From the age of eight when I discovered smash hits (1982) to around my twenties I bought most UK music publications at one time or another. I still have scrapbooks of cuttings and NME covers from the late eighties/early nineties.

I bought the NME, Melody Maker, Record Mirror, Select, The Face and Vox amongst others I& #39;ve probably forgotten. Vox and Select had the best compilation tapes and CDs, as far as I was concerned. If it appealed to me I& #39;d buy it. Even a short lived one, I think, called Off-beat.

If it appealed to me I& #39;d buy it from the local newsagent on high street or the WH Smith& #39;s in the town centre. Who could forget & #39;Smash hits rival& #39; No 1. To me the journalists on Smash Hits and the NME were just as important as the artists I converted.

The mechanics of writing have always fascinated me. I bet I wasn& #39;t the only one who harboured dreams of being a music journo but was, in reality, a bit rubbish. These days I read online like everyone else and sometimes printed editions of Vogue or Cosmopolitan.

It& #39;s never going to be quite the same as those heady days. Time moves on and you can& #39;t live in the past. Thank you if you& #39;ve taken the time to read this thread and got to the end.