Ain't Bad for a Pink

Ain't Bad for a Pink by Sandra Gibson

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Authors: Sandra Gibson
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say, fifteen years, there is more appreciation for that type of music but he was so ahead of his time. There has been a bond between us ever since.
    Des Parton. (20)
Guitars And Stop Watches
    There’s a 1901 notice from the London & North Western Railway which states: “It is forbidden for vagrants, beggars, itinerant musicians and females of doubtful reputation to enter these premises. By order”.
    You’d think that it had been “by order” of my father. In the opposite corner to my musical passion was my father’s continued disapproval of it. When my mother died the subtle moderating influence she had over my father went, and things became very fraught between us over my yet to be decided future. I wanted to be a musician; I was a musician. Every home had a piano in those days but I wanted to play the guitar and this made me a renegade. If my music had been classical then perhaps his antagonism would have been less strong, but this was rock ‘n’ roll and the guitar was already my downfall, seducing me from studying for my O-levels or becoming a committed athlete. My relationship with Nantwich and Acton Grammar School was equally turbulent; I was troubled and rebellious and class-conscious. Aged sixteen, things came to a head and I floored my father – something to do with me not coming up to expectations and his guilt about my troubled home life. Perhaps if we had talked about my mother, things would have been easier but I was too aggressive and strong-willed to fit into school life any longer, and that wasn’t his fault. I was effectively if not officially expelled: refused entry into the Upper Sixth in spite of my remarkable prowess in athletics.
    I am sorry to have to advise you that his behaviour here, his aggressive attitude to authority and his influence on his fellows, make it impossible for us to accept him for an Advanced course. (21)
    I was a rebel with a cause: to me the school was riddled with class prejudice. I came from working class Crewe, not rural, well-heeled Nantwich. My school hadn’t caught up with the new spirit of educational equality for all; it was still imbued with the values of privilege and the prejudice of class.
    The school spat me out and partly in deference to my father I went to college to do A levels, then joined the Civil Service where even the considerable amount of horseplay and foreplay in the Filing Room could never compensate for the boredom of such a job. This was Billy Liar territory and I left after a year . I considered joining the Forces: all three invited me for interview; all three accepted me. One of the things we had to do was to give a talk. I suppose they were interested in communication skills and individual interests as well as political beliefs. I talked about the blues and slavery. The reason I didn’t join up was because you had to sign up for sixteen years and that was too long. But it was interesting to see the same hierarchical attitudes in school, in the Civil Service and in the Forces. At one point I was shown into the officers’ mess on my own where it was silver service with half a dozen people waiting on me. In all the services I found the sergeants’ mess level more comfortable socially.
    Throughout my white collar days I was playing music but I was trying to find work I liked and which would give me the security my father valued so much. That’s how I ended up at Manchester University enrolled for a B.Ed. following my two brothers who were both teachers. I left within a year after a dispute over leadership styles. My tutor was in favour of ‘progressive’ approaches to education and I had a more authoritarian position with regard to the tough kids at my teaching placement. Subsequently running a business and a band my instinct was reinforced: there has to be a chief and rules and everyone has to be clear where they stand.
    Frustrating career-wise, fortunately my time at Manchester flowed musically.
    After Manchester, I was getting into that

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