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I went to school at the one on our estate, Woods Loke. It was a modern progressive place, or seems to me looking back. There was no set curriculum and it was up to use to do the work set on Monday before the end of the week. For someone so easily given to daydreaming, this was never going to end well. And it was also a school that never set homework, so I never did any, nor was in the habit, so when I started at Middle School, I never did it there wither.

Grades were to suffer. Badly.

All I can really remember from WOods Loke was the large flowery patterned curtains that hung everywhere, the smell of stale milk from the small bottles we used to drink at morning break, and being asked, in all seriousness one morning, if I wanted to do school work or watch a moon landing on TV? So I watched the moon landing, no idea which one, on a large black and white TV and a wheeled stand.

From my second week at school, I decided I was to old to be walked by Mum, and anyway she was working nights at the local cold store, so I took myself to school each day, acame home for lunch where a packed lunch and a flask of sweet coffee would be waiting for me. One day, I took a group of school friends on a tour of the family house, and took them into my parent's bedroom to meet Mum who was fast asleep.

When my parents were little, there were schools for each sex; Dad went to Roman Hill and Mum to the Harris. So when I was offered the choice of which one I wanted to go to, Mum said I would go to the Harris, now it was a mixed comprehensive. Most of my old friends went to Roman Hill, but Andrew Ellis and I went to the Harris, a twenty minute bike ride from home, near to the centre of town.

There, I got a new group of friends, stayed friends with Andrew, but not so much. I had new friends, Kevin, Adrian, David, though we lived in different parts of town, so did not meet out of school much, so there was Andrew and Stephen to be friends with and fall out with, over and over.

Next door to my parents, the house was sold and friends of my parents moved in, Greta with her two children, James and Charlotte. James I knew from primary school, but he went to Roman Hill now, so we were not close friends, not really distant friends, but that was to change.

In 1978, the local authority opened a new High School, and I was asked again which one I wanted to attend, the old Denes or the new Benjamin Britten. As our heads had been filled with horror stories about being juniors at Denes, the chance for all to be new bugs was too strong, so i left my circle of friends from the Harris and went to Benji.

Benji looked like, and still does, a space station, or a Dr Who set on the edge of town looking towards Oulton village over the fields a mile away. We could cycle there through the estate and by a round bridleway over the fields.

I met up with old friends from Junior school, new ones from Roman Hill, all of us in a shiny new school that was only half finished. So, we ventured into the worlds of physics, chemistry, biology, history and geography together, me still not doing homework, so I fell behind and sank ever lower. I did have some great friends, many of whom I am still in contact today, and we boned over music.

Music. Punk had exploded whilst I was at Middle School, I can remember the excitement of finding out that the Sex Pistols were going to be on Top of the Pops one week. I don't remember much else, the Bomtown Rats maybe, but we were more into pop music then, more Boney M and Clout I seem to recall. But at high school we bonded not over punk of rock, but the Electric Light Orchestra.

ELO.

Not sure which one of them was the first to introduce us to the band, but soon we all were fans Fans in the sense that we said we liked them, some even had a record or two by them. Mum bought me tapes of A New World Record and Out of the Blue, but as we all got paper rounds and Saturday jobs, we were all able to buy records. There was a copy of The Light Sines on Vol. 2 that was passed around to each of us at birthdays As my birthday is at the end of the school year, I ended up with it in my small collection. I played the first track and hated it. But told Ian Stacey that I really really liked it, knowing he gave it to me for the same reason I gave it to my parents.

I did do my German homework once, prepare for a vocab test. An amazing feeling to have done so, and got 8/10. Mrs Dring asked who I had copied off, so I didn't bother again. Doing German meant being able to go on exchange trips, and I went on two, both to Burgwedel near Hannover.

Our German class travelled from Harwich to Bremen on an overnight ferry, sleeping in couchettes, causing absolute mayhem until the middle of the night when we finally fell asleep. We were left with a three hour train journey to Hannover where a coach picked up up. Second time it was a train all the way from Calais, and parts of that went all the way to Moscow, and on the train were real Russians dressed in thich coats and fur hats as I remember, which must be wrong as it was June and in the middle of a heatwave.

We attended school when we were there, mostly language lessons; English, French, Russian and Spanish, as well as trips out, including the one where we all invaded East Germany. Here is a potted account:

So, October 1979; we went on an exchange trip to Burgwedel near Hannover. One day we went on a trip to Goslar and then to view the border between the east and West Germany; the Iron Curtain itself!

So, our exchange partners thought it a great idea to trespass over the border and have a look at the fence and mine fields beyond.

Yes, schoolchildren invade East germany!

Two guards came down on a huge motorbike whith the biggest gun I have ever seen to investigate this latest challenge to the glorious DDR.

So, we posed for pictures, and threw things onto the minefield.

The guards took our picture, the number plate of the bus we had all travelled in, traced the bus, and took the West German government to court and got all tourist busses banned within 2Km of the border, and got a huge fine as well.

All because of us.

I was sure I had a shot of the minefield and guards, but have lost them. This is all that remains, sadly.

And then we had a riot and foodfight at the town hall during the official twinning ceremony. We made it onto the front page of the local paper. Our teacher, Mr Dyer, was not impressed.

My best memory is going into Hanover on the train and the area around the main railways station, shops and subways, all with the smell of sweet cooked peanuts and other wonderful things. When I went back 15 years later on leave from the RAF, it smelt the same. I also bought a copy of Out of the Blue there, spending a good portion of the cash my parents had given me to spend the two weeks I was away.

My exchange partner also took me to see the Rocky Horror show when I was there, travelling into the city on the tram at night, then seeing people dressed up for the show, even then, people in what looked like glamorous underwear. I wondered where they were going. We would meet them in the cinema, where they shouted along with the film and threw rice at the wedding scene. I transfixed me, and I am still a fan all these years later.

And then I discovered rock.

Hard rock.

Heavy Metal.

NWOBHM.

New Wave of British Heavy Metal, in case you didn't know.

It became all Saxon, Iron Maiden, Def Leopard, Samson and others. I listened to Tommy "TV on the Radio" Vance, we all did, except when the Radio Caroline Roadshow was on at the old South Pier Pavillion. Where we stood in denim and leather and shook our heads playing imaginary guitars until the lights came on and we walked home.

Thing is, you can hear the DJ say, and I quote: "If you've got a case of rock n roll fever, you need to call Doctor Doctor", and UFO's song would start up. I mean, it all got a tad repetitive. Quickly. We used to go to youth club.

Youth club took place at the community centre on Tuesday nights, and from eight till ten an adult played tunes for us. 90 minutes of the Jacksons, Brothers Johnson, Chic and so on, 20 minutes of mod, and two or three rock tracks, usually Paranoid, Whole Lotta Rosie. We stood and shook our heads whilst the mods mocked us.

In fairness, we deserved it.

But as 1981 dawned, we heard a new sound. Electropop.

Electropop was a name given to all things synthy: Human League, Depeche Mode, Heaven 17, Soft Cell, Blancmange and so one. We had first heard it on the compilation, Some Bizarre Album, and some went on to be famous, some not so. But then there was New Order.

New Order were the real deal, though mainly for being Joy Division after Ian Curtis had died. I can remember people in the 6th form common room having spent the previous night listening to Decades and writing down the lyrics and then spending dinner time discussing what Ian had meant. I wan't a fan then, I was getting there, but not quite.

I had used my Dad's record player up to Christmas 1980. He had bought a new fangled "music centre" in May 1979 before the Conservatives out up VAT. So he had this huge Hitachi thing, which was very nice, but I could only use it when they were out. Then, after a year of pestering, I got my own.

I just needed records.

It was made by Philips, had dreadful sound quality, none of the tapes I made over the three years I had it were of any quality I could use later. But it was mine and I could play what songs I wanted when I wanted. How my parents must have regretted having the speakers fixed to the wall so my hard rock could echo through the house.

I left behind hard rock and embraced the shiny new electropop, as we all did. We had outgrown the Youth Club and now began to attend prober clubs and discotheques, or what passed for them in our home town, stuck on the arse end of England.

And then there were gigs.

East Anglia was less than 3 hours from the centre of London. Might have been 3 light years fr the gigs we had in our town. There was the Gaumont in Ipswich, where I would see Echo and the Bunnymen at in 1983 or 84, the Pavillion in West Runton, where the rock and hard rock acts would visit. That was up the coast the other side of Cromer, for those of us without cars or too young to drive, might as well as been on the far side of the moon.

And then there was the LCR.

The Lower Common Room at the University of East Anglia, where, during the 5 months of term time a year, would have gigs. And there might be coaches running from Lowestoft to Norwich to see the gigs there. It was on one of those that I went to see Iron Maiden at the beginning of 1981 just before my love affair with all things metal ended. Coming face to face with bikers and greasers, much older and higher than we were, was a shock. We were dressed in our new denims and leathers, shook our heads to the band and our ears rang for two days or more after. But soon I was in pixie boots, hair cut into a wedge and thinking about the next edition of the NME.

I had grown up, slowly and all of a sudden I now read the NME rather than Record Mirror, and I listen to Peel rather than Tommy. John Peel that is.

New worlds of music opened up with John Peel. At the time I started listening to him, he was in to German oompah music, as well as the usual stuff. I could not wait until ten the next evening when the adventure would start all over again. What wonders would he play next, where would he take my tastes?

In 1979, Thatcher came into power, and soon after unemployment stalked the land, as who industries were thrown out with the trash. Unemployment rose to over 1 in 10, just as I was due to leave school. Those left behind rioted, it was an exciting and scary time to be 16. Britain and Argentina went to war over some distant islands, and Thatcher rebranded herself as a war hero. I was scared to leave school, so agreed to stay on a year in the 6th form to retake the exams I was expected to fail.

I passed English, the one I was most expected to fail, so bummed in the 5th form, listening to my new Walkman and talking about socialism with the upper 6th.

But the real world, the world of politics and unemployment were calling, and there was no avoiding. Where would it take the young Jelltex?

To the world of white goods, at least at first.