AD


1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

Me

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18



John's hypertextual youth Why? Who? How? Really? Leave this self-indulgent tangle!
Every year I took a piano examination at Friends House in the centre of Sheffield, usually playing Mozart. While the examiner worked out how much to deduct me for fluffing D major left hand only again, we would go to the coffee shop in Cockaynes, across the road. They did a famous milky coffee, and just thinking about milky coffee, made the Sheffield way, makes me salivate, and somehow Cockaynes' coffee shop epitomized it. The shop had a name, but I can't remember it now. You only make milky coffee with instant - this is what distinguishes it from cafe-au-lait, apart from the class thing. The best strategy is to heat the milk up in a saucepan and when it reaches a certain thermo-chemical state (described by my half-cousin David as "groobling") you sprinkle the coffee on top. You then stir for 10 seconds and wait until "bubblification" begins (these are static bubbles, not boiling). Then you stir it again and watch carefully until the moment before it starts to boil ("droobling"). Then serve and enjoy. They didn't actually follow this process at Cockaynes, but I managed to pass all my piano exams, so my memory is of perfect milky coffee.

When I did particularly well in a piano exam, I got to play the piece again at the awards concert. On one of these occasions I rested my right heel on my left toe as I pedaled! Mrs Nuttall knew that rock music was behind it: she never quite trusted me again.