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weeks of crawling through puddles while some big bastard shouts at you?’ he’d said. ‘Sod that for a game of soldiers.’

He’d had to go back home and live with his parents, same as me. He’d joined the Army to see the world and become a man. But when his chance was taken from him due to sheer bad luck, he was left feeling rejected and foundationless.

Paul had also done various crap jobs like me – in factories and on building sites. We would sit around and talk about how we felt we were both just breaking our backs and existing; living for the weekends when we’d blow all our money on beer, then just start again. We were both rebellious spirits, and were fed up of having to live under the rules and regulations of being at home. We were very much just your average, hormone-filled, bored teenagers. There was nothing remotely out of the ordinary about our lives.

Like millions of other British lads at that time, our heroes were Noel and Liam Gallagher from Oasis. They were working-class boys like us, and they’d made it big. It seemed to us that they’d come from nowhere to being megastars in five minutes. They seemingly hadn’t given a toss, but suddenly Oasis were celebrities and millionaires. And they’d done it without any interference from their parents; they’d made it on their own terms.

Paul and I wanted a life like that. But how were we going to get it? And who would give us an opportunity?