On that day in 1982 - 23 July

I was in Milan with Stuart. We had meant to be staying with my friends Nino and Rieko, but they did not have a telephone, and when we turned up at their place, a neighbor of theirs told me that they had gone out of town! I thought we had got our wires crossed. It turned out to be untrue (they were going away the following week) but we had no way of knowing that and they had no way to get in touch with us.

But we liked Milan and had found a cheap hotel, so ended up staying five days. On the third day we discovered there was a big music festival - totally free - in the city centre; that also was a reason to linger. We'd seen Jimmy Cliff the night before and had missed the Lounge Lizards. We knew it was still on today, but had no way to easily find out who was playing when.

It was very hot and muggy and therefore even a public swimming pool seemed inviting. Stuart had just bought a pair of those Euro Speedo style trunks - woo hoo!

23 July 1982

So we decided to stay another day; it was too hot to hitch. We found the pool okay. I'm sure we were the only foreigners! All the boys - every single one - had those suits! Lots of nice 13-14 year olds ... [No comment!]

It was too crowded to swim much. I kept losing Stuart. We kept going for snacks and drinks. I spent a lot of the time watching people underwater in the diving pool. (There were lots of windows - it was like a people aquarium!) Some boys' suits were falling off!

This time we took the right train and got to the festival early. We got off at antoher place down the road where some Milano punk bands were playing. We saw one do their sound check - they were sort of a Joy Division/Fall rip-off - they sang in English.

Then we went down the the main place to see the Mo-dettes... and they stunk! We found out we had missed: Siouxsie & the Banshees, Echo & the Bunnymen, Duritti Column and (sob! sob! sob!) [next to the Birthday Party they were my favourite band at the time and I never did see them] The Scars!!! [These bands had all played the first couple nights, before we knew about the festival.]

We went back to the first place and then left - needed to get some sleep - ha. On the way from the station it began to pour and it was really windy. I had left a bunch of clothes out to dry on the windowsill and I was positive they'd be all over the street! Thank God they weren't!