He
lived there for the next seventeen years. At school
in Soham as a six year old, as he settled in, he made
life-long best friends with Matthew Hobbs and Neil Taylor
with whom he would eventually form Nutmeg. Another friend
and strong influence was Jo Heath. One of twins born
at the same time as Tom's sister Samantha, when his
parents lived next door in Wokingham, Jo was a reference
to Tom's past and a link to another world as the boys
grew up and spent holidays together every year.
By
1980 things were ostensibly looking promising for the
young Tom. By his first term at The Village Collage
Soham he was excelling in several areas. A promising
student, at the top of his class in most subjects (notably
English and French but not music), he also took a lead
in the school play and sang in the choir. On the sports
field he was made rugby captain of the first team, was
top scorer from right wing at football, took the cross
country cup and by the summer was also competing for
the school at sprint distances and triple jump, as well
as leading the bowling attack for the cricket team.
This naturally
led to him being noted as quite an all rounder and people
were already mentioning him as a future head boy. He
was aware of this but also aware that he was feeling
the strain and that something at home was not right.
Kay Dalpra left the family home in
1981 with her three children and they all moved into
a flat in the village. She had been unhappy in the marriage
for some time and when she finally told her children
she was leaving and asked them if they wanted to come
with her, it was a relief in some ways to Tom.
By
1983 Hobbs, Taylor and Simon Palastanga along with Tom,
had formed a small clique at school. They considered
themselves different and were dubbed 'The Mentals' by
other class-mates. They quite enjoyed the soubriquet
and played up to it. They had a shared love of the comedy
of people like Spike Milligan and Monty Python and lapped
up the new stuff by Rik Mayal and Alexei Sayle. They
also had their own brand of mad improvisation. Dalpra
was particularly close to Matthew Hobbs and they were
with each other day and night playing snooker while
listening to Hobbs's large collection of records after
school every evening.
When
Hobbsie got his first guitar in 1982 the next logical
step was to try and make some music...
...more
to follow soon !
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