The Enigma Tape

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It was going to be comment on the Afghanistan debacle tonight, but yesterday an enigma raised itself from my past; a modern mystery in the making: cue diabolical laughter and plate reverb. I was making some sourly ironic remark on Twitter - a platform I actually think is complete crap, and to be honest I only follow a few interesting people and organisations and seldom contribute myself - and I tapped some icon and the following transpired.

I was guided back to a tweet aimed at my good self way back in March, which I had obviously missed amid the blizzard of digital confetti that is a normal ten seconds on the platform - I really do have better things to do than monitor all this stuff in real time as some people seem to do - only in this case, I'd rather that I had been more attentive on the day.

I was being quizzed as to whether I knew someone's father, based on the label on an old box of reel-to-reel tape (Google it, post-boomers) that had obviously been unearthed from someone's stored belongings: the underlying narrative behind the find I can only speculate on. Accompanying the tweet was the above phone pic. Now, I don't remember the tape or the context of the recording of any of its possible content, but the label definitely references myself,  a fact obvious to me simply by virtue of the other names on the label.

The tweet was posted by Lucian White, who I personally don't know or have met, but his father Kev, is the K. White alongside my name on the box. What seals the deal is Andy Cox's name below. Now, without wishing to name-drop - futile anyway as he became famous some twelve months after the last time I spoke to or clapped eyes on him - Andy is the self same A. Cox of The Beat and later, Fine Young Cannibals (again, if you're under fifty, Google's your man)

The connection between the three of us was school: Kev and Andy were in the year below me in high school (as they call it these days). Although I lost touch with Andy, I stayed mates with Kev through the seventies, until we moved to North Wales in 1980, after which I think I spoke to him a couple of times on the phone.  After that, I've no idea what he did or where he went: until the mysterious tweet I only thought of the man with reference to school, art college, or the early Beat gigs in Birmingham.

I would dearly like to hear what's on the tape, however early and embarrassing the music might have been (at least on my part, Kev was a better guitarist than me),  because it represents a little recorded and referenced part of my life, the memory of which is, at this distance, somewhat unreliable. If anyone can shed any light whatsoever on this mini-mystery, such as what happened to Kev (I have tried to contact his son, but to no avail so far), or who the other two names in the photo are; I'd be grateful if you would contact me through the comment section on this post, or by email if you know me well enough to have my address. Interesting things happen at the most unexpected moments - this one's a belter. I'll keep you posted.

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