Something In The Air by Thunderclap Newman, with heavy involvement of The Who’s Pete Townshend, was the UK’s No. 1 for 3 weeks in July 1969.

It is indelibly etched in my mind, aged 10, as I listened to it crossing Blackheath to Christ’s College school, radio clamped to my right ear in the bright sunshine. These images and sensations can stay with you forever, like Proust’s Madeleine Cake (and Monty Python’s summary thereof).

Here is me,(far left) in the Christ’s College football team posing in front of the red front door:

Here is the school:

The pond in the foreground was the scene of a school nature trip involving tadpoles, jam jars and string. A bundle of boys developed on the heath, trapping my jam jar. I pulled and pulled on the string, the jam jar was freed and hit my mouth, leaving the front tooth  chipped, and also  leading to an emergency trip home from work for my mum to take me to hospital.

Happy days, ha ha!

20th July 1969 (according to Wikipedia at 20:17 UTC – GMT, I think) Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and a spacewalk took place 6 hours later. My mum says they bought a colour TV especially but can’t remember if the studio footage was in colour – the moon being in B&W.

I was in France on my first trip to my French exchange on holiday in Hyeres but my mum always sent me a large envelope with cuttings from newspapers usually about Chelsea FC and important events like the moon landings.

‘A Man on the Moon was in the TV Times’ is also a line from my forthcoming single ‘Blue Dansette” Bandcamp stereo single and video available on July 30th, 7″ Mono Vinyl available for pre-order.

This was the first single I ever bought with my own pocket money. I was travelling to Blackheath from Camberwell and back by bus for school here in London aged 7 to 11.

As my interest in music grew I started buying records at a proper record shop in Blackheath (image Jackie German):

Sugar Sugar is pure bubblegum pop but super catchy and was apparently offered to The Monkees by publisher Don Kirshner but they declined. The b-side Melody Hill is also a favourite of mine.