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I remember being woken up by my mum one horrible night in 1977 two days before my birthday. All I‘d been thinking of was whether or not I’d be getting a skateboard or a surprise party up until this point. What she told me pushed all of this out of my mind. The King was dead. Elvis, who very recently had become by idol, was no longer with us. I don’t mind admitting that I cried myself back to sleep that night.

I never did get that skateboard or surprise party but I didn’t mind too much. It was the middle of a glorious August, not as hot as the one the year before in 1976, but sunshine and long days seemed to be the fashion that all summers wore when I was a kid.

I got over Elvis dying. For one thing all of his films were being constantly shown on television and we had license to play his albums constantly unlike being told ‘enough was enough’ only weeks before.

I never thought I would feel that way about a famous person’s death again. I didn’t catch the national grief when Diana died for instance, but my world would be rocked again just over three years later.

Since The death of Elvis on 16th of August 1977 I had grown up. I had developed and matured in my musical tastes. I had flipped from Rock and Roll to punk and new wave. None of these resided too long in my musical heart. One musical force did however. A band that hailed from my home town. A band whose very streets I had tread, whose very houses I had passed and who’s legacy would change the city where I lived forever.

That band was The Beatles of course. I was mad about them. I was in my own little Beatlemania world for a couple of years. I didn’t have much pocket money to buy records so I was grateful my brothers and sisters all had every Beatle’s albums between them that I could sneak from their rooms and play on my hand-me-down Dansette portable turntable.