The scrapbook
This month a chance discovery has transported Paul down memory lane.
The youth of today probably take photos on a phone and keep them in some sort of digital album or app I guess. But back in the day I’m sure many of us kept scrapbooks. I had several, but in my formative years had a general activities one as a teenager where I kept entry tickets, bus trip tickets, programmes and certificates, but in my mid-teens I started a music one which became one dedicated to The Jam. I had almost forgotten about it but while decorating recently I found it hidden behind some other books in a cabinet. I appear to have started sticking things in it in 1979/80 although a few things are earlier. There is a sheet of the trio’s autographs from the Sheffield Top Rank in 1982, tickets for various gigs including a famous Paris one. There is an article about the band’s ‘bucket and spade tour’ which started at Skegness Festival Pavilion for the heady price of £4 for a ticket which could be applied for by post. Oh those were most certainly the days eh! I had a brief artistic period and there are some sketches in there that I did, and even a lino engraving. If you’re of a certain age you’ll recognise that as a very ‘school’ thing to do!
Studying these reviews; articles cut from NME, Melody Maker and Record Mirror it reminds me, indeed transports me back to being 17/18 again. Full of optimism and energy, the world was our oyster. Forty-plus years later it’s hard to get our heads around the fact that three-quarters of our lives are gone, yet looking back at this scrapbook it all feels like yesterday. Looking at the pictures of Rick, Paul and Bruce I remember dressing just the same, like many of us did. Fussing over growing the Steve Marriott hair, Fred Perry jumpers and generally looking skinny. Oh to be a 32in waist and 38in chest again!
There’s a little pocket labelled ‘Plectrum used by Paul Weller’ and I’m slightly annoyed that it’s been lost over the years, but I like to think that there could be things in the scrapbook that no one else has in the world. The likelihood is that no one else has the duplicated sheet saying that The Jam’s December 1 Wembley gig was sold out; but here’s a ticket for December 4 to avoid disappointment.
Some of those values, style cues and imagery have been part of our lives for all that time. They are intrinsically part of the broad lifestyle choices of scooterists, inseparable from and part of our culture.
The five years that The Jam were creating music have stayed with us all that time. The 41 years since I heard that The Jam were splitting up has gone like a flash. I remain pleased on one hand that those memories are not tainted by them becoming anything less than legendary over time. Yes, we have From The Jam and Weller Solo who are very far apart but fair play in some ways for never getting back together. Oasis were well past their peak when they split, but The Jam were still right up there and remain untarnished.
As I write this I’m listening to All Mod Cons and have a flashback of cursing my white Levi’s and white leather badger shoes after they were trampled and marked in a crush at the De Montfort Hall. And that is the good thing about looking through this scrapbook, being transported back to life as a teenager. Sweet memories and happy days that set me up for the rest of my life, even set some values that are still there today.
The memories come flooding back, almost like lyrics from a Jam song; fixing my Lambretta in the driveway, the gang coming round on a Sunday afternoon, lines of scooters outside the chosen pub on scooter club nights while we planned the next rally. Battling through the work week looking forward to the weekend, record shop on Mondays for the new releases, chart show on the radio with a cassette at the ready to record my favourite tracks. Then to the garage on a Sunday night to fill the scooter up for the week and pumping in two-stroke oil from the pump by the fuel!
Please tell me it really was only yesterday...
There’s a little pocket labelled ‘Plectrum used by Paul Weller’ and I’m slightly annoyed that it’s been lost over the years, but I like to think that there could be things in the scrapbook that no one else has in the world.