Saturday, August 1, 2009

The summer of ‘76


That’s 33 years ago now. It was very hot and I was reading Lord of the Rings and weighed 8st 7lbs (an important detail in those days).

One weekend in July I got on the coach after work and went to stay with my friend, Sheila, in London. Both of our boyfriends were working abroad at the time so we decided to get together for a weekend. Sheila and her friends lived in a squat. To my surprise it looked like an ordinary house – except that “Clark Kent lives here” was written on the front door. There was an outside loo (pull the chain and run) it was a very hot summer a row of certain plants were growing tall against one of the garden walls.

We visited pubs and drank pints so we didn’t need to queue up at the bar so often. I remember walking down the Portobello road. As a country bumpkin, I couldn’t get enough of the many different types of people out for the afternoon. We stopped and bought hunks of bread; over laden with cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and toasted –a kind of pizza – for lunch. Everyone was so nice and friendly. I wonder if it’s like that now.

A weekend doesn’t last for long, but I’ve always remembered that one.


Where are you now?

12 comments:

Jo said...

I remember that summer very very well. Especially early July.

Caroline said...

While in search of lost time I had not thought much of mid '70s, generally not my best time but that summer was HOT and after being away for six years my parents finally got curious as to what had happened to me and drove four hundred miles north to check me out.

Dru Marland said...

I remember standing on our mountain and seeing pillars of smoke across all of South Wales, where there were fires.

The summer I started to radicalise, and wore my "Stuff The Jubilee" badge. Badge politics....

There's a picture of that shop in my "Spray It Loud" book of graffiti!

Anji said...

Jo: I think that it was special for a lot of people. We remember it because we had a real summer, for once!

Caroline: You must be older than me, or you went away from home very early.

Dru: I remember fires on the Malvern Hills, but I'm not sure if it was that year. It was the very same shop, so I'm sort of famous.

utenzi said...

Having an outside loo sounds very inconvenient.

Donna said...

Memories...Love the post sweetie!!hughugs

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Melissa said...

The summer of 76 brings back memories of being 20 miles off the coast of Virginia, on a small sport fishing boat, and watching the three masts of a large square rigger, rising slowly on the eastern horizon. Over the course of the next thirty minutes, the vessel approached ever closer, finally passing within 100 yds. of our little boat. It was like a scene out of a Herman Melville novel.

Melissa

Anji said...

Melissa, hello,
That must have been amazing.

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Anji said...

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