1981

I've not blogged much recently.  It's partly because I've been busy moving house in the UK, restoring our French gite to its pre-Covid neglect state, and working, but also because the world has become so mad and irrational I don't know what I can add that's novel or useful.

So instead I'm going to tell a personal story that has no moral or deep meaning, only occurred to me as I was applying decking oil this morning, but does show some of the unexpected connections life can throw up.  I'm going to take you back to the school summer holidays of 1981, when I was a slightly gauche, but sporty 14 year old. (As opposed to now, when I'm a slightly gauche, but sporty, 53 year old...)

It was the summer of Botham's Ashes and riots in the UK. Neither passed me by, but neither impinged on my life very much either. Every morning would see me doing my paper round, and I spent the rest of my time engaged in various other pursuits.  One of those was trainspotting.  Forgive me, I'm from Crewe, where you were an outcast if you weren't a trainspotter.  I spent many an hour over the summer of 1981 sitting on Platform 1 of Crewe railway station "classing my 87s" (translation: endeavouring to spot every member of a particular type of locomotive, and prove this by underlining the numbers in the Thompson trainspotters' bible). It was simple, cheap entertainment, of the sort I doubt many 14 year olds are interested in now.

I was three or four years into my appreciation of pop music too in 1981, obsessively recording chart positions in each week's Top 40.  In fact, I had a brief moment of fame when I noticed that no number 1 records whatsoever over a four year period had either entered the chart or had a stopoff at number 4 on its way to the top. I wrote to Mike Read with this pearl of wisdom, which he duly shared with the Radio 1 breakfast show audience. It's fair to say that friends and acquaintances were more impressed with my fleeting national fame than my chart insight. And a few others took great delight in trawling back through the record books to find previous number 1's that had had a week at number 4.  Anyway, the point is that a band called Depeche Mode first charted in the summer of 1981, so beginning a [to date] 39 year appreciation of that group by me, and through most of their genres.  They were the first concert I attended alone in 1983, and the band I think I've seen most often. And the only one with a bar dedicated to them in which I've drunk (in Riga, Latvia).

At the end of the summer of 1981, on one of the last days before the return to school, we had a family trip down to the Long Mynd valley near Church Stretton in Shropshire, one of several consecutive years we did so. I spent the day climbing the hills and building dams in the streams there. It was a blissful last hurrah before I went back to school to start my O Level courses, and more glamorously average two goals a game over the Cheshire inter-school football league season.

So, Crewe railway station, Depeche Mode, the glorious hills of Shropshire, all features of the summer of '81, and all, I realised this morning, ones I now have new ties to through my three children.

The least unexpected link is probably the one to Shropshire. My son lives in Shrewsbury, very close to those lovely hills, and who knows, the many walks he and I have done in them may have influenced him to choose that area in which to live.  I don't know, but it's great to have that link.

A more tenuous connection is the one to Depeche Mode.  My youngest daughter starts 'proper' work in October (following her old man into management consulting), but for the last year while she's been completing her Master's at Kings College London she's been dogwalking to pay her living expenses - taking the pampered pooches of Primrose Hill and Hampstead out for their daily constitutionals. One of her clients has been, and still is, Martin Gore - of Depeche Mode. She only mentioned this casually a few weeks ago, and was I think slightly taken aback by the enthusiasm of my response.  I doubt she's taken any notice of my beseeching of her to mention that bar in Riga to her client, and frankly, who can blame her?  But my daughter walking Martin Gore's dog?!?

On to Crewe railway station.  This one's been on the cards for a while given my eldest daugher's job with Network Rail, but it's happened - she's in charge of a project that's already started, and will culminate over Christmas this year when she'll take possession of the whole of Crewe station from Christmas Eve till early on the 27th December, to renew all the many dozens of signals that control the passage of trains through the busiest junction after Clapham. It's likely to be the highest profile railway closure over Christmas this year, and certainly the one with the potential to disrupt most passenger journeys given the number of lines that pass through Crewe.  George will be running a team of 80 engineers on a plan broken into 15 minute chunks for the 56 hours.  Makes the project management I've done in my career look truly amateur.

The thing that struck me this morning was the sheer unlikeliness of the combination of the above. I tried to imagine the reaction of that 14 year old sitting trainspotting in 1981 if someone had approached him and said "listen my lad, here's a prediction: you'll have three children. In 39 years time, the youngest will be on first name terms with a member of your favourite band, the middle one will live in and love your favourite place as much as you do, and the eldest will be in charge of renewing all the signals of the station you're sitting in".  I suspect the reaction actually would have been "I'm going to have children? Get outta here", or words to that effect, as that would have been confirmation I was going to attract members of the opposite sex, something that really didn't seem like a given at that point, despite my sporting prowess. 

As I said, nothing particularly remarkable, unusual or insightful in any of this; it's just funny how things work out sometimes, and fun to reflect on them.