1983 was the year my friends and I took up under-age drinking – after all, there was little else to do where we lived, no youth clubs, no cinema, nothing. At the time it seemed like the pinnacle of excitement to be sitting in a smoky pub with a gang of your mates from school. The girls would be posing in Boots 17 make-up, slash-neck tops, legwarmers and hairstyles that were more hairspray than hair. Some of the boys attempted to look cool with their jacket sleeves pushed up to the elbows like Don Johnson in ‘Miami Vice.’ At least they were making an effort; the majority of my male peers stuck to their tried-and-tested distressed denim jeans, though in the early 1980s even jeans were worn nicely pressed.

            Our hostelry of choice was the Duke of York, because they not only turned a blind eye to, but seemed to positively encourage, under-age drinkers. Like banks try to tempt toddlers to open accounts in the hope of securing a lifetime of loyalty, the management of the Duke of York fondly nurtured their next generation of customers. No matter how fresh-faced or pimply you were, you would never be refused a drink in that pub. On Friday nights it resembled a youth club.

            This moral slackness extended only as far as allowing the consumption of alcohol. “Lewd” behaviour was another thing entirely, and one thing they would not tolerate was “necking:” anyone seen to be indulging in this pastime was ejected immediately from the premises. My peer group fell into two categories, depending on whether you would view such an ejection as a triumph or a tragedy. For me, it would have been a bit of both – I would’ve been mortified if I’d been thrown out of anywhere for any reason, though it would have given me some kind of satisfaction to be notorious for “necking.” The problem was who to neck with? Not many options presented themselves. A couple of boys had made it clear they fancied me (by dribbling in my hair during the last slow dance at youth club discos), and I tried my best to get interested in them, but it didn’t work. There were only two men I was interested in “in that way.” One was Tony Hadley, the singer from Spandau Ballet with the unfeasibly deep voice, but even in my wildest fantasies I had to admit that the chances of being thrown out of the Duke of York for necking with Tony Hadley were remote.

            Even more remote was the chance of anything along those lines ever happening with Gideon Harker. Ever since the incident in the maths lesson two years earlier I’d been unerringly, faithfully besotted with him, but I always kept my feelings for him to myself. This must have been unique in my circle of friends: that’s what your mates were for, after all, to share your crushes and lusts with – Alison and I had spent enough time discussing the sexual allure of Adam Ant and certain members of Spandau Ballet, and Bryan Ferry before that; and I’d been party to every eventless nuance of her unrequited crush on Jimmy Oldroyd. But this was different. For one thing, Gideon Harker was only the same age as us, and it was completely unheard of to fancy somebody in the same year. The object of your desire had to at least be in the fifth form, or even better a prefect like Jimmy Oldroyd, because as the magazines were always telling us, girls mature earlier than boys, and a fourteen year old boy was neither use nor ornament to a self-respecting, hormone-packed girl. I couldn’t possibly admit I fancied Gideon Harker, who as well as being in our year and having a peculiar name, had a reputation for being a “brainbox.”

So it was still the love that dare not speak its name. Even though my best friend, Heather Alderman, was going out with his best friend, Ian Kane, and Gideon occasionally came to the pub with us; even though as a result I spent entire evenings literally with my knees pressed against his under a small pub table made out of an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine; even though I talked to him every day at school, there was still a part of me that continued to worship him from afar, dying inside whenever I saw him talking to another girl.

            Until one evening, in the autumn of 1983, I was in the Duke of York with Alison and Heather. Thin Lizzy were on the jukebox. We sat in our usual seats in the corner where we could keep an eye on who was coming in or going out, drinking lime and soda because none of us had any money. Heather was expecting to see Ian, and my insides were in their usual state of turmoil: if Ian was coming, there’d be a chance Gideon would come with him. I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation the other two were having, probably about last night’s television, or homework, or most likely men of some description or another: we were fairly obsessed by that subject in those days. I was sitting with my back to the door and relying on Heather’s face as a barometer of when anyone of importance arrived.

            I felt a blast of cold air as the door opened and noticed a look of absolute horror cross Heather’s face.

            “Oh my God,” she said, “What’s that?”

            “He’s gone New Romantic,” Alison said.

            “That’s not New Romantic,” Heather replied. “That’s a bloody Replicant.” I turned round to look.

            Gideon Harker, all six feet four of him, wearing a battered, full-length leather coat all worn like the cover of an ancient Bible or an old, much rolled-up map, skin-tight black jeans, pointy boots, black eyeliner and his dark hair bleached a startling, white blond. Heather was right: he looked like Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, though obviously younger, better looking and with thicker hair.

            I completed the final stages of puberty in about 2.5 seconds.

            “He looks beautiful,” I said.

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