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Nick Toczek
Dec 5, 20187 min read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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
Aug 2, 20182 min read
And now for the Gory Details...
Here’s an update, especially for all those of you who came to the punk and other music events I ran in Keighley, Bradford and Leeds in...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 29, 20184 min read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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 read
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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Nick Toczek
Jul 6, 20183 min read
Chemistry
When my partner, Gaynor, was a teenager, she worked part-time at a chemist’s shop in Bradford. On one occasion, which she still remembers...
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Nick Toczek
Jul 3, 20183 min read
What People Say
When our daughter, Rebecca, was a two-year-old I was in town with her. Suddenly she pointed across the road and said: "Look, daddy....
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Nick Toczek
Jun 29, 20183 min read
Signing
I’m a successful children’s poet. Often, at the end of a school visit, I’ll sell books, signing them and adding daft jokey messages....
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