Once a year the Vauxhall Heritage Centre opens its doors to the general public. The rest of the time, the museum, on the site of Vauxhall’s head office in Luton, is a functioning vehicle restoration and display environment that is inaccessible (unless you work at Griffin House).

I have written about the Heritage Centre a few times before (see below). The first post dates back to October 2012 and was about that year’s open day. The second, dated May 2014, was about a DSG event that was held there.

1) http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/vauxhallrsquos-heritage-centre-ndash-a-nostalgic-trip-to-luton.html

2) http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/the-droopsnoot-celebrates-its-40th-birthday

On 10th April, I once again made my way to Luton, armed with my enthusiasm and my trusty camera, to participate in 2016’s open day. The event organisation followed the format shared in the first of the posts above so won’t get repeated here.

The experience was certainly entertaining.

​On the upside, amongst many other vehicles, a family of HC Viva derivatives was present (albeit dispersed all over the site). See the photos - don’t they look so much more appealing than the new model?

On the downside, my overriding memory will actually be about a lack of them.   

Back in the mid-nineties when I worked at Vauxhall, I used to spend my lunch breaks in the Heritage Centre with the vehicle restorers. Bernard Ridgeley and Ray Cooper were the custodians of the car collection - both ex-production line workers of retirement age and full of character.  

I hadn’t seen either of them for a handful of years admittedly, but when I strolled up to say hello, I had expected that they might remember me.  But Bernard looked a bit confused and Ray had to ask me to remind him who I was.

I’ll confess to feeling a sense of deflation. Still, I’ll admit that I am struggling to maintain my youthful good looks (20 years haven’t been as kind as they might) and the fellas are now of an age where they might be struggling to maintain their mental/physical faculties.

But most likely, they just had more of an impact on me than I did on them.

Having mentioned a few things that would have helped them place me, and asked a few questions that evidenced that I genuinely knew them, I beat a hasty, and rather embarrassed, retreat.

Memory Lane tends to be perceived as smooth tarmac all the way. But like roads everywhere, it has its pot holes.

I remember my Vivas and Firenza with much fondness…

…and forget that they never seemed to work for long, didn’t keep the water out, drank lots of fuel and one needed muscles to steer and to stop them.    

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With the EU referendum drawing ever nearer, I’ll admit to being in a state of uncertainty about which way to vote. To date I have avoided writing about this topic because I’ll freely admit that I don’t understand all the implications of leaving and I am reluctant to make ill informed, poorly considered comment.

It would appear that most of my peer group face the same kind of quandary.  I have had a few opportunities to discuss the subject with my family and my friends but for me/them/us, clarity has not been forthcoming.

I would love to have the facts laid out in an unbiased fashion but that seems impossible given the fug of domestic and international politics that surrounds the subject and the exponents of staying or leaving.

• The scaremongering, points scoring, personal abuse and general rhetoric are just not helpful
• I am bothered that the government can spent £9 million of tax payers’ money printing a booklet that is broadly one-sided when the opposition has much less funding to present its arguments. Yet a decent booklet would be bloody helpful!
• It worries me that the best piece of journalism I have read on the subject was written by Boris Johnson and appeared in the Telegraph (a paper I don’t normally read)
• I am concerned that people will vote based upon who they like, or Cameron’s tax affairs and not the real issues (which to be frank, they probably don’t understand anyway)
• I can’t even make up my mind up how I feel about Obama’s intervention

“In, out, in, out, shake it all about” are the well-known words to the Hokey-Cokey and that song and dance is the theme of this debate as far as I am concerned.

And yet this referendum is more important to the future of the country than alternative voting and Scottish independence put together. 

It’s maddening!

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Regular readers will know that music (typically, but not exclusively, of the metal or punk genre) is an often covered subject on adrianbaldwin.com. Perhaps it won’t surprise you that musical matters are the focus of this post – the title borrowed from an album by the recently deceased Prince.

Prince’s death at only 57 was a shock and, you might be surprised to read this, I felt a genuine sense of sadness. Don’t get me wrong, Lemmy’s departure had a much deeper impact, but Prince was a cool cat whose albums (quite a lot of them in fact) feature in my CD collection, and who I had seen live.   

In his quirky and funky way, Prince rocked and he’ll be missed.

A funk-rock miss to hard-rock mistake

It has been announced that Axl Rose is going to replace Brian Johnson on the current AC/DC world tour.  As a fan of the antipodean rockers, I have to be frank, that appointment doesn’t work for me. When Rose takes to the stage in place of the legendary Geordie, there will probably be AC/DC fans all over the place empathising with Johnson’s hearing limitations…

…by putting their fingers in their ears.    

​For AC/DC, I guess the band was between a rock and a hard place. How else could it keep the revenue generated from the ticket sales? The band stated it was lucky to get Rose – certainly lucky to keep the tour income and to find an available, admittedly ‘B’ list, rocker.  But less lucky for the fans.

Hard luck to a hard read
​ 
One of three books I am concurrently consuming is Steven Tyler’s (Aerosmith) autobiography “Does the noise inside my head bother you?”

To be frank, the book isn’t good. I had hoped that it might be as entertaining a read as Lemmy’s “White Line Fever” or Ozzy’s “I am Ozzy”, but sadly not.

I don’t know if Tyler thought he’d come across as some kind of enlightened “guru” but from what I have read so far, he just comes across as a space cadet. Or the rock equivalent of a stoned David Brent. The pseudo psycho/psychedelic/spiritual/sexual drivel is infuriating and badly written too.

I started this music related post with an ology and I’ll end it with an apology.

Sorry Mr Tyler, in answer to your question, my response is “well yes, in fact enough for me to doubt my will power to make it to the end of your book.”

Hopefully we don’t find out that Prince was reading a copy of DTNIMHBY in the lift when his body lost the will.

Prince Rogers Nelson – RIP
AC/DC - RIP
DTNIMHBY – rip to pieces

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In November last year I wrote a piece about the passing of Simon Kelly, the long-time front man of my favourite punk band, the Bleach Boys.

RIP Simon Kelly

I reprise that post because on the evening of 1st April 2016, Simon’s band mates headlined a fundraising gig at Club 85 for his family, friends and fans. The first was of course April Fools’ Day and though the gig took place after 12pm, there was still plenty of scope for fooling around – which was kind of appropriate bearing in mind that Simon was legendary for this when he took to the stage.

Obviously I went to the gig and I can report that it was brilliant and a fitting memorial; if you are interested, you can read all about it.

Over the last few decades, Club 85 in Hitchin has been a regular venue for the Bleach Boys, I have lost count of how many times I have seen the band perform there. So the date was spot on and in terms of a choice of location for a send-off, Club 85 was just right too.

On the undercard for the evening were Sarah Pink, Mighty Collider and Monkish. 

But it was when the Bleach Boys began that Club 85 really started to come alive, the place suddenly packed. During the set, old photographs of the band featuring Simon Kelly were beamed on to the back wall, it was a moving reminder to everyone present that we were all there to celebrate a life.

The set list as follows:

1. You cant
2. Stealth
3. Taking the ‘O’ out of country
4. Nuclear war
5. Death before porno
6. Pogo
7. We hate you
8. Guantanamo baby
9. Death list
10. Shithead
11. Tapeworm (new)
12. Stocking clad NDSB
13. IMA Lesbian sex commando
14. Wake up Wako
15. Toxic (new)
16. Weirdo
17. Bicycle song
18. FFFFISV crouton
19. All over you
20. Move it
21. Psycho semtex sex
22. We got the bomb
23. Chloroform
24. Slapper
25. Zombie
26. You cant (and just as much fun the second time around)

This was a cracking set, longer than most of the Bleach Boys gigs I have been to and it included many of the best tracks in the band’s back catalogue as well as some new material. 

The moshing started with track one (damn well proving that we weren't just a bunch of cants) and I was in the thick of it from the get go until the end (over an hour of looking more like an idiot than usual...and hot and sweaty with it too). Whilst I am really too old for this kind of nonsense, my view (and that no doubt shared by my fellow wreckers) was that it wouldn’t have been right without the dancing. We all owed it to Simon’s family and the band to make sure that the gig was as exuberant as possible.

I went with an old school buddy and met another one that I hadn’t seen in 25 years. It was amusing to mosh with a few of the same guys I moshed with when I was a teenager. 

Even as I write this piece, I am still bruised (yellow) from the outing and I even have a carpet burn from one of the occasions that I ended up on the deck. On the bright side, it was a great work out, I am glad I still have enough stamina to cope with the demands and it was damn fine fun. 

Despite the existence of a mosh pit in front of the stage, the gig was poignant, respectful (no one got hurt), funny in places and the most family orientated punk event I have ever been to.  Simon’s wife, daughter and brother were present as well as numerous friends.  Simon’s daughter even ended up on the stage with the band during Chloroform.

​The family feel continued later when the wives and girlfriends of the Bleach Boys climbed up on the stage to join in with “Slapper”.

All in all it was the best Bleach Boys gig I have been to in years, it was a great send off for Simon Kelly – he would have thoroughly enjoyed the event. What’s more, almost a thousand pounds was raised on the evening for the charity Bloodwise.

John Barnett (Bleach Boys) and David Visick (Mighty Collider) organised the event and it was a real credit to them. There will be more Bleach Boys gigs in the future but none of them will have quite the same feel as this one. If you missed it then that’s a shame but all is not lost - you can still share in the experience.  Peter Gill took some great photographs and at least one audience member filmed the gig. Links are shared below.

• Link to Peter Gill’s photo library on Flickr
• Youtube – watch the gig for yourself
• Link to the Bleach Boys site
• ​Link to Kelly Family Bloodwise fundraising page