A Life Defined By Music - Ghost Town

Now aged 19 I had been working for an insurance company for a year or so, so had disposable income. Most of which went on football and records, and the occasional girlfriend.

I had been interested in football for as long as I can remember. Not sure how this started, as no one else in my family was remotely interested in sport at all. I first started going to watch Burnham, my home village, from about five or six. Now with money to spend, I wanted to see a "proper" team. I did not fancy going into London, as this was the age of the hooligan problem. I could not drive at this time, so the choice was a team easily accessible by train. This narrowed it down to Brentford, Reading or Oxford. On the day I fancied going, Oxford were at home and the others were away, so the choice was made for me. I was a regular at the London Road End of the Manor Ground for quite a few years. I eventually stopped watching all football for a few years due to severe disillusionment following the likes of Bradford, Heysell, Hillsborough, and the ongoing hooligan problem.

About this time, another musical genre burst onto the scene, in a similar way to punk/new wave a few years before. This was ska as defined by the likes of UB40, The Beat, The Specials, etc. Despite being a rock fan at heart, and the fact that ska was adopted by the mods, I really liked this new sound. The groups had a political message, both in some of the lyrics, but also in the multi cultural make up of the bands. Punk to a certain degree was taken over by the skinhead movement, with racist overtones. Ska was the opposite, all inclusive and upbeat rhythms.

My own political leanings were beginning to awaken. If honest, no one individual political party preaches the message I want to hear, so I have always voted for the one closest to my ideals, in my opinion. Despite my inclination being right of centre, I also hold to some left of centre views. At this time the National Front had hijacked right wing thinking, and I found myself widely reading left wing material. Be this the liberation theology coming out of South America, or the anti racist league stuff over here. Coming from Slough, I was used to a multi cultural background. In Slough we hardly ever had racial violence. Yes there was gang troubles, but always white on white, black on black, or Asian on Asian! I am sort of proud to say that when the National Front marched in town, all three ganged up on them and drove them out.

I was also becoming aware of the major problem of unemployment in the UK at the time. Both in certain parts of Slough, and on the road out of Oxford up towards Headington, there were boarded up shops and houses. A song that for me sums up that period of my life, the confusion of having disposable income to "waste" and of the ever increasing poverty around me, is Ghost Town by The Specials.

It is sad to reflect that the situations that the song talks about, have become more common place again over the last few years, some twenty seven years later.