Twenty years in someone else's jacket
Sometime around October half-term 1993 I went to a car boot sale in a Cumbrian market town with my parents. It was a regular habit of ours in the few years either side of that time, and I rarely failed to emerge with an LP or a well-worn cassette. For whatever reason that weekend I bought a leather jacket.
It's now too long ago for me to say for sure why it caught my eye - whether it was the only one I'd seen for sale at the bargain price of ten pounds or the vendor looked particularly worthy of my cash I can no longer recall. Whatever the reason, I stepped over and asked if I could make it mine.
It was too big when I was fifteen, it's too big now, but a penchant for chunky jumpers has mitigated that to a certain extent. A minor detail like size was not going to put me off when I knew I'd found the biker jacket I was fated to wear for the remainder of my youth (and beyond). The man who wore it before me, whose features have faded from my memory at this distance, told me this jacket had already lived a rock 'n' roll life. It had seen Ozzy and Judas Priest, had beer spilt on it, accompanied him to major gigs. He told me to look after it and treat it well. Reluctant sale due to sensible wife.
In twenty years that already well-worn jacket has been to many more gigs. It's been to Paris (and Newcastle) to see Iron Maiden, it's seen the Damned more times than it might have appreciated, it's been to rock clubs and the beach, supermarkets, libraries and my graduation (I had to take it off at the last minute to put the gown on). It's had the very minimum of beer, snakebite and tea spilt on it and I've done my best to keep it away from people with lit cigarettes. It's been photographed for my blog and painted for a recent portrait of me by my dad.
The story of my life, written in creased black leather and rusting studs. The lining, which used to be red, has a few splits in it and some stitching's coming loose on one sleeve, but it's still holding together. Will I still be wearing it in twenty years? Maybe not, but whatever happens I know I won't have passed it on to a teenager I'd never met before. Though I'm glad that that anonymous Cumbrian man did.