When did you first realise you were mad ?

Having failed miserably in my early years of schooling I found myself idling away my teens in a 'Secondary Mod' which the Head constantly referred to as a Comprehensive. It was not such a beast ! We had all failed the 11+ and the Grammar was just down the road. We were not the brightist Mr Boulton (obviously) but hey pal - we were not stupid ! Actually some were. Let's move on (if only I could).

There was this art teacher, young and keen, who wanted to expose us to the 'shock of the new'. He started well - surrealism, dadaism etc etc all raised titters and kept us amused but when some more robust members of the class cut down the school tree and hailed it as an 'event' and claimed to have been encouraged by the hippy art master, Mr Boulton was not amused and the young and keen become dull and boring. Back to drawing apples and pears and making montages out of old sunday magazines.

Now this was 1974 and all the kids (not me of course) sported Ziggy Stardust cuts and platform shoes. So to the old magazines with scissors in hand. Hold on, what's this ? An old Sunday Times (11-Jan-1970) with an article about the Beatles Appple empire. Why this caught my attention so much I am not sure but this was the moment when I thought 'What the heck happened to the Beatles ?' And so it started. Cut the magazine up anyway...never thought I'd be searching for it 37 years later and willing to pay £30 for it. Mad ? Relative to what ?