What has struck me on this odyssey through my record collection is how often a memory will spring to mind. These are usually no more than snippets of thoughts. Crumbs of consciousness that appear and then disappear, often as quickly as they arrived. It can take no more than a fleeting glance at a CD to trigger the thought. But these fragments pose a problem - they are not substantial enough to write a whole piece about but are valid nonetheless. One such moment occurred when I pulled this off the shelf this morning.....
....PW, KC and myself sitting in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh in the sun, chatting and looking over our purchases from the morning's shopping trip. KC had bought a dual play cassette with 'Reckoning' and 'Murmur' whilst I had bought 'London's Calling' by The Clash. Why has that particular moment chosen to lodge itself in my memory? Why do I, sub-consciously at least, consider this to be important enough to store for nearly twenty years? Then again perhaps I have go it totally wrong and my mind is playing tricks on me. Maybe it was 'Reckoning' and 'Lifes Rich Pageant'!
And then there are the huge, leviathan sized memories that are etched into my mind. These are the life changing, pivotal moments that determine the path you are about to spend the rest of your life following. Not bad for a little piece of plastic. Hearing 'Don't Go Back To Rockville' will always remind me of one of those moments....
In 1993 I had graduated as a Civil Engineer and was desperately looking for an employer stupid enough to place enough trust in me and give me a job. Unfortunately my timing was lousy - the construction industry had hit one of its low points and jobs were scarce. Very scarce - there were typically a hundred applicants for each post. Not great odds and my hope of finding a job was diminishing with every passing week. Then, unexpectedly, I was invited for interview at Gloucestershire County Council and so made the long train trip south. It was a long way. Or at least it was to someone who you could not exactly describe as well travelled. Sure I had been on an Inter-rail holiday a few years earlier but that was for fun and with mates. This was alone - as if I was stepping out into the big bad world.
The interview went very well and I was confident that I would be offered a position. I was confident of the fact but it brought with it very mixed emotions; pleased that I had done well but terrified at having to make a life changing decision. The journey back was going to be restless. So to relax, I popped 'The Best Of R.E.M.' (The IRS version if anyone is interested) into my portable CD player and tried to take my mind of it all. Except I couldn't. I knew I was going to have to make a decision sooner or later. A huge, monstrous, life changing, career creating, gut wrenching decision. I was not used to this. I began to make mental notes of the implications of upping sticks and moving several hundred miles south. Where would I live? Would I make new friends? Would I be able to visit home often enough? I'm sure that there are some world weary travellers reading this; people who have crossed continents and oceans for employment, but to me this might as well have been Kuala Lumpur. And it was in the south. I'd have been less bothered I'm sure if I was contemplating a move northwards. We northerners just didn't get on with our funny cousins from the south. They talked differently, liked 'Rugger', ate fondue at 'dinner parties' and had flat,warm beer.
It was certainly a quandary and one that was vexing. The CD changed track and Michael Stipe started singing;
"Looking at your watch a third time
Waiting in the station for the bus
Going to a place that's far
So far away and if that's not enough
Going where nobody says hello
They don't talk to anybody they don't know....
.....But everybody else in town only wants
To bring you down and that's not how it ought to be"
Blimey he could've been talking straight to me! My mind was made up, I would turn the offer down. Only I could be interviewed, determine all my life's potential paths and turn a job down (before being offered it) in the same day. But R.E.M. had spoken and my mind was made up. Phew! I was really pleased that I had thought the problem through and came to a decision; albeit one that was determined, not by the flip of a coin, but by the spinning of a disc. That's progress I suppose.
The offer did come in several days later and I was true to my word. I turned it down. I turned down an offer of a job in a time when they were like rocking horse.... you get the idea. I can only be thankful that I had supportive parents. When I told PW's dad I think the words were, "What have you done that for you nugget?". I assured him that another job would come my way sooner or later. Looking back I had no reason to be this confident but confident I was.
And then several weeks later I was invited for interview with Leeds City Council and the rest, as they say, is history.........
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