Over the last couple of months I've been labouring over a new literary project with the working title Memories of 1976.
As it implies on the tin, the idea has been to solicit memories via Facebook nostalgia groups from people of a certain age who have some kind of affinity to 1976 - the year of that never-ending summer when the old met the new in music and in popular culture, while an unstable world seemed to totter on the brink of economic meltdown tinged with a worrying if still remote prospect of nuclear conflagration.
If the intention was to use content from others as an easy means of filling pages for my own work then things haven't quite gone to plan. Expecting maybe two to three dozen responses, instead I received nearly 1600, which now need to be ploughed through and placed into some kind of logical context which leaves nothing out and yet somehow retains its freshness through to the final page. Honour obliges me to include every sensible contribution, as I promised all those who engaged with the project that I would. And so what began as an idea for an easy win for a new booklet has morphed into something which threatens to resemble a sequel to War And Peace.
No matter, it is what it is. I will announce the new masterpiece to an eagerly awaiting world just as soon as it is available. To be truthful I'm rather looking forward to it as I'm confident it will be a work worthy of a place in the burgeoning archives of retro, as well as a useful reminder that things don't always go to plan.
