Keith Telly Topping believes that he would have been about eighteen years old when this very photograph was taken in the back garden of his parents gaff in Wigmore Avenue. So that would mean it dates to around late Spring early summer of 1981. 
This, therefore, is a very old photo of your actual bloggerist (is that a proper word? If not, it really should be don't you think?) Keith Telly Topping likes to imagine that the vaguely tuned-in - albeit, slightly camp-looking (note the eyeliner!) - rock 'n' roll scooter-kiddie staring crossed-eyed into the camera here would, hopefully, have approved of this image being used, twenty-five years later, as a reminder to his cynical future-self of his impressionable and wholly adrenaline-and-amphetamine-fuelled Modernist past. Or something.
When this photo was taken Keith Telly Topping would still have been at school - in the Sixth Form, actually. Nineteen years in the Civil Service (yes, you do get less than that for murder) and a subsequent self-employed writing career which has seen him author or co-author over forty books (including a number of overseas editions), writing articles and reviews for numerous magazines and periodicals and, relatively recently, getting into radio broadcasting was all way in the future when he slipped on his parka and struck a pose for the camera.
But this blogger does like the photo's presence here at the start of From The North. He finds it somewhat comforting. He was a good kid was young Keith Telly Topping. A bit naïve, maybe - even if it was faux-naïf when the mood took him - but his heart was usually in the right place. Poor little sod, that was all about to be knocked, harshly, out of him when he got out into the Big Bad World.
So, anyway, dear blog reader this is Keith Telly Topping's blog.
And you are very welcome to it.
This, therefore, is a very old photo of your actual bloggerist (is that a proper word? If not, it really should be don't you think?) Keith Telly Topping likes to imagine that the vaguely tuned-in - albeit, slightly camp-looking (note the eyeliner!) - rock 'n' roll scooter-kiddie staring crossed-eyed into the camera here would, hopefully, have approved of this image being used, twenty-five years later, as a reminder to his cynical future-self of his impressionable and wholly adrenaline-and-amphetamine-fuelled Modernist past. Or something. When this photo was taken Keith Telly Topping would still have been at school - in the Sixth Form, actually. Nineteen years in the Civil Service (yes, you do get less than that for murder) and a subsequent self-employed writing career which has seen him author or co-author over forty books (including a number of overseas editions), writing articles and reviews for numerous magazines and periodicals and, relatively recently, getting into radio broadcasting was all way in the future when he slipped on his parka and struck a pose for the camera.
But this blogger does like the photo's presence here at the start of From The North. He finds it somewhat comforting. He was a good kid was young Keith Telly Topping. A bit naïve, maybe - even if it was faux-naïf when the mood took him - but his heart was usually in the right place. Poor little sod, that was all about to be knocked, harshly, out of him when he got out into the Big Bad World.
So, anyway, dear blog reader this is Keith Telly Topping's blog.
And you are very welcome to it.
