It’s 1989 and you are Epson Moore, but why is it 1989 rather than 1977 or 1990 or 2000?
Well, for one thing the author was at Mid-Kent College, failing two out of three A levels, but this is not particularly a memoir nor an autobiographical choose-you-own-adventure book. The author is not Epson Moore, or Bae, or Jinge, or even Vic Vic.
However, the author was there in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, but there were other walls coming down that were maybe less significant to the global perspective. It was the last full year of Thatcherism, that ideology that had gutted the nation for much of the period that this generation had been growing up. We still weren’t free of the spectre on Conservatism, but things were changing.
The UK is well-known for its youth cultures: the mods and rockers in the 60s, the hippies, glam kids and punks in the 70s. It was also well known for the tribal violence between these groups. As this adventure suggests, there were ravers and goths and punks and casuals and many more besides.
But something was changing in the relationship between these coteries at the time, and it was largely inspired by acid house and MDMA. The author wasn’t particularly keen on either, but he had to admit that it changed how the kids treated each other. Because the casuals wanted to score blow from the alternative kids? Well, you know, whatever works.
It was a world where all of a sudden someone like Epson Moore could grow and maybe even thrive.
