BACK IN 68:

 

Back in ’68 £8 10s secured me ownership of a shiny red 

Futurama II electric guitar, with a whammy-bar my Dad had

re-built by the guys in the tool room at the carpet factory, 

adorned with a little bulbous end he made himself out of 

a scrap of perspex. It sat in the corner of my bedroom, in 

the new house we’d moved to, a brand new semi situated on 

the new estate which used to be one of the cherry orchards 

our town was famous for. It had three individual bedrooms, 

something we’d dreamed of for years, which afforded the luxury 

of some privacy at night & allowed me my own space & time 

to develop a fear of the dark. Shiny Red rested in a corner 

between old toothless Black & the new one with the nylon strings 

I’d picked out at Woolworth for my tenth Christmas. 

The electric came with it’s own carry bag in tartan plastic 

which I’d stuffed beneath the bed so as not to diminish 

the impact of all that fabulous uplifting Red-ness when mates 

came round to listen to records.

 

(K)