GOING TO TOWN ON Saturdays I would also spend time in the Tea Rooms on Mathew Street – later known as The Armadillo – and opposite that there was Eric's.

It's hard to believe it was all there, now that our lovely, dirty old town has turned into a haven for night-time revellers of a very different kind. In the late ’70s, this area was awash with characters and individuals who never followed the pack but formed their own. No one looked the same; it was about freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to have a good time, in fact just freedom.

The benevolent characters who gave us the license to express ourselves in such an exciting way formed the backbone of Liverpool's first mighty wave since the Merseybeat explosion. Probe Records shop creator Geoff Davies and Roger Eagle, DJ and founder of the legendary Eric's – the two of them, along with the Tea Rooms, were inextricably linked. The bands that played in Eric's had their records for sale in Probe, the local misfits and would-be superstars would sit for hours in the Tea Rooms opposite, planning the next revolution over pots of tea and cigarettes.

I would go to the Tea Rooms in Mathew Street and eat potato salad or delicious soup and brown bread. Older guys would sit around the tables talking about music and bands. Later I would recognize these faces to be the likes of Paul Simpson (who also worked in the Tea Rooms), Ian McCulloch, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie, to name just some of the talent that would go on to create big waves musically.

Of course, everyone who was there has his or her own particular views and memories of this essential time in not just Liverpool's evolution, but eventually its effect on a global scale. It was a time when creativity heaved and pulsed and nothing was going to halt its progress. I remember the first time I took that walk down the steps into the loud and musty depths of Eric's. I never felt intimidated in any way – I just felt at home here where people were like me, people who had no place else to go, but had no reason to go elsewhere either – it was ALL here.