I posted a response to your post on this blog - which might amuse you - or not:

we circle around, we circle around. Great to hear from you. Needless to say, I remember being in Old Dryden / Berrystede as a not very official house prefect with Andrew Ashford. But I don't remember the kids we were supposed to be looking after. Musically that was a (brief) time of ELP, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Billy Cobham. I'm hugely impressed you remember my dad was MD of Sarson's Vinegar!

We must have overlapped enough, because I remember Greenslade but not Camel. I'd have liked to have seen them as I got into that whole Canterbury Art scene around then and saw Hatfield and the North twice at tiny gigs.

Currently listening to way too much LoFi deep house. Last weekend I was clubbing with my daughter at Shall Not Fade's 1st Birthday party. KGW, DJ Boring, Contours, LK, Mall Grab, TRP. Banging night. Hope you're also still behaving disgracefully!

Good to hear from you Julian – I doubted you would remember an insignificant tick – but you know, 6th formers make an impression on ticks. I’ve seen my two older boys go through that – at each end of their schooling (not at Oundle btw, too distant from Dorset).

My musical journey at Oundle started tuned in to Focus and Genesis with some Wakeman, Vangelis and the inevitable Bowie (Hunky Dory to Heroes) thrown in. Then in sixth form I and a very few others discovered the raw energy of punk. Iggy Pop, The Damned and the Pistols kicked in as the sound-track of my late adolescence just as I became a suitably unpleasant and rebellious 17 year old. I spent the next five years going to punk / new wave gigs in seedy London clubs – up to the desolate dawn of urban goth (Joy Division and Bauhaus). Then girls, career and mortgage took over. So the clubbing/rave scene passed me by while I had my head down and with it, any real appreciation of techno, house or trance – although I dabble with the latter (much to Mrs Allen’s distaste).

I liked your “Five Years” – Sounds of my Life – will have to do one. Adam and the Ants were a top fave of mine in the era pre-Kings of the Wild Frontier and all the Dandy Highwayman pantomime. Probably saw them four or five times during his bondage/fetish phase 1978/9 in fantastically sticky venues like the original Marquee.

We’ve done festivals as a family for more than ten years now – my plan to ensure the boys had a broad musical appreciation. We still do 3 or 4 festivals a year – usually from among the majors. I’m rarely more happy than when watching a guitar based band cider in hand, be they spotty youths or even older farts than us. But I have to admit to struggling with knob twiddlers as a “show” to be observed. If it is to be dance give me The Prodigy, Pendulum, Rudimental or even Chase and Status.

You told me your dad was top man at Sarsons while we were walking down to the Refectory for supper. The story was - Salt and Vinegar crisps don’t have any vinegar on them (shock horror!) – your dad wanted to sell the sludge from the bottom of his vinegar vats as the ideal “real vinegar” flavouring. One of those strangely clear memories – probably aided by the fact I’ve repeated “there’s no vinegar in those crisps” to bored on-lookers in a million pubs. Alright – several pubs, for over 40 years.

I have one other Refectory memory of early in the term vigorously shaking a ketchup bottle that had a loose cap. Queue red faced tick and red covered ceiling, walls and more. I can only remember the names of one or two of the other ticks in Old Dryden – although one – Simon Rodwell, became a Royal Navy helicopter pilot and was killed when his helicopter went down in the South Atlantic during the months after the Falklands war. What a waste.

I’m rambling again – time to bunk off for the weekend. Cheers.

I was really lucky to get VIP tickets to Glastonbury for a while. Went about 6 times. Since then I like the small festivals better. Done Standon (middle class Herts), Alchemy (old school hippies in Lincs), Supernormal (Radical Arts & crafts) and Farr (club music in a wood) for a couple of years.