Skools Out

Posting this in 2017, hence the modern English spelling. I was posting some stuff to a friend on Facebook when unexpectedly a YouTube video sprung up of a BBC4 TV concert by the Kinks in 1973 and introduced as the "Muswell Hillybillys". Just had to find a reason to post a 1973 Back-Blip.

I was at Norwich Tech from September 1972 onwards. At that time living alone in the depths of a small Norfolk village as my parents were in Turkey, my father working there. We had only just moved to the village and I knew nobody. Somehow I had to find a way of getting to college every day. Even back then public transport was not exactly great.

My father did manage to tell me an old school friend of his lived close by and he had a daughter who may be able to help out. She took me with her in her car to Norwich where she was also studying. In November 1972 my parents returned home and bought me a £300 second-hand car and I was independent from then on.

And so it was that Bobsie P came into my life. We got on very well and she introduced me to new people in and around Norwich. I think she was a year or so older and we didn't spend much time together but got on well as friends.

In the summer of 1973, after college broke up for the summer, we spent quite a bit of time with a family she knew who lived in Suffolk with two daughters, one Bobsie's age and another younger one with whom a "relationship" developed that summer! Here, Bobsie with me in the dunes of the beach at Walberswick where we often went. More photos of the rest to follow.

A memorable event was a special birthday for a friend of this family. I suspect an 18th but could have been 21st. I didn't know the hosts - the children of Jim Prior, the local MP and HM's Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food in 1972 and Leader of the House of Commons when this photo was taken, under the leadership of PM Ted Heath who took the UK into the EU. He was later to contest for Conservative party against Mrs Thatcher but although he lost, he served in her cabinet as Employment and Northern Ireland minister. Later made a Lord.

Wiki says about him:
After Prior's death, MP Keith Simpson said of him: "In many ways, he was a larger than life figure. He had a ruddy face, he played up to being the farmer. People underestimated him because he didn’t claim to be a Keith Joseph or Enoch Powell parading their intellectualism. But he was somebody who was well-loved by the grassroots and was a decent man who was in politics out of a sense of public service."

Well, Jim wasn't about for the party in their rather grand country estate house surrounded by a moat which had a black swan swimming in it and named "Enoch" . I remember nothing else about the party except being in the kitchen and seeing Mrs Thatcher's telephone number on a note attached to the fridge. Didn't have the wherewithal to write it down for future use.