very similar tastes in music, and we had many identical records and CDs in our collections. As well as this, we have discovered so much great new music together, via the radio and in particular, Radio 6.

I am lucky in having met two wonderful women, one of whom I ended up marrying. I learnt to trust and love again, which is a wonderful gift.

Jools and I met via the internet in 2004, met in person in 2006, and married in 2008. It just seemed the right thing to do. By mid-2007, I had moved to Kent permananetly, at least when I wasn’t working offshore on the survey boats. If you go back to the beginning of this blog, back in September 2008, you will find a description of our honeymoon in Tuscany. We were sitting outside a small café one evening, situated in an ancient walled town, and on the radio White Winter Hymnal came on the radio. It was just perfect.

As well as loving Fleet Foxes, we have been to see many gigs together: Arcade Fire, Bellowhead, Ting Tings, The Bad Shepherds, Eliza Carthy, all of which have been shared experiences, and sharing life’s ups and downs is what being in a relationship means.



As we are nearing the end of this blog, it is time to fill the remaining three slots with three of my all time favourite tunes. Not bad this as I am making it up as I go along, turning out pretty good it seems to me.

Anyway, one song that is guaranteed to either lift me from a trough of misery or raise my spirits even higher. After a bad day delivering dangerous chemicals or played when I’m working out makes me go that little bit harder, faster and further.

Another cold cup of coffee from The Clash.

In 2005, I left the RAF, and in celebration, I planned a trip to the US. It turned into a rambling and sprawling nine weeks holiday, the centerpiece was a four week long drive down the west coast from Seattle to LA along route 101 and California route 1.

Looking back it was probably the best thing I ever did, as I weaned myself off the over-reliance I had on service life and its demands. I spent two weeks with a friend in New Hampshire, we drove to Niagara for a short holiday. A holiday within a holiday if you like, then I flew to Seattle collected a Mustang convertible, as you do, for the trip down to LA.

Two weeks or so away is pretty much what I had had during my time in the RAF, so with my trip entering the third week, and me having 28 days with little planned ahead, just the open road, I felt free for the first time. Free to make my own decisions and choices.

I had a great time, and the details are recorded in two sets of shots on Flickr, with pictures of course. But it was driving through Napa Valley, the roof was down on the Mustang, and She Bangs the Drums came on the CD player. It all made sense, the past was yours, but the future is MINE.

But, we’re all out of time……….



And so to the final choice of mine.

During the 1980s, I spent most weekday evenings, like many people my age, and those younger and even older, listening to a radio show on Radio 1. John Peel was our hero, playing the best songs of today, yesterday, and as it turned out, tomorrow too. I recorded many songs off his show, and still have the tapes even now. I still play them, listening to his inbetween song banter, usually apologizing for playing the preceding record at the wrong speed or the wrong side.

Oh how we miss him today. We will never see another who was so passionate about music, not the bands, just the music.

In choosing which sing to play from all those which he championed, and I grew to love is difficult, and indeed, even as I write these words, I still don’t know which song it is I am going to choose. Anything by The Smiths, The Fall (of course), New Order would be appropriate or indeed, perfect. But it should be something that only he would play, something that he played first, and in the years that followed, he was proved right. Hmmm, let me think about that a while.

I was going to choose Coup by 23 Skidoo, but something only Peely (and Tony H Wilson) saw, was the Happy Mondays. I bring you WFL.

Turns out I was right in the first place after finding that the bassline was nicked from this for Block Rocking Beat, so it is Coup after all.



For my book, I would take Spike Milligan’s war diaries, Goodbye Soldier if pushed for just the one. Not too fussed about a luxury, but I suppose a camera to record my adventures on the island. And if I had to pick just one track; Train in Vain.

Here's to the next thousand, hope you liked this blog and thanks for joining me along for the ride.