I dreamed of flares in the seventies

Drainpipes in the eighties

Some say double demin is social death

Tonight I take the risk with triple denim

I have never played baseball but I used

To wear the boots with joy in my teens

Which was also a time that

I longed for winkle pickers with Cuban Heels and zips up the side just like

The older cool greasers wearing leather

Jackets with no motorcycles who used to Hang out in the Bus station

and always sit at the back of the single decker buses

On their way home to Coombe Bissett

And other places well known for the

Sartorial elegance of their inhabitants

My first real girlfriend Julia Anne

A Geordie student nurse henna haired

And working at Odstock

Informed me I must not go clothes

Shopping on my own as I had mindlessly

Adopted the sensible M&S clothing

Advised by my mother who

Deplored any fashion always

Stating it was rubbish knocked up to follow the trends and would soon

Fray and fall apart, particularly hard

On my poor sisters who unlike me

Had real dress sense and were

Forbidden cool clothes by my mother.

There I was rescued by Julia Anne

Who marched me into a trendy clothes

Shop in Butcher Row, now long gone.

Put me into a bottle green velvet jacketWrangler demin flares and a funky shirt

She had created a man she wanted to love

And told me I had made her

Exceedingly happy as she had me

We were young, but reckless with the love

We had and carelessly lost touch

After just a year together

She will be wearing something cool today

And looking beautiful wherever she is

She used to have a flat in Elm Grove Road in the late seventies

So wouldn’t be lost around here

Should she walk back in now,

I hope she would approve as I am

Still trying not to wear sensible clothes

I still miss her and her fashion advice

And her great musical taste and how loving she was in bed.

How we fell out of fashion with each other is a mystery I will carry to the grave...