When I was younger, so much younger than today

Last weekend I was in an active mood to have a bit of a springclean and get rid of some of the crap around the house, with the main object being the loft/attic. It?s amazing the amount of stuff that is up there, and that it hasn?t resulted in the house collapsing, as I seem to be always dumping stuff up there. There?s a lot of stuff that is genuinely up there for storage reasons, such as furniture, and boxes of things already sorted and kept up there for the the future, but there is also a lot of stuff put there with the mindset of ?out of sight, out of mind?.

I wanted to be ruthless and found an old rucksack, full of bits?n'bobs, which had obviously been rammed full of crap and put into the loft a long time ago. I got it down and thought I?d have a rummage through it before throwing it away. Of course a lot of it was rubbish but I did also find a few mementos which brought back some memories, and I thought I?d share them with you.

I started going out and drinking when I had just turned 16 [I think!], and there were several favourite haunts that we used to go to. First of all it was the Railway Tavern in Broadstairs [now called Cramptons] where they used to serve Toby Bitter for £1 a pint, and then over the next year I started going to the Louisa Bay ["Don't look for it, it's not there anymore"], where my maintippless used to be Stella and Southern Comfort [slightly richer tastes at that time]. These were of course just pubs and being young and full of life I wanted to go out for longer and this is where the next image comes in, scanned from the contents in my rucksack.

The club I used to go to was called Buzz [now called Escape], and I used to frequent there until I was 18 [when I was obviously too mature]. These vouchers were given out, and once you?d filled them in, you could get in cheaper, and here is one that I obviously filled in but never gave to them. It all looks very innocent until you see the date of birth. Yes, I was born on 3rd December, but in 1980, and not ?78 as the voucher suggests!!! Shock horror!! I was committing fraud and lying about my D.O.B. This voucher must be from the early days then.