the mountain

int: did you always recognize the potential in each other, i always think that is kind of one of the key parts of a friendship, when you can recognize different strengths in each other that you admire? damon: he was basically one of the only people who would like, fuck with me, - to use a... i'd have not really used that sort of word - yeah, i was just a real oddball of a sort. bullied a lot, for doing things slightly differently and graham was much more sort of conventional, in the context that his parents lived just behind the school, he actually lived there, he'd gone to primary school there, which makes a big difference when you go to secondary school, when you just come out of nowhere into that, and all of these sort of relationships were kind of formed already. and the first summer i got to essex for some reason, i did that one year at primary school there, and i did this thing the 1st or 2nd day that i was there, i kind of ate a ladybird at break and then it was like, 'oi! new boy, eat another ladybird!'. that was the beginning of it, things might have been very different if i hadn't eaten that ladybird, i imagine. i've never eaten a ladybird since... i was just showing off, i had a problem, i used to show off a lot, it jarred with people, understandably. because i came from leytonstone, i was an urban kid i wasn't a country kid. ...and i had a violin, my dad drove a lada. int: right. but graham saw these as strengths, i think, and thought 'this is my kind of guy...'

damon: we just got on brilliantly, you know, best friends. for the whole time we were in school. and there was this portakabin outside the music and art block, and we were allowed to go in there and play, it had a piano and keyboard, and graham had a saxophone and drums, we used to play music.