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HOME was a small town called Stanford-le-hope, A.K.A. Stanford and Corringham. It was two villages that had grown together to form a poxy little town with nothing to offer, if you wanted to do anything you had to get out. Check out the Knowhere site to get a good impression of what it was like. My favourite quote about Stanford’s best building is “the banks so you can get money to use the trains to get out”.
Despite the slating it gets it has a place of fondness in my memory, its nothingness has its own charm, a sort of indifference to the world around it. Stanford moves further away each year, not physically but temporally, maybe that’s growing up.
Stanford’s activities for the young metaller included: walking about drinking newky brown, sitting about in a park drinking newky brown, sitting in somebody’s house drinking newky brown, getting the shit kicked out of you, or going somewhere else.
Somewhere else would be Basildon’s Round Acre, Southends cliffs pavilion or Esplanade bar, or London. The round acre was a hut near a roundabout near the town centre of Basildon, its still there and it probably still does the same sort of thing; local bands for local kids. Southend is a bit more upmarket when it comes to bands I’ve seen the Almighty and Red Dogs at the Cliffs and Pearl Jam, Terrovision and Naughty Naughty at the Esplanade. London speaks for its self. Stanford had nothing to offer until 1994 when the Luna club opened (it may have been 1995) but by that point I was doing the father thing and had no money or time to spare. It was also about this time that some friends and I decided to form a band, we called it Bastard and we were shit, but it was fun.
1995 saw everybody move away, and that included me( and my sprog), I still have family and friends who live there and it will always have a place in my heart.