I think I have come close to experiencing regret on two occasions and that is with the benefit of hindsight. Those two occasions occurred in the late 70s and both involved me turning down what would have been significant opportunities.
Firstly I was sitting in my local pub one evening in December 1976 (it was the now sadly departed Oak Tree in Hillingdon) when someone came in and offered tickets to see a band at Brunel University. It was a band that was causing quite a stir and I could have made it quite easily. But I decided that the pub would win that night. The band was the Sex Pistols!
Possibly the very ticket that I turned down!
Secondly I was on a lad’s holiday in Spain in 1977 (or it might have been 1978). We were staying maybe less than an hour’s drive from Barcelona. While we were there a now sadly late, great performer was playing a gig in the city. We asked our travel representative about getting tickets. He
said getting them was easy but that for a bunch of English blokes to turn up at a gig in Spain would incite the Spanish youth to violence. I now realise that this was probably complete bollocks and we should have gone to the show. That legendary, late, great performer was none other than Bob Marley.
So I have always felt that I have never regretted anything I have done in my life so far. I still believe that and I also feel that this is a good philosophy, however that doesn’t mean that you can’t be sorry about some things you have done, does it?
There were a couple of people at school that to be perfectly honest I treated in quite a mean and disrespectful way. With one of those people I simply followed the herd and behaved just like most other people in my school peer group. With the other person I made them look like a liar in order to save some teenage face. So there you have it, my teenage confessions of sorts. I would like to apologise to both of these people albeit so many years later, but I guess I am just salving my conscience. I thought long and hard about whether I should mention them by name and I personally feel that I should, I’m sure that the chances of them reading this is pretty remote anyway.
So at the risk of steering into Simon Mayo confession territory I would like to apologise unreservedly for my behaviour towards two people between 1972 and 1977 or thereabouts. Geoffrey Guile and Susan Batty this one’s for you! If I knew then what I know now then I would have behaved very differently.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 