Pause to remember the art of making a mixtape and the messages they so carefully conveyed

The first single to appear in the record collection I shared with my sister was How Can I Be Sure by David Cassidy. It was September 1972 and I was only four years old (my sibling was eight), but I knew every word of that song. We probably clubbed our pocket money together and paid somewhere in the region of 48p for that piece of 45rpm vinyl. At the time it was a lot of money, so we didn’t just listen to the track that was top of the charts – we also placed our record player needle on the B-side, Ricky’s Tune, time and time again. If truth be told, I preferred that somewhat soppy, less-well-known number and was eager to make my friends listen to David’s ballad whenever they popped round to play. It seems sharing music has always been my thing, even at a young age.

Fast-forward a decade and I was blasting tunes sung by the likes of The Jam, Soft Cell and Fun Boy Three from my red plastic hi-fi. I went to gigs – Madness, The Smiths – and a copy of Smash Hits was delivered to my doorstep every week. But it wasn’t only my record collection that was growing. I’d also started to build up an impressive stash of cassette tapes. These weren’t official albums released by artists, however. They were compilation tapes with titles such as ‘Lorna’s Ska Favourites’ and ‘Summer Feelgood Hits ’85’, either made by myself or given to me by a school chum.