Barry

I remember I was generally very much a 'bus home' type kid after Wigan. It was cheaper, dropped me off virtually outside my house and didn't involve dealing with too many people the morning after. The problem with living in Warrington and being in Wigan that early on a Sunday morning was that there was a only a single bus that left Wigan Bus Station at 6.30am, then none 'til 12.30pm, which generally pre-empted the (bugger of a) walk home. It wasn't too bad as I'm sure it was all fields then and eternally sunny . The bonuses of leaving for the early bus were liberating a pint of milk and a paper from the knotted packages left outside the newsagents in the Arcade - anyway I digress. This particular morning I had no money left at all and was in a bit of a state as the preceding night I had been at the contents of a small enevelope I had taken with me to sell - I seem to remember up around 3am as Searling announced that M's would be open in five minutes, then nothing til the moment I was outside The Casino in the daylight. Having no money and being in a state left me with one option - jumping the train, as there was no way I was going to be able to walk the nine mile home this morning and there was no obvious way past the single decker bus driver without my fare home. I recall wobbling down Fishergate in me long leather and bag and upon arrival at the train station, after a little recce, working out that I could get up to the platform by scaling, Spiderman-like, a massive piece of corrugated sheeting that was leaning from the base of a small wall up to platfrom-heaven. This had no doubt been placed there by some other gimp for that exact same reason. There's a blank again here but I must have alighted the train as the next thing I recall is being near the toilet inbetween carriages, arms leaning out of the window and approaching Winwick Junction (Winwick being the village just outside Warrington where I lived) - all with an amount of dread within me, as I knew what I was about to have to do. Now Winwick Junction is a place where the Wigan-Warrington train slowed down to about 10-15 miles an hour as it was crossing a junction/tracks and was the only point on this hairy-journey that would be forgiving enough for me to attempt some kind of parachute jump-like exit from the train. Not good. Anyway, there was no way round it, I'd come this far. I remember biting my lip, grasping the 'Communication Cord' (the 'Use Only In Emergency' brake cord that ran the length of the train)....and pulling!? F*ck me, I don't know if you've ever been on a train when a 'Communication Cord' has been pulled but it's a pretty violent way to stop a 107 tonne, quarter mile long of rampant iron and steel. "SCREEEEEEECH!" - "BANG!" I got threw against the bog door - and then the other way - and then back again....as the train attempted it's non-standard Winwick Junction stop. Now fully alert, as the fear and the thoughts of the possible consequences of my actions had seemed to morph into an imaginary hand that dove right down the front of my early 80's underpants, grasped my knackers and shoved them up my a*se. Thetrain was almost at a stop now so I grabbed my bag, leant out the carriage, opened the train door and jumped. I landed like a sack of sh*t and rolled through a load of gravel and weeds into a wire fence. I stood up, looked down the length of the train toward the engine and to my horror saw about three or four guards hopping off the now stationary train and heading, rather noisily, my way. I jumped the fence into a very dewy cornfield. It was as I was wading red-faced and fear fraught through this wet cornfield with my bag held above elbow height and a number of pissed of British Rail workers in tow, that I realised how badly the lining in long leathers handle the addition of water to their make-up. It was like playing that bloody game on Crackerjack whereby when you answered a question wrong they stuffed cabbage upon cabbage on your already straining person (don't now if that makes sense? but anyhow.) I could see in my immediate view on the other side of a fence an upcoming copse, a small wood and, the irate voices behind me getting nearer and (GET HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!) louder, I began to think I may have an escape route of sorts. In the distance I heard a BANG!!!, then another but in my present predicament it didn't register as anything life threatening at the time. I jumped the fence and (BANG!!! again??) dragged my sorry wet arse into the first hiding of trees, there was enough cover for it to mask the sunlight and it became a little twilighty in there. "Great!" I thought as I headed a bit deeper in and looking around (BANG!!! again, louder this time - wtf) I could see our hi-vis wearing be-capped fiends (no spelling mistake, I was scared rigid) beginning to realise this may not be working out in their favour - and they began to bluster and swear at me as they gave up the chase. I was now in a wood. And the wood went BANG!!! a lot. It was at this point I saw my first farmer, out with his mates on a Sunday am hunt!! BANG!!! F*ck me, I'm gonna get shot now. So, adopting a pose somewhere between a Ninja, an SAS infantry man on a mission to nowhere and a piss wet, drugged up teenager in ridiculous coat -with a bag - I set off deeper into the wood, my aim to somehow traverse the local pig-pickers out on their shoot, without getting a hole in my ass. BANG!!! "Hey you!?" I was spotted - "Arse!". My mind had forgotten the little triumph that was losing our friendly BR div-jumping team and I was back to square one - exept these f*ckers had guns. What I would have given for the fear of a hi-vis jacket now!? With a group of unhappy farmers on my heels ("Get Orf My Land" an' all that) I went tree to tree, skulking, dipping and diving until I could see the light getting brighter - I must be approaching the other side of the wood at last. Then ahead of me I could see the white painted wooden fence that I knew to be the fence that skirted the road opposite the old Winwick (Mental) Hospital (read into that what you will. I WORKED there, alright!), a mile or so from my house and with the voices of my irate hunters tailing off in the darkness behind me, I reached the fence. "Thank f*ck for that!" I breathed deeply, cobbed me bag over it, steadied myself and with a final mighty effort jumped over the fence and onto the main road. Then I got knocked down by a car. Suffering for your art? David Blaine don't know the half of it.

Bang on.

I still have a piece of Wigan dancefloor, liberated the morning of the semi demolished 'piano in the sky' stage shot.

The thought of fucking your afflictions has just put me off me tea Phil. Off to pick the missus up. Later mate.

From the 70's and 80's I feel, after the mention of centre-folds that Phyllis Hyman desereves an honourable mention.

Not been near the studio in years Imber. There's so many you never know where to start. You're right like.

Your signature kinds sums it all up Mike.

I multi task too don't you know Malcolm?

Phil. Have you been at anything this afternoon mate?

That's a cracking pic mate.

The Fellas Ace Spectrum - Mecca Erupts (Space Rectum) Frank Wilson - Snarl If Know Dean Parrish - Rear Dishpan James Brown - Jaw Robs Men Jackie Wilson - A Jock Lie Wins Edwin Starr - Rarest Wind Gil Scott Heron - Retching Tools Archie Bell - Herbal Lice Darrell Banks - Ball Darkeners Brian Rae - Brain Ear The Ladies Gloria Jones - Ear Jogs Loin Ruby Andrews - Drawn Buyers April Stevens - Relevant Piss (Penis Travels) Bettye Swann - Twenty Beans Tobi Legend - Bleeding To Brenda Holloway - Honey Lard Bowel Barbara McNair - Marina Crab Bar Mitty Collier - I Melt To Lyric Laura Greene - Earn Ear Glue Dee Dee Warwick - Weed Weak Cider Rose Valentine - So, Rent A Levine

You've not changed lad.

Isn't that the old Osmonds myth Imber?

Try sticking it on the right thread now Phil.

Traxsource fella. www.traxsource.com

I was thinking about what tracks I would have liked to have heard sung by artists other than those that actuallyrecorded them. It can be a male singing a female track or vice versa, whatever. I'd like to have heard Chuck Jackson slinging his pipes round 'I Hurt On The Other Side' maybe or Ann Sexton having a pop at Carla Thomas' - 'Every Ounce Of Strength'. Anymore?

Well done young Sir.

You know the Frank Washington, Rome Jeffries type a thing. Jay J's - 'Gettin' A Rise' and Duck Sauce (Armand Van Helden) - 'Anyway' both fall into that vein for me. Jay J's is a tad more trad, whereby certain production techniques on the DS may drive some to distraction but all the elements are there. A decent re-edit would do it.

Don't remind me mate.

I went to a Stranglers 'MIB' tour concert in '81 and Hugh Cornwell stopped mid set and swore if there were one more gob directed there way, that was them off. They were covered in it. John Jacque Brunel had a particularly heavy green one flobbing about in his hair the whole concert.

Ha Ha Ha - Hello Phillipe. Good times mate.

Thing is Imber, I mean it. I've tried to make light of it and possibly make it look a bit tongue in cheek with the Gibbons bit at the end but I have actively practised this for years.

Thank you Herm, you old charmer you.

Mate, I'm a neurotic Virgo, of course I'm sure. Things like empty dancefloors keep us awake at night searching for an answer.

Now I know this sounds like I've written a pamphlet or summat but it is quite a good game when your off your t*ts and also helps everyone in your chosen place of Soul Heaven for the evening; the promoter, atendees etc at the same time. When a floor is empty the usual thing to do is get up from where you are sat and dance in the space in front of you - easy access to your beer, the wife, whatever, understood. If you want to help a floor you need to look at the demographic in the place, suss the obvious cold-spots on and around the dancefloor and aim specifically for them. Like if it's early doors and everyone is parked up the front leaving the back end of the venue and dancefloor feeling a bit lonely and daunting, everyone then tends to stick themselves up the top end of the dancefloor, where they feel safe and surrounded to a degree. If you stick yourself up the back end, or wherever you reckon the cold spot is, you watch, there will always be someone willing to cover the space inbetween you and the front end/cold spot, spreading people more evenly across the floor and encouraging more, less confident, dancers to the fore - as you are the last man, covering them. Have a go, it really works. I've had years of fun out of it. Send: £1.99 to FET Promotions c/o Shaun Gibbons Tea Room, End Of The Pier, Morecambe NE1 NEe's