1983 and all that

Some years remain strong memories with you, others while you are aware of them tend to be much less so and for some of us they are a mish-mash fairly young things and rather more grown up things that you had to deal with the best you could.

In 1983 beyond the more formal presentations to adults you couldn't avoid, feeling tired from masking and generally repressing the authentic you talking around and deal with conversations you had scant interest with such as careers, being expected to have adult "small talk", I cultivated a much younger me building on from the previous years and the issues back then that had brought it all to a head.

See, by 1978 just entering my teenage years I realized I felt nothing like my peers and that brought no satisfaction and it wasn't just a  delay of a year or so, it just wasn't there.

So by 1983 we had the strange situation of wanting to run through parks kicking a ball about, playing with toys, cuddling a teddy with taking your A levels and seeing a Careers Master and suffice to say the way that got handled was messed up as the careers service "lost me" being very late in the day to offer ANY guidance.

it was that which really pushed down a way of thinking of just doing stuff on my own as clearly I couldn't rely on a grown up to so I made all my own arrangements to claim social security to get my N.I. contributions started and get a job which took a while in the Transport Industry.

Socially little changed, I read a mixture of comics and magazines, I watched mainly children's tv shows and even dabbled in a bit of flower decorating as I found great for resetting after a struggle dealing with grown ups.

Breakfast tv started January 17th  which I caught and discussed with schoolfriends as prior to that I just put the radio one for a bit while Top of the Pops and Tomorrow's World remained a must see shows.

The Compact Disc launched in Europe to a big fanfare although it was to be three more years before I bought a player but we did have our very first Now That's What I Call Music compilation lp.

Catalogues and brochures from newly arriving supermarkets came that inspired my outside of work look too.

There was much music I liked back then, Kajagoogoo, Rush, Duran Duran, the Flashdance soundtrack but one towered over all and actually that's a recent specialist edition in even high quality sound than my 1983 original.

I had always liked the Commodores and their lead singer Lionel Richie's voice and this, his second solo album had a great mixture of uptempo funk, slow soul ballads and the most amazing arrangements that still stand up even today.

Songs like All Night Long, Hello, Running With The Night and Penny Lover were events when released as singles with memorible, moving even videos that connected with many people because they were about universal feelings and emotions.

Some like Stuck On You were covered to great effect too.

It's great to own a fantastic sounding version of now to go with my memories of that era.