Saturday mornings at Max Records

In the distant days, whilst waiting for what seemed like an interminably long lull between the football and cricket season to disappear, there was a thing called Saturday mornings.

Saturday mornings were spent in town, having caught the no. 1 or 11 to the station. It was then straight into Max Records (or briefly into Silver Disc) and start to flick through the new release section. I can still recall the box fresh tang of the whole shop, the bright yellow & green bags and most importantly the records. 79p was a lot of money to spend on a single, so the choice had to be right. Would it be; Patrick Fitzgerald - 'Safety pin stuck in my heart' EP, Wire - 'I am the Fly', Gang of Four 'Damaged Goods' EP or something more chart/mainstream like The Stranglers (whose drummer Jet Black was ancient even then) or heaven forbid the wretched The Police (goodness knows how they were ever regarded as a good reggae band).

Once a choice was made (Gof4), it was hand over the cash and then head on to a cafe to meet up with the assorted massed ranks of the record buying youth of Eastbourne. The venue was forever changing; Upstairs at Bobbys, The Cappucino (or Kampuchea as it was known), The Golden Egg, Macari's, Notarianni's and finally the ever faithful Spartan in Grove Road. Once ensconced at a table with either a coffee or usually a more time consuming pot of tea, the records would be passed around, praised, dismissed, pored over and generally completely dissected for the best part of three hours. All the while with Tony or George trying to hurry us along or at least get one person in the group of 14 youths to buy a bloody cup of coffee.

Occasionally we'd sit round and read articles from the NME but by Saturday all the news had already been out on the street for four days and at that time a band could be discovered, release a single, sign to a major, release a disappointing debut LP, split and reform within the space of an afternoon, so 4 days was a lifetime. Some youth cults didn't even make it past breakfast on a Wednesday let alone through to the weekend.

And when finally we couldn't make the pot of tea stretch any further we'd spill out onto Grove Road, tumble down by the Central Library, passing the station and get onto separate buses and wend our way back to the distant suburbs and estates of Roselands, Cavendish, Langney, Ringmere, Langney Point and beyond. All of us sitting at the back of our respective rides, staring at the 7" single in our hands and hoping and praying that we'd made the right choice but promising at the same time that "next week I'm definitely going to buy the Wire single.... Or perhaps the new John Cooper Clarke one... Or maybe The Jam will bring forward their new release... Or... Or... And so it went on.

 The eternal joyous circle of Saturday morning suburban life.