The Ned Wood Archive

Turn on, tune in,

Turn your eyes around

The Strawberry Alarm Clock

It’s the Thursday. The same day that I’d got back from seeing our Lil and Peter Gabriel and Lou Reed in the big city. That very same evening, I was sat watching Top of the Pops. The chief reason being to make sure I was visible. Highly visible. ToTP was about to become famous again that summer. There would be a 50% chance of a good band being on. Ah, but that was later. Back in April that year, it was just starting. The Stranglers may even have been on. But I was only down in the TV room because I wanted to be seen. I’d just been to what I thought were two of the coolest gigs available and I wanted folk to see me and ask me about them.

The TV room held about fifty, and, because Top of the Pops was straight after dinner, the room was full. Not because it was worth watching, like I say, at least not yet, but because all of these students who had said they’d do half an hour of work after dinner wanted any excuse not to get started. Plus sometimes if you hung around downstairs after dinner, a group of you would maybe decide to go for a drink at Glen and end up not starting work ever.

So I walked in about five minutes after the show had started and Jo shouted ‘Alright Riff’ from the back where she was sat on a table against the wall. So I smiled cos I knew she knew where I’d been and gave myself 8/10 for the entrance. I sat down in one of the few empty chairs and deliberately put my feet on the back of the chair in front to make myself look even cooler. I should have been wearing shades, but you can’t do everything.

I’d love to be able to tell you who was on that evening, so you’d see how bad our music was back then, but I can’t remember any of it apart from one thing. Peter Gabriel. I know, cos as soon as they mentioned his name, I heard Jo’s voice three rows back saying ‘Riff went to see him the other day’, and I was ready to lay back and bask in the imagined adoration that would follow. But my self satisfaction was immediately cut short by this electric shriek that followed and this voice that boomed out full of energy and life: ‘Tense for you – you better start explaining …’. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand exactly what she meant. It didn’t matter that I didn’t recognise the stock phrases then. What
mattered was that the sound passed through me, and no doubt through every other person in the room, invigorating and vitalising, like a bucket of water in the face, or some mountain air in the lungs, or the buzzchords from a Clash album in the ear.

I didn’t know it, but that voice with its infectious laughter, its effervescent joie de vivre, and its caressing sunshine, had caught me and hooked me. That was my first encounter with Annie and one totally in character. She was a wonderfully alive soul. She could smile and liven up the dullest of days. She could shriek and turn the greyest moods to sun. Far richer than Midas ever was, everything she touched turned to FUN.

I turned round. There, next to Jo, was a beautiful face framed with golden hair. She caught my eyes and, ignoring the rest of the show and the rest of the audience in the TV room, shouted, “Spill the beans. What was he like? What did he sing? What did he say? What did he wear? Who else went with you?” and so on in a cascade of questions. All in that characteristic voice of hers, partly gentle, refined, English like a stroll around Morningside, partly wild, wicked, Scottish like a yomp across the Borders. Top of the Pops was forgotten now, she was the centre of the room, it was her show. I, too, was reduced to listening and watching as Annie eulogised the mighty Peter Gabriel. Subtly, Jo ushered Annie out into the corridor. Fascinated, I followed.

Let me describe Annie to you. You may not know her, but you must have seen the film Woody Allen made about her. At least it must have been about her, why else would he use her name? Plus, he nicked a couple of scenes from our life for the movie. You know, like the scene with the lobsters. Only it wasn’t lobsters, it was a pigeon or a parrot or cockatiel or something. And we weren’t trying to eat it, only baby-sit it, but it escaped and we couldn’t catch it until much later after we’d been out for a drink and it was even more tired than we were. But the scene with the lobster had the same feel, you know.
Annie brought the same attitude to it that Diane Keaton did and succeeded in elevating it from a serious event to a hilarious escapade. And as I didn’t see the movie until it was over between Annie and me, the ending of the film was even more bittersweet. But, not so much bitter at it being over, but sweet to remember. Six wonderful months.

Annie was about my size. She was never exactly my size that I can remember; she was either shorter or taller depending on what she wanted out of me. If she wanted me to do something, she’d be just a little smaller than me. If she was upset or angry with me, all of a sudden, she’d be an inch or two taller. Just like Alice. She was very attractive, which I think is a more subjective description, but by which I mean that she had a beautiful face, which is the most important feature of all the women in this history. Beautiful as in elegantly constructed, unique, interesting, happy, dazzling, radiant, and different every time you look at it, so that you long to see her again and again and again like when you buy a new single and you can’t take it off the turntable, like Wake up Little Susie, or For Your Love, or Spiral Scratch, or Trampoline. And just like all of those singles, just like when you listen to them and your face cracks into a broad grin, so whenever you look at her face, you just can’t stop yourself from smiling.

But that Thursday evening I mainly watched and listened. I answered a few questions, but, to be honest, I was still wound up with my own self-importance. I noticed that she had strawberry red streaks in her hair, and found out that they were the result, she said, of a touch of red food colouring. I thought that was cool. I found out that Annie was on the same course as Jo and that she lived over at Glen. But most important of all I found out that she was Peter Gabriel’s biggest fan. And that meant that by having seen him two days earlier, I had very much impressed her.

And so, extremely satisfied with myself for having made a good impression, but in all honestly thinking more of myself than of Annie, I left her and Jo to chat and went back to my room to listen to the Stranglers’ album.