A bright Autumn day in October 1956 saw my entrance into the world. My sister Carol had gone off to school in Chester for the day, returning late in the afternoon to find a new baby brother, called Graham Clifford Cottrell.

Carol was almost ten years older than me, born during the post-World War Two baby boom of 1946. Food rationing was still in force and the UK population were still trying to adapt to a more normal way of life. Musical enjoyment in that era was usually a family gathering with a sing along around a piano, if you were lucky enough to have one. Popular (Pop) music didn't have an impact on the UK until the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, just about the time when my sister started buying 45 RPM single records to play on her new Decca multi-player. Hits of the time by the The Beatles, Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Long John Baldry and The Searchers, to name a few, used to fill our house with their distinctive modern beat for which our parents had a deep disliking!

My sister and I were both brought up in a strict but happy family environment. Our parents were great lovers of orchestral music and both were active members of local choirs in Chester. They were also accomplished pianists in their younger days and Dad used to play the local church organ every Sunday. Obviously the musical taste of their children, and the new generation of youngsters in the ‘60s, was very different to their classical music background.

I was able to listen to the great pirate radio stations like Radio Caroline and Radio London, along with the first commercial radio station to broadcast in English from 'The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’, the 'Fab 208’, Radio Luxembourg. As a youngster my little transistor radio used to be tucked under my pillow late into the night as I listened to the fast-paced DJs and the amazing new music phenomenon coming over the airwaves along with the static.

Both Carol and myself had piano lessons as youngsters, but my interest wasn’t in the classical pieces I was learning with my tutor and supposed to be practicing for examinations. Quite often I would put the music scores to one side and go off in my own little world of modern pop music and pick out some of the hot tunes of the day, vamping on our family piano. 'Vamping' a piano is a method of repeatedly playing chords in a fairly simple fashion. This annoyed my dad who could see his beloved piano becoming rapidly ruined by the constant pounding of the keys, causing them to become uneven across the keyboard. A few years later the piano was no more, to be replaced by an electric organ, complete with several octaves of foot pedals. Not my forte at all, but at least my dad was happy being able to plug his headphones into his cherished 'Hammond' and play away to his heart’s content without his young son annoying him with the 'drone' of modern pop!

The winter of 1963 was one of the worst for over 200 years, with thick snow and ice covering the whole of the UK for several weeks. Great for all the youngsters with extra days off school and plenty of opportunities for sledging, but a nightmare for the more mature residents of Great Britain. That Christmas I received my own record player as a present from my parents along with a couple of light classical LPs. This was not really what I wanted to listen to after hearing the great music that my sister was playing on her Decca, but at least I now had my own player.

The little battery-powered record player was a Philips AG4000. A very compact and portable unit with a detachable speaker that used to have a pretty good sound for its size (an amazing 2 watts of ear splitting power!). Even with its small turntable I was able to play LPs as well as 45s and I managed to persuade my sister to buy me a couple of 'Pick Of The Pops' compilation LPs.

As a teenager I used to get a couple of pounds a week pocket money to buy my school dinners. Quite often I would forfeit my meals to buy the latest chart singles (about ten shillings each or 50p in today’s money, quite expensive really) and that's how my record collecting started. Little did my parents know I was going without my school dinner!

As the sixties came to an end and we progressed into the seventies, my interest in the current pop music of that era increased. In 1972, while at Senior School, I formed a pop group with four of my friends. However, our musical talent as a group was limited to say the least! Probably due to the fact that I was the only member who could actually read music and play an instrument! We called our group 'Nuclear Flea' after the band ‘Atomic Rooster’ who had success in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

The Overleigh Boys School that we attended had a big music department, which happened to be throwing out its old (very old!) PA system, so we managed to scrounge a minimal kit for our group. This consisted of a 30-watt valve amplifier, two old Shure mics, a fifteen-inch bass speaker and two Goodmans twelve-inch mid/top speakers in wooden cabinets. Probably circa 1950s! Our ‘boy band‘ consisted of myself on piano, Richard Probert on drums, Steve Jonas on lead guitar, Ian Dale on bass and Stephen Burling on rhythm and vocals. We did one gig and realised that we weren’t that good and certainly not going to be the new Slade or T Rex!

After the group proved to be a complete flop, Rich, Steve and myself, fancying ourselves as teenage entrepreneurs, decided to use the old PA equipment and organise a ‘Christmas 1972 Dance’ at our local church youth club in Hoole, Chester. We added a couple of BSR MP60 record decks, a little battery-powered mixer and a collection of about fifty records we had accumulated between us, to complete the ‘Discotheque’ set up. Lighting was provided by one coloured flood light and a follow spot borrowed from the local Upton Dramatic Society!