It Happened Just There (Now It Has Gone)

Tuckshops at break
Run and slide ten feet on segs
And the concrete floor
In platform boots
Made in Northampton

School jumpers and parallels
Big collars and tie knots
Rodney my Welsh cat
Met me coming home
At the top of the avenue

It happened just there (now it has gone)

Suburban bungalow
We played out
Over the back lane
Nick fell out of the tree

Onto a barbed wire fence
My Red Cross trained Dad
Cut him off
Only his leg was caught

Days with 'Coola the cool cola'
It happened just there (now it has gone)

December '74 at Singleton Village Hall
'Lair' had invited us
For New Years Eve
Rob and Ez were definitely there
I think Ian too

3 pints of Double Diamond though underage
I fell on the dance floor
Ez laughed I remember
School friends together
I hoped Lair was OK with my behaviour

It happened just there (now it has gone)

Ten years later he came to see me
Two hundred miles
I went to his wedding reception
And I met someone else
Still up North

And back ten years
I walked to hers
She sat inside me on the bus
Hair like Bolan's
Petite and nice legs

It happened just there (now it has gone)

Our conversation was easy
I could hardly believe it
We were in C&A's I watched her
Then myself - such a mirror freak
When we got back she made me lunch

It was nice then we settled
And watched Arthur Ashe play
She said she liked Borg
And The Bay City Rollers

It happened just there (now it has gone)

Jem H (2025)

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Bitter sweet. Better the post in the dark of this time of the year, rather than in the New Year, when positivity, not nostalgia, will prevail! It always seems to for me...

Have a good one!

X

Thoughts (fanciful or otherwise) that came into my head, after reading Kath Stark's post of about 8 hours ago.

In my view, the first three albums contain the most power in terms of the Cockney Rebel brand, and by inextricable link, Steve Harley.

Pop art, of which T shirts could be an expression (mass produced, potentially sexy, relatively cheap etc.) has to be fashionable, in my view, or capable of coming back into fashion. Biba T shirts come to mind . '70's revivals, in one way or another, are never very far away, it seems to me...

The graphics of the first two albums i.e. 'Cockney Rebel', the way written is arty and distinct.

The images of the band on the first two albums, likewise.

The third album imagery is of course iconic (though not more so than the first in my view)

And the phrases (or part lyrics) that 'do the most' for me are

'The Human Menagerie of Cockney Rebel '

'She - Dinosaur - And Me - her He-Whore' might make those unfamiliar with the source, want to look (it) up (?) - or spread the word

Thanks for triggering my own thoughts, Kath, all the best, J.