My Thwarted Plans #31: Why I Never Got To Keep That Precious Souvenir (Liverpool, 1980s)
I went to an awful lot of gigs in the 70s, and the novelty of buying programmes or posters soon wore off: the money was better spent on more gigs, and I had no idea back then how much I'd treasure in my fifties things I acquired in my teens. I did buy the odd t-shirt, though - three, that I remember. Dr Feelgood in 1976, Buzzcocks in 1978, and one from Bob Dylan's concert at Blackbushe the same year.
I still lived at home, as those t-shirts got more and more cool - to my eyes; more and more faded and tattered, to my mum's. And the price of getting all my washing done for me was that I never knew when I'd get things back clean. If it was a smart respectable shirt, it strangely seemed to be washed and ironed and returned to me a lot faster than something she didn't like. And if I tried to do any washing of my own, to influence the rotation, obstacles were always put in my way.
Because controversial items could go missing for unpredictable periods, it took a good while for me to notice that the Feelgood and Buzzcocks ones had simply been disappeared, like Soviet dissidents. I thought this was odd, but wasn't quite 100% sure I hadn't somehow lost them. All doubt vanished the day I discovered the bathroom had just been cleaned with the Bob Dylan Blackbushe 1978 t-shirt I'd like to be treasuring today.