THE BOY FROM MOLINEAUX:

The boy who got crushed at Molineux had a milk round
& a Saturday job in the local iron mongers. They providing him
with unimaginable resources to buy albums in quantities that
left the rest of us open mouthed. He was generous though, a good
friend who always invited his mates round for a listen. It was
mostly rock, stuff I often struggled to get into, but it was
turned up loud & nobody complained. He lived in a smart detached
bungalow in the posh part of our estate & if his folks were
out we got to use his dad’s ‘stereo’, which never sounded
as good as the little mono deck in his bedroom, when we turned up
loud till it distorted.
Leaning the bikes against an outside wall we would ring a door
bell that sounded both affluent & cosmopolitan, to be greeted by
the familiar long suffering tone of a parent.
“Hello boys, he’s in his room”. Shuffle in, mumbling
‘thank you’, adding our signatures to the rich smell of ‘boy’.
“Here, take it home & listen to it” the boy from Molinuex would
say if we showed particular interest in a record & though
we always had to be hassled to return it he never stopped
offering.
I was in a band by this time of course, working the clubs
& village halls making good money every weekend that somehow never
found it’s way into my pocket – everything went on petrol & band
gear. From the pocket money my parents gave me though I was able
to save enough to buy an album a month. It was a big event, catching
the bus into town, slipping in between the ‘Heads’ leafing through
their Prog & Cosmic Rock, the heavy smell of vinyl mingling with
the cloying bight of petunia oil & weed. Eventually, I landed a
Sunday morning paper round, ‘the big one’, loaded with colour
supplements & paying as much in one day as the other rounds made
in a week. It started around 6:30am so as I’d only got in at 1:00am
after unloading the van I’d be riding my bike like a hung-over drunk,
straining under the weight of all that paper, the fresh ink & lack
of sleep making me nauseous, but it was worth it to be able to buy
more albums.
Two a month, was still nowhere near what the boy from Molineux brought
home every week. The job at the iron mongers gave him considerable
buying power which meant he could consider doing something so
extraordinary it was unthinkable, beyond our wildest dreams.
He could buy an album just because he liked the cover…

(K)