This photo was taken at the University of East Anglia in 1977.

I’m on my 1958 Triumph 500 Tiger and my friend Pat (right) is on his Kawasaki KH500 Triple Cylinder 2 stroke. I bought my clothes in a motorbike shop and I am wearing my dad’s Aviator sunglasses. He was a pilot with the RAF and I used to “borrow” them all the time, until I became a pilot myself and got my own pair.

This photo was taken in my bedroom when I lived with my mother in Bury, just experimenting with my photo gear.

I was about 20 years old then and I had a Triumph Benneville 650 (one of top bikes of the time) The combat jacket was probably part of the gear I was issued with when I joined the TA, couldn't afford a leather jacket.

When I was in the TA about 1968, this was when the regiment was the Lancashire Fusiliers. as an aside I tried to join the regular army, I'd signed up for REME and all I needed was a medical. Unfortunately about a year before I'd had a motorcycle accident and had a spleenectomy, so they wouldn't accept me, but the TA was OK. As it happens I was taken ill on weekend exercise and had to have an emergency op!!!

This was taken at Hollingworth lake (Littleborough) with colleagues that all worked in the laboratories at Transparent Paper in Bury, we were more than colleagues we were friends and went out together drinking etc. I ended up marrying the girl on the far left, still with her today (2013)

In the routine laboratory at Transparent Paper, standing L to R, Jan Zuc, Nigel O'Garr(Nog), me, Paul Hughes, Steven Atkinson (Ackers), sitting Geoff Stretch. It was like a big club we had a social club we used to go to at lunchtime for a game of snooker or a game or a game of table tennis. Playing jokes on each other… a good time!

I failed to get the trend right. I took hemlines up by hand as I was always a bit short! Always hurriedly taken up because I wanted to go out that evening. Later on I was a Beatnick, and then to acceptable dress but still keeping my own style.

I failed at being a mod, pleated skirt and winkle pickers with heels - and very neat hair, but my hair never looked quite as neat as I would have liked.

Hippy changing to more acceptable but still a bit offbeat. I never looked like anyone else, I had cheap clothes, as I never had any money!

The Beatnik look was  dyed t-shirts, shrunken/bleached/slashed jeans (looked like you had been painting the house) and mid length skirt Amy Winehouse hairstyle - half a beehive with the rest down. I wore black tights with holes - which was fashionable if you were a beatnik, wore moccasins with jeans or skirt with a little black heeled shoe.

In the late 60s/early 70s I wore - knee length brown maxi wool skirt, very Bonnie and Clyde. I used to wear it with boots or a Biba shirt, at the time Biba was very cheap too.

We were incredibly innocent but my parents read an article about people having sex in the garden/drugs and my dad forbade me to go but we never knew about that. We often went to Wimbledon Palais, a dancehall, with big lights, no particular style - live music - some Mods and some non-Mods. We got accused of being Beatniks by some lads, we spent so long trying to look like Mods! 

In Soho, we went to Ad Lib a couple of times but it was very elite and hard to get in. We managed to get in with a regular - very exciting!

Also went to The Pheasantry, famous posh place that people like Twiggy went to but we only went a few times but we were very impressed.

We used to stroll along the Kings Road and hope people would come and talk to you but no one ever did!

In the late 70s’s I changed my hair to platinum after being a warm reddish blonde, that was a big change because I started to have more sex appeal after that! I remember getting a blue linen dress with a keyhole back, to me was very daring at the time.

I found a pair of 6 inch round toe beige stiletto and was delighted, you couldn't get them anywhere (only in film star shops) and I wore them with shiny lycra jeans or my turquoise Fred Perry dress. The shoes used to get caught in the escalator if I wasn't quick off the mark.

A day in soho just doing what a normal New Yorker would do - sipping coffee at Toms, grocery shopping, people watching in the park.. you know? LOL

My outfit today is inspired with earthy colors and neutral tones.

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Sweater

  Leather Pants

Vintage 1980s Adidas Track Jacket