I love the Kinks. So much so that I named my youngest child after one of their songs. (Although I also loved Copacabana). When I was about 14, and was listening to lots of sixties music, my mum took me to Barnstaple for a day trip. We were on holiday, staying on my cousins' farm in North Devon and that was the nearest big town. We went to a big old indoor market and I spotted a second hand record stall and headed for that. To my great delight, I found a Kinks Album for 10p. I was so ecstatic with my purchase that I didn't even moan about being dragged around ladies' clothes shops for the rest of the day.
When we got back to the farm and I proudly shared my purchase, my cousin, who was a few years younger than my mum said that she used to go out with Dave Davies, and my mum nodded in agreement. Many years later, Mr C and I went to see Sunny Afternoon, the musical about the Kinks, in London and were surprised to discover that my cousin's claim may well have been true, as he had been something of a lothario.
A few weeks ago, when Mr C discovered my long lost album box underneath a table in the shed, this was one of the records I was most pleased to see. I used to play it over and over on full volume in my bedroom. The search for old records was one shared by many of my friends at the time, and on a Saturday we would meet in The Chelsea Coffee House in town, make a cup of tea and a packet of Benson and Hedges last a couple of hours, and then wander down to Memory Lane, a second hand record shop and search through the boxes in search of treasure. Another favourite was my Motown Chartbuster Album, which I also bought for pennies. At the time, the girls in my class at school were all listening to Culture Club and the Eurythmics, and when we were invited to bring in records from home to play for an end of year party, this was the one I took. I didn't expect it to get much of a play because Sally and I were the only two who appreciated its appeal. Or so I thought. Mr Oliver, our form tutor nearly fell off his chair when I produced this from my bag, and said that it had been the top party album when he was younger, and insisted that we play it, to the groans of my classmates. I like to think that I helped to educate them a little that day! Sally used to bring in tapes recorded from her Mum's 8-tracks, and I can still sing all the words from Clarence Carter's Patches.
And then I moved onto Northern Soul, which I still love to this day. The King David Pub in Kingsthorpe held a soul night every Friday night, and the car park was always full of scooters, as people came from all over town to meet up and dance and listen to the music.
On Sunday when a Kinks song was playing on the radio and Mr C was dancing around the kitchen, which he does more often than you would think, he pronounced 'I was a mod!', and asked me if I was one too. I said I wasn't, because when I was growing up, mods were something to be laughed at. They were usually around 13 and wore silly striped suits and the girls had short sharp bob haircuts, pale lipstick and winged eyeliner. It was viewed as a rite of passage, between childhood and being old enough to buy a scooter. Akin to admitting you had once been a hippy during the 1980's hey days of The Young Ones. But Mr C interrogated (as again, he is prone to do), and asked me what I used to wear on Friday nights to the King David.
And I remembered hours lost in the junk shops that used to line Kettering Road, rooting through the rails of old clothes to find little mini skirt suits, or twinsets with matching turtle neck jumpers and cardigans, and suede jackets. And I also had a short sharp bob, so perhaps I was one after all, even if only on a Friday night. Funny that now being a Mod is perfectly acceptable, and was when Mr C was a teenager, and yet it was not something any self respecting teen would admit to during the mid 80s. In fact it's still not a label I would be happy to wear.
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