Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens 1970

 

I was in Form 3 at Box Hill High School in 1970. I was besotted by records and sometimes I would talk about records I wanted as if I really owned them. Such was the case with Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens. I had looked at the back cover in the record store so many times that I knew all the songs in order which helped in my subterfuge. When my friends at school talked about it I knew the song order on both sides. For a long time, I knew a lot of song orders of records. I used to take a lot of pride in knowing that.

I couldn’t swim so that year for a sport I was sent to a swimming pool just off Elgar Road in Box Hill North. I was going to get my Herald Swimming Certificate. After a number of weeks, I managed to swim the distance and collect my certificate. To tell the truth, my foot touched the floor as I was swimming but I wasn’t caught. 

I had to ride my bike from school to the centre. On the last week of the course I was speeding down Elgar Road when I hit a pothole and me and my bike hit the ground. There was a bus behind me that kept going so I was basically run over by a bus. Well, a little. I was 14. I wasn’t frazzled. I looked up to see the undercarriage of the bus. I dragged myself and the bike out from under the bus told the passengers who had come out to see me that I was alright and went onto the pool. And got my Herald Certificate. 

When I got home Tea For the Tillerman was on my bed in a brown paper bag. My mum knew how much I wanted it and had bought it for me that day. I didn’t tell her that day about being run over by a bus. Not even sure I told her about the Herald Swimming Certificate. I played that record until it was worn out. 

20 years later I’m in a rented Peugeot driving across the former East German border and Tea for The Tillerman was the only cassette we had. Still sounded good.