Wylam Institute

When I was a child the Institute felt like the centre of the village. There was a yearly village show upstairs, and I went to dancing classes up there for a while. The village shows were a hoot- one of the primary school teachers, who ran the school choir, wore very short mini-skirts and the Dads jostled to sit in the front row. The village choir, starring Mrs Hibbert (scourge of Mr Sleightholme, whose bantams I used to feed when he was away), always sang 'I've got a bonnet trimmed with blue, do you wear it, yes I do!'. They were mega-coy, and most of them seemed to wear that bright coral lipstick so we could observe just how heartily they articulated the words. The jumble sales were brilliant: I'd buy stacks of vinyl singles with no sleeves, tied up with hairy string, and take them home to see what I'd bagged. You could only see the top and bottom labels. I bought a fencing foil once, and a wooden Robert Thompson 'mouseman' ashtray which I sold on eBay in 2018 for £95 when I was selling stuff so I could go to New York. I think it cost sixpence! I also once bought a long 1930s pale green coat with bell sleeves and a satin lining; my friend at the time refused to walk down the street with me when I was wearing that.

And downstairs, that's where I went to Girl Guides every week. Sometimes I'd take my Spanish guitar and me and my friend Anita would sing the song that seemed to be ubiquitous at the time: I think it's called 500 Miles and was released by Peter, Paul and Mary. I was the patrol leader for the Kingfishers, and we got told off for doing art stuff all the time. Weird co-incidence- I don't think I've heard that song for 40 years, and it's just appeared in an episode of Professor T that I watching online!

Much later, there were a couple of discos there and even a live gig: there was a young chap called Gabriel Schuster who wore an academic gown and played long guitar solos, as I remember. So here is a gig in the Institute, alongside Floppy Posture, a band formed by my friend Simon Brough who used to do bellringing in Wylam Parish Church as part of a young posse. I joined first (McMum told me I should because I found the bellringing practices so annoying). His brother Andy, one of my best friends, died a couple of years ago. What a pity he can't come too.