1991 -Jesmond - Djr

I bought an album by a group called King Swamp, it was a kind of American rocky blues thing, and I absolutely loved it; there was a picture of the band on the inside sleeve and one guy had these really cool pair of round glasses. So, I went out and bought some for myself. King Swamp became my soundtrack for the approaching summer.

1990 -Jesmond - Richy

Richy was working in a pizza place around the corner, on Jesmond Road.

Early Feb, 1991, I hire a video camera to pick-up progress with life. I get some great footage of the Jesmond Village experience, of life in the house with Jason and John, and of Chris, Ciaran and others. On the final night with the video camera I thankfully swap out the tape for a fresh one, before heading into the road to do some filming. Thankfully, because four blokes jump out of a car, beat me to the ground, knee-cap me and steal the video camera.

Interestingly, they're so dumb, they get caught 2 days later driving the same car and even wearing the same clothes; CID find the video camera at their house, and they even still have the video with me being beaten up...

Dad gave me time off work. I spent 6 weeks on crutches with a broken knee-cap. I had to move onto the ground floor for a couple of weeks because I could walk-up and down stairs. Jason had to hold my leg whilst I went to the toilet because I couldn't bend it. I discovered I was still dealing with my dark winter after splitting up with Grassy... so the 6 weeks allowed me to get my head together. I wrote another murder mystery in the Tyneside Coffee Rooms, which became my permanent haunt from then on.

1991 -Jesmond - Dad

Dad was really there for me after I got beaten-up; I think it gave him the opportunity to show he cared. It meant a lot to me.

1991 -Newcastle - Chris Tonka, Djr

Comic Relief happened, so Chris and I decided to raise some money for charity.

1991 -Newcastle - Djr

It was not long after this event that I joined Chris Tonka, and Adam A on a journey to Amsterdam.

The result of this was that I vowed never to travel with friends ever again, or certainly never let friends make the arrangements... I had mistakenly assumed that Chris and Adam were experienced travellers and knew what they were doing...

...so for me, Amsterdam was initially a disaster, that was until I broke free from the two of them and headed off on my own. Literally, I was cycling down a road behind them, gritting my teeth an their ineptitude, and I abruptly swung my handlebars to the right and veered off on my own without a word. From that moment on, I had a fantastic time.

Memory: Can of Coke & Two Straws.

Memory: return journey, The Doors, and Gabrielle Roth (Bones).

I went back to work at Dad's place. Spring rolled into Summer. I used to trundle out of bed around 8.30, head downstairs, brew a mug of tea and fill a bowl of cereal then step outside the front door... Jason would join me, and we'd stand there, watching the world go by. Around 8.45 the Number 4 bus would come down Osborne Avenue...it was an usual bus in that it was very small, and would stop anywhere you put your hand out. So I used to drain my mug of tea, hand the empty mug and bowl to Jason, step onto the road, climb onto the bus, and be right outside work by five minutes to 9. Perfect.

It was whilst I was doing this that I used to hear a familiar click-click-click of high heels coming down the small side-road that ran along the side of the house (the house was on the end of a terrace). After a few moments, an attractive girl would strut round the corner, with short black spikey hair and funky clothes, and walk past Jason and I. After a couple weeks of this I got talking to her. Enter Rachel "Boots" into my life.

She was lively, sexy, and fun. She restored a lot of my confidence, although I was still feeling scarred by my experience with Grassy.

1991 -Jesmond - Richy

Richy's place in Manor House Road became an absolute wonderful haven... he had a huge room in this sprawling house, made wonderful coffee and was always there when you needed him to be.

Grassy and I became friends again, and she joined Richy and I in some late night Call of Cthulhu sessions here, with my newly found Dead Can Dance providing an awesome soundtrack.

Had a funny night round here with Caroline Sykes...met up with her clubbing at Walkers of all places, we both came back to Jesmond, popped into Richy's to wish him a Happy Birthday... had some of the cake his mum had baked especially for him and POW...I was a gonner... bad memories of Pink Floyd - Metal - and of KLF - Chill Out (when the dog barked).

1991 -Jesmond - Jason J, Djr, John P

I'm 6ft 1, so Jason was simply a giant, especially compared to John. In fact, Jason would often move all of John's things in the kitchen up to the top shelf... meaning John usually had to stand on a kitchen stool to reach up to get what he needed to cook a meal.

I really enjoyed living with them.

1991 -Jesmond - Adam A, Richy, Grassy

Adam A was entrenched in Middlesborough and very happy there, he often came up to Newcastle to visit. One day he asked me about Rachel... were we girlfriend boyfriend or was it casual?

I liked Rachel immensley but I was wary of committing myself to anybody "in case I got hurt".

The next thing I know, Adam and Rachel are an item and I experience a terrible sense of humiliation at a party at Rachel's place one night. It left me confused, hurt and angry. It was now that I decided I needed to get away from Newcastle... I put plans in motion to leave.

1991 -Jesmond - Sorell

Richy had started a 'life-drawing' class. One night I went round there were two girls there. One of them was Sorell and I enjoyed my summer with her.

1991 -Jesmond - Djr

There was a period of a lot of practical jokes in the house. This one was used to convince a girl, who'd recently moved in, that I'd killed myself... she came out of her room, just to the left of the shot, one night when the hall was flooded with deep red light to find me hanging there...

...this was the period when Jason and I tied a bell-on-a-string to the inside of John's wall... and John became convinced there was "something" haunting the attic space...

...this was when Karl P dressed up in a ski-mask and "broke-in" carrying a 9mm Beretta, was confronted by us, and then "shot" Jason before chasing John around the house...

...this was when Jason threw an apple into the kitchen then left, locking the door behind him...John and I looked at the apple, looked at each other, then we both heard the muffled fizzing a moment before the gunpowder Jason had placed inside exploded...spraying both John and I in apple purea.

1991 -Jesmond - Witty, Ciaran, Kieth & Mutley

Witty & Ciaran were like the Morcambe and Wise of Newcastle. Ciaran's superb wit combined with Witty's natural comic life made them a very funny pair of individuals to be around.

1991 -Jesmond - Djr, Richy

This was my 21st birthday. The end of August. I had a little house party. It was also a kind of leaving party... I'd now left my Dad's company, and only had a couple weeks left of being in this wonderful big old house.

It was in September that I had to pack everything away and move back in my parents house - temporarily. My mum loathed and destested my presence and made my final days in Newcastle pretty stressful.

1991 -Jesmond - Ciaran

Ciaran was back living in his Dad's house, on the street where he and I first met over 10 years earlier.

Early October. My final night in Newcastle, Mum locked me out, so I had to spend it sleeping on Ciaran's floor. Next morning I said my goodbye to him, went to the car hire place, picked up a big Peugot, went to my parents house, put all my stuff into it, didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye to my sister, or my Dad, and drove out of the city.

Destination: Bristol.

I'd never been there before... in fact, I'd never been further West than Manchester. This was all new terrain to me. I had no job, and no home... just a floor waiting for me.

1991 -Bristol - Stu, Simon, Djr, Chris

The floor that became my home for a few weeks belonged to Chris, he was studying engineering at Bristol Polytechnic, living in the on-campus halls...which looked more like a modern housing estate.

My first night there the enormity of what I'd just done was starting to sink in, I lay there, so terrified I nearly threw up. I wanted to pack all my things into the car and drive back to Newcastle the next day.

I didn't though. I dropped off the car in town and had my first experience of Bristol centre.

So I got to hang out like a student for a while, mainly spending time with Stu the Goth. I found a job working in a nightclub in the city centre as a barman, and moved out of Chris' place and into an absolute dive of a bedsit in Horfield...

...it really was terrible. The walls were soft to the touch, because of the layer of mould beneath the wallpaper... there was a pane of glass missing from the window so I would often wake up in the morning to find the remains of my bedtime cup of tea frozen in the mug... and the days I spent in the bedsit would see me having to thaw my hands out every hour or so by holding them under the hot water tap.

But I do have fond memories of getting back from the bar job at 3 or 4 in the morning, knackered but satisfied, and I'd sit in a big square armchair with a mug of tea resting on one arm, and a candle resting on the other, reading H.P.Lovecraft.

The main benefits of the bar job was meeting Dave B, who was able to offer me a room in the massive house share he was running in Hotwells, and meeting Maria Mojo, who became a major part of my life until 1995.

1991 -Bristol - Polytechnic Halls of Residence

This was the room where I spent my first few weeks in Bristol, pretending to be a student at the Polytechnic. There were some epic practicle jokes here...

...a guy called Neal and I did an impromptu radio gig through a wireless bug-microphone he'd bought. It had a really powerful range and broadcast off a regular FM band... so we dropped little paper notes through the doors of everyone on campus, "Dial into xx.xx FM at 7pm tonight." Neal and I walked around the campus doing a live radio broadcast; I'd describe where I was and say things like "flash the lights of your room if you can hear me...", both Neal and I were flabbergasted to see more than 50 percent of the lights around us flashing on and off.

Then there was the shower cubicle (removed from the house), and the ice slide made from kitche swing bins filled with water and sloshed all over the frozen road of the cul-de-sac... which was great fun but a nightmare the next morning when the dustbin wagon trundled onto it and slid out of control towards a building...

1991 -Bristol - Stu the Goth

Stu was a fun bloke to hang out with. He introduced me to Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine, and to Ministry.

He was famous for getting so drunk he'd pass out; you could wake up the next day, come downstairs and find his legs sticking out the kitchen doorway...with him lying fast asleep on the floor. Amazing that he didn't die of hypothermia or liver failure. He once passed out on the dancefloor of a club in Cheltenham...and managed to remain conscious long enough to keep the glass of Jack Daniels in his hand from spilling as he hit the floor.

1991 -Bristol - Djr, Chris Tonka

So this is me, 21, entering into a major life change.