John foster bronski beat6/12/2023 ![]() The radio plays newly released songs some float untended out of my open window, but as I swap a pair of rusting nail scissors from one sore hand to the other, a rising and falling synthesised throb drifts into my consciousness, demanding my full teenage attention. The only words I could verbalise were not ‘I’d like a pint please ‘ but ‘ I’m home.’Įngaged in an activity that must seem wholly medieval to the download generation, I’m sprawled awkwardly over my bedroom floor, snipping song lyrics from unsteady towers of Smash Hits Magazines in order to slot them neatly into the sleeves of my 7 inch single collection, where I suspect they fade to this day. ![]() Whilst attempting to order a pint at a rammed bar, I found myself unexpectedly overwhelmed with potent, primal emotions. Entering a surprisingly compact (yet heaving) space, I was at once overwhelmed with emotion and an instinctive sense of community and history. With the ‘Royal’ reverberating grandly in my perceptions, it nonetheless took me several attempts to summon courage enough to enter, squeezing nervously past perspiring gaggles of shirtless men. ![]() After a number of failed attempts to ground myself socially, I was reverentially advised by a handsome Soho stranger (being new to the city, there were so many in those days) to head ‘sarf of the river’ to the ‘Royal Vauxhall Tavern’. I moved to London in 2000, a naive country boy fleeing the final act of a twelve year relationship, in the hope of establishing fresh roots and a new way of being.
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