ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Whatever age you are most people generally measure whether that time was good by the music of the time. And for me at age nine glam rock was king. Who could forget the great bands of the day – T-Rex with the sexily androgynous Marc Bolan, Sweet with their all-in-one multi-coloured jumpsuits and Slade, the hyper rock ‘n’ roll band with the biggest sound from Brummie Noddy Holder.

Trendy meant wearing trousers with at least 18 inch wide flares and my favourites were the two-tone ‘loons’ (I think it was short for pantaloons), purple and red for everyday wear and bright yellow lycra for the youth club. And of course platform shoes. I had to beg my mum to buy me some, she was afraid I would fall off them and hurt myself. But in the end she relented and I teetered on them proudly and only fell of them occasionally (but don’t tell my mum!).

Important events that occurred in 1971 but I was too young to notice – The Beatles split, Greenpeace was formed, decimalisation came into force, Philips launched the VCR video recorder and the Nike swoosh was born.

Favourite TV programmes were The Two Ronnies (and it’s goodnight from him), The Generation Game with Brucie (Nice to see you, to see you nice) and The Liver Birds (hilarious Liverpool comedy).

Toy crazes consisted of Klackers, like a giant pair of conkers that you clacked together, a totally lethal toy almost guaranteed to cause serious injury, and the fabulous Space Hopper – boing, boing, boing, ouch! Health and safety would have had a field day!

So that’s my trip down memory lane – would I go there again – absolutely, now where did I put those ‘loons’…