Vinylist: Bernice Saltzer

Sunderland, 1970. I left school at lunchtime and went on the bus into town to buy my very first single. Not because I particularly wanted it, to be honest, but because my best friend told me I should have it and she knew better. I took it home and played it ten times in a row. AND I still have it.

This was the biggy, 12 inch pink vinyl. I loved the song and knew all the words – I remember traveling to Birmingham with a group of friends and we sang it constantly.

Years later I interviewed the lovely Jools Holland and he told me to hang on to my version of it because it was a collectors’ item. So hopefully that’s my pension taken care of.

In my youth EVERYONE had to have this album in their collection. It took me years to understand why.

We used to listen to it while pretending to be cool while secretly giggling to the rude words in Walk On The Wild Side.

I loved Saturday Night Fever. I saw the film, came outside and joined the queue at the ABC cinema in Sunderland and went straight back in and watched it all over again. I think I saw it six times in one week.

That wasn’t enough for me though. I even went to dancing classes to learn the steps, taught them to my friends and we would all go to the Tuxedo Junction in Newcastle and stand in a line doing the dance when Night Fever came on. Happy days.

I remember going to a disco in the 70s where the DJ was so bad that we heckled him and he got the huff and packed up, taking all his records with him bar Blockbuster by The Sweet.

We were never sure if he’d done this deliberately and while I didn’t mind it before that night, hearing it played back to back for around three hours means I can never listen to it without cringing.

I thought Gabrielle did some great songs and was always a fan of hers – even if she did cost me £20 because I had a bet with a friend that this song was actually called Valerie. Listen to it – you’ll understand the confusion.

I loved Adam and the Ants and was thrilled to go and see him at Newcastle’s City Hall. We knew that all the celebs in those days stayed at a hotel just out of town (there wasn’t much choice) and we’d turned up at the hotel bar the night before the concert and sure enough there were the Ants.

We were invited to the post show party but we turned up with a friend called Ricky who had blue hair and the hotel receptionist wouldn’t let us in.

In my youth this was one of the must- have albums and I remember spending all my pocket money on it. I lent it to a friend to record (in the days where you copied them on to cassettes) and never got it back.

30 odd years on I reminded her of this recently and she’s promised to buy me a new copy.

When I was at school your musical allegiance fell into two strict camps – Michael Jackson or Donny Osmond. There was a third group who were David Cassidy fans but they didn’t count.

Couldn’t get away with Donny but definitely loved the King of Pop – even if this song was about a rat. Liked the music, hated the movie.

1967 and my mother entered a competition run by the Daily Mirror to win tickets to see The Monkees who were coming to England to perform. I was a huge fan, she decided to enter and won because you had to put on your entry why you wanted to see them and she said she couldn’t think of anything worse but that’s she’d suffer it for her daughter.

Unfortunately she then changed her mind and gave the tickets to a shop that was collecting money for people injured in the Six Day War. I got the single instead. I’ve never forgiven her.