Part 3: What Music Stands for by

Chris

Going back to my school years, in the summer we used to have fetes. I met up with a guy who is no longer with us and I used to help him do the music for the fete. His name was Dennis. He used to work at Radio Erith. The building is still there but the studio isn’t. When the fete was finished I helped Dennis put everything away in his car.

There was an incident which took place in the school garage. I wanted to see if I could get the old disco lights down that were made by Gravel Hill Grammar School in the early 80s. I tried and tried to get it down and eventually it came down and fell on the floor. In 1985 I wanted to have them as a going home present as a reward for all the discos I did at school.

When I was 16 I started going to college at Toynton Hall in Lincolnshire where apart from doing coursework I became a college DJ and I had to do a test. The first time I failed and I failed the second time but third time I passed. I did a lot of discos at Toynton Hall and I had the time of my life.

In December 1985 we had a huge Christmas Party and I had a slot between 3.30pm to 6.45pm.

In 1986 I had my Dad’s old Amstrad hi-fi and I started experimenting. I was doing things I’ve never done before. I was a very clever person, as I’ve never done anything like that before.

In 1990 I went to Carlton Road Resource Centre. Someone had bought a mono disco which we had for 2 years. Then Colin bought a proper disco from Audio House in Welling and installed it in a disco booth. Later on my dad went to Audio Hall and bought 2 CD players that were stuck together.

In September 1992 we christened the new disco unit and we celebrated by having a party and I DJ’ed through the whole evening. I even found an old Boombox. I put that in the disco booth as well and wired it up to the disco unit.

We also had members discos at Carlton and I used to help. We used tape recorders, a mixer, an amplifier and speakers. Eventually I used Carlton’s speakers and the disco lights in the ceiling.

In 1999, just before the millennium I remember doing a huge new years eve party. It was the only one we had and while my dad was setting up the fireworks I was playing music in the hall. The party went on to 2.30am.

I got paid £500 and that was my biggest disco yet.