Craig, a 16-year-old school leaver who had started at Warley construction before Christmas of 1981, and I started knocking around together. I will always remember that Christmas as I went to the town centre that morning of Christmas Eve with Vince and Brad, we met Craig and I bought a nice pair of brogue boots with leather soles. We went to the Bull pub for the lunchtime Christmas drink and I got wasted. The pub closed at 3pm - all pubs closed after lunch. I spent the next two hours trying to slide home in the deep snow that had fallen during the piss up. Strangers watching the drunken fool, who could not walk, trying to manoeuvre alone along the path without falling again for the hundredth time passed me. In the end I had to take my new boots off and walk in my socks, staggering with frozen feet to Roodegate, two to three miles away. I got in and went to bed, only to awoken at 9.45pm by a phone call. “Where are you?” Craig said. He was back down the Bull. I was out of bed and back in the pub within 30 minutes, I got home about 4am Christmas morning. That was my life when I was eighteen.

Craig, along with a couple of friends, introduced me to the world of punk and my life changed dramatically, yet another milestone in my life. I began to attend concerts almost daily at venues in London, such as the Lyceum, the Hammersmith Palais, the Apollo and many others. We would travel to London to see bands called the Birthday Party, with Nick Cave, Siouxie and the Banshees and the Cult, who were known as Southern Death Cult then. Another group was Theatre of Hate, with Kirk Brandon but our main concern was a group called Bauhaus whose singer was recognised by a lot of people for the Maxwell tape advert on TV in those days.

It was at a concert one evening in Brixton that I was in the queue with another chap who was thrown out once we were in there for acting the lunatic, he was a laugh, and the gig was to see the Birthday Party with Nick Cave, one of his last with that band I think. I saw him occasionally afterwards he lived near Basildon he would come over for a drink. He went on to have a number one hit with 'Spirit in the Sky’; he was the drummer for Doctor and the Medics. They were the days, the good old days. I never returned to Corfu that summer as I had promised, I was consumed by my newly found lifestyle. Instead, during the summer of 1982, I went to Manchester to the Hacienda; it was a new club opened to us young lunatics, we went to follow Bauhaus on tour and that was the first stop.

I borrowed a bag off of a friend of mine at work threw my hairspray and some T shirts in it with some toiletries, said goodbye to my girlfriend Laura and my mum and set off to Craig’s house in Laindon. I had a few girlfriends but nothing to heavy. Paul, another friend whose nickname was Zorch, was already at Craig’s and Danish, another friend, was on his way. Paul explained that he had been on the phone to Ian the lead singer of Southern Death Cult, and he had asked us to contact him in Edinburgh as they were supporting Bauhaus there in a few days time. We boarded the train at Laindon for Fenchurch Street, made our way to Victoria bus station and got a coach to Manchester. We were a magnet for the girls in our studded jackets, buckled boots and long black spiked up hair. We just looked like great fun to be with. We arrived eventually that afternoon at Manchester's Piccadilly bus station. We left the coach, gave our last few chat up lines to the girls we shared the journey with and made our way to the Hacienda, where we were informed we had to become members, whoops! We spent two hours getting photos done to join the club and eventually it was all sorted - at least I was a member of the Hacienda now, not many people back home could brag about that.

That night was fantastic. We watched our friends who had arrived from all over the country and never missed a gig struggle to get in; some had a back stage pass from Pete Murphy. We drank in the pub down the road, the pub was full of Punks it was fantastic. We planned as always how we would achieve the most room on the dance floor when we rushed to the front as Bauhaus would be announced by their anthem, Carmina Barana. This was also the theme music to the Old Spice aftershave advert around at the time. We always descended toward the stage from wherever we were situated in the venue, now it began to play. Drinks were abandoned; we were part of the Walton Bauhaus crew. We all dressed similarly and the front man was Milly. We made our way toward the stage in single file. Pete Murphy appeared on stage and we grabbed hands then locked arms in a ring. We then opened like a flower driving everybody out and backwards. We would be abused a little as people were squashed and as the Bauhaus crew gathered in the circle we let our arms go and all the gang, probably fifty of us were together in one spot. The band knew us, we were a familiar site; I was new, but the rest of them were not. Pete Murphy would point at us and say something relevant and that was worth the journey.

After the night was over we made our way back to the bus station, and slept with the tramps in the many bus shelters on the benches; what fun this was. The next morning I awoke to find tramps everywhere my god I never saw so many in my life, I made my way to the toilet and had a wash and brushed my teeth. I looked around this town whilst searching for a café; this place is very relevant to my story and to my father's journey. Maybe I had a brother or sister living here; I could not know that yet, Dad had not yet told me. Dad always told me that Manchester was the greatest place in England when he arrived here, but he had the mind of young man in his twenties when he got here, that was the reason why that was, the reason for being that way then. And being a Punk rocker on tour waiting for a coach to Glasgow was right now the reasons for being me.

Glasgow was a little different; we were nervous of this city as we were young and we imagined it to be violent so we got very paranoid on the journey. We arrived and again it was fantastic - what a night! We had a great time, it was the second day, all our friends from Manchester were in the street and it was like a long party that wouldn't stop. That night we slept in a college doorway.  We got shouts of abuse from passers by all night but we didn't care. The next morning we all felt rough now and after another wash and rinse at the bus station toilets, we got a bus to Edinburgh. The fella I sat next to on the bus was a stranger who bragged about living in Glasgow and how he had been in prison. He was ten years older than me and he scared me so I kept giving him cigarettes until he was my best friend, which was the best way to deal with that situation.

This was the day of the tour we had all been waiting for; we had all arranged to meet outside the entrance to Edinburgh Castle. After something to eat we made our way along the streets to the castle, it was huge. When we got there it was very busy with tourists and we sat on the grass on a slope to the right of the castle gates. We created interest from passers by as more and more of us and more and more tourists arrived. After a couple of hours there were about a hundred of us all with different colours, red hair, blue hair, green hair, girls in fishnets, studs belts buckles.. We were a spectacular sight for visiting tourists, especially the Chinese and Japanese. We were asked if they could take our photograph. With the castle being behind us and the grass sloping down it must have been a real picture and I bet that photo could never be created again. This went on for a couple of hours and then we went to the pub that afternoon. When the pub closed we had a kip in the August sun on the grass again before we set off for the venue.

The queue was long and the four of us waited outside as the Bauhaus crew were going in. Milly asked if we were sure that Ian from the Cult definitely knew we were here. Just then, we heard the word Basildon being shouted. It was Ian so in we went feeling very important. Milly had a pass to all the Bauhaus gigs as he was their greatest fan and they knew it. We were very excited as these two bands were our favourites and to have them playing together was the ultimate night. We danced all night; it was such a night of fun it could never come again.

Afterwards we drifted back into the city for a sleep only to be dropped in it when after a mile down the road a minibus drove past and someone shouted "Basildon! Basildon! Basildon!" It was Milly but the hoards of Scottish lads behind shouted “English bastards.” It was fine until the blonde spiked haired girl who had attached herself to us for the night shouted back in her London accent

“Who the fuck are you calling an English bastard?” We never stopped running after that, we were chased by the angry mob. Thanks love, very clever! However, we survived. We spent the night on a landing in a multi-storey car park stairwell, a proper way to sleep whilst on holiday. The next morning I was glad to be going home, I wanted a bath. Zorch explained that he was going to stay on tour with the Cult as he had taken two weeks off work. We went back to Basildon and that evening I went to the Bull Pub. Zorch arrived home after seven days; he had spent the last two days at Ian’s house, the lead singer, whilst they all slept with exhaustion after their tour. Ian and The Cult became very famous in America a couple of years later, their music was fantastic.