A Story That Makes The World Seem Much Smaller
One of my hobbies is researching family history. The death of my father in August 2012 prompted me to start finding out about his German...
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Nick Toczek
Jun 12, 20194 min
GOING DUTCH
In September 1983, I did a manic drug-and-alcohol fueled ten-day Dutch tour with Leeds punk-rockers To Be Continued. After I’d done my...
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Nick Toczek
Feb 7, 20194 min
BOILING AND FRYING
In September 1968, days before my eighteenth birthday, I moved out of my parental home in Yorkshire and into digs in Birmingham. Thus...
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Nick Toczek
Jan 23, 20195 min
PRUDENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
I had my first slim pamphlet of poems published in 1972 by Aqulia. A couple of dozen more followed over the next two decades, all from...
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Nick Toczek
Dec 5, 20187 min
Pete
The late 1960s saw me leave our family home in Shipley, Yorkshire to take up a three-year stint as an Industrial Metallurgy student at...
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Nick Toczek
Nov 12, 20185 min
Just Deserts
Here’s my third piece about the US tour I did with punk bands The Instigators and The Detonators in 1986. If you missed the other two,...
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Nick Toczek
Nov 5, 20183 min
Roots
In August 1973, I was appearing at The Traverse Theatre as a performance poet on The Edinburgh Festival Fringe. There and at whatever...
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Nick Toczek
Oct 24, 20181 min
Cat Bat Matt
This must’ve been a year or so after the Millennium. I’m standing in our kitchen doing the washing-up when Matt, our eleven-year-old son,...
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Nick Toczek
Oct 10, 20184 min
Not Meeting Bill
In a previous story (Noo Joysie n Noo Yawk), I wrote about the start of my 1986 US tour with two punk bands – fellow Yorkshiremen, The...
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Nick Toczek
Sep 20, 20183 min
From Here To Maternity
Gaynor and I met on Christmas Day 1979. We were married on 8 September 1984 and became parents with the birth of our daughter, Becci, on...
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Nick Toczek
Sep 12, 20184 min
The Feeding of the Seven Thousand
In the six years between 1982 and 1986 I ran weekly punk and indie gigs in Keighley, Bradford and Leeds. Often the bands I’d booked and...
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Nick Toczek
Sep 2, 20184 min
Sitting in the Departure Lounge
It was June 2014 and I was at my granddaughter’s eighth birthday party. The youngest of the invited children was a five-year-old called...
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Nick Toczek
Aug 21, 20185 min
A Price On My Head
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, my proto-punk band, Ulterior Motives, played several gigs in The Vaults Bar which was in what had...
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Nick Toczek
Aug 11, 20184 min
Added Words of Wisdom
I love it when people say something fairly simple and then follow it with an extraordinary explanation. Here are three examples of that....
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Nick Toczek
Aug 6, 20187 min
Late Room
2019 marks my fiftieth year as a performer. I first went on stage – terrified – to read a few of my poems in the main hall of the...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 29, 20184 min
Confession
Whether it’s been due to a pregnancy or being gay, quitting education or having acquired a tattoo, abandoning a religion or needing help...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 24, 20184 min
Embarrassing Body
Travelodge provides cheap overnight accommodation. There’s one of their hotels at Toddington services on the M1, about thirty miles north...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 19, 20184 min
Offensive Parking
In June 1981 I received a letter addressed to The Occupier of 5 Beech Terrace. Written on behalf of the Head Postmaster, it read: ‘ Dear...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 15, 20182 min
Comedy
We’re in a taxi in Gateshead, four of us, Gaynor and me and our two closest friends, Caroline and Paul. We’re up here from Bradford for a...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 9, 20183 min
A Toast To Brevity
There’s some kudos, a certain degree of cool to being a music journalist. Obviously, it’s got more than a little to do with the fact that...
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