Additionally Banned

A prequel to bad synths, good friends, and the fine art of getting kicked out of Woolies (the first time).

Some memories show up like clockwork. Others arrive mid-sentence.

If you’ve read Step Away from the Synths, you’ll know I once got banned from Woolies for pretending to be The Human League.

That wasn’t the first time.

This was.

No synths. No Woody. Just music, Woolies, and the kind of glorious nonsense that only makes sense years later.

Additionally Banned

It was the summer of ’79, and I was working shifts at Clay Cross Works before heading off to college. Days, afters, nights—whatever the rota demanded. The job was grim, but it paid well.

We’d moved that spring, around the first anniversary of Mum’s death. Just a couple of villages over—but far enough that many of the old routines fell away. I’d shed a lot that year. Books, toys, whole layers of who I’d been. It hurt too much to keep.

Still, Thursdays were sacred. Thursdays meant the pilgrimage into town and the hunt for all four music papers: NME, Sounds, Melody Maker, and the Record Mirror. Snagging more than two of them was considered a result. After due consideration, I’d bought three of them that week. I didn’t want anyone to see me as being obsessive.

I was heading for the bus station on Vicar Lane when I ran into Andy. Same grin. Like someone who’d wandered in from an earlier chapter. He’s featured in more than one of the stories I’ve already told—or still plan to.

We stood chatting in that northen drizzle—the kind that just hangs in the air like it’s got a grievance—until one of us said what the other was already thinking:

“Woolies?”
“Shall we get a bite to eat?”

It had always been our spot. Slightly sticky tables, mugs hot enough to fear, the smell of vinegar and floor polish. The photo booth was there too—where we’d captured so much of our youth, four images at a time, sometimes with a different person in each shot. Always trying to look older, cooler.

And yes, I’d go on to be banned from Woolworths again—but this was the first.
Back then, it still felt like home.

Andy and I had always been into music. But by then, our tastes had diverged. He was still into early Genesis and The Alan Parsons Project—played on his beloved hi-fi. He was already eyeing an upgrade, and within weeks, I’d buy his old stuff off him. Three hundred quid. A fortune back then. Worth every penny.

I’d gone punk. In ’77, seeing The Jam on Top of the Pops had cracked something open for me. After that, it was The Clash, Siouxsie, The Buzzcocks.
Bands that didn’t just make noise.
They gave you something to find yourself in.

We sat. We caught up. Sort of.

But the music papers were right there. Brand new. Still stiff with ink and static. And the NME, especially, was calling.

When Andy got up—maybe to check on the food, maybe just to stretch his legs—I caved. Just a peek. One article.

I don’t remember the headline. But I remember the pull. It wasn’t just music. It was proof—someone out there cared about the same things I’d rebuilt my life around.
When not much else made sense, that did.

A map, printed in column form.

By the time he came back, I was deep inside it. Eyes locked. Fully gone.
His food had turned up. Mine hadn’t.
I figured he wouldn’t mind.

I should’ve remembered his brother.

Years earlier, I’d been at their house, reading one of his brother’s Monty Python books—the ones with the sketch scripts. This was before we had reruns or video recorders, so if you loved the show, you’d buy either the books or the albums. He had both.

I was deep in it, and he was trying to talk to me.

I kept reading.

So, totally deadpan, he picked up the other thing he loved—his super-sharp rapier—and sliced the book clean in half.

Afterwards, he looked genuinely gutted. Not because he’d done it, but because I’d made him do it.
To his book.

That logic stuck with us.

So when I didn’t look up, Andy didn’t call my name.
He just reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter, and set fire to the fold at the bottom of the NME.
As you do.

I didn’t notice straight away. My eyes were still mid-column.
Then came the smoke.
Then the flames.

We panicked. Smacked the thing on the table. Hit it with the other papers.
Managed to put it out—just. But not before the café was filling with smoke.

Not before people noticed.
Not before management got involved.

Maybe that was his way of reaching me. One last ridiculous gesture in a long string of them.

Tables scraped. Voices raised. Andy looked quietly satisfied.

We laughed about it then.
We still do now.

Someone came over and told us to leave.
We did. Slowly. And maybe not quite as sorry as we should’ve looked.
Maybe we sniggered.

We were making our way to the lift, past the photo booth, when someone shouted after us—
“You’re banned!”

I don’t think they recognised me.
And honestly, I’ve never been sure which ban came first.
They were only a few weeks apart.
This one probably.
The other one didn’t even feel like it happened in the proper store.

So technically, I wasn’t re-banned.

I was additionally banned.

Funny how a place can forget you completely, and yet you still remember the colour of the chairs.

We never did get the tea.

No synths this time.
Just smoke, fire, and a sentence I never got to finish.