A while ago, it was a chilly morning, so I wore my Joy Division sweatshirt on the way to work underneath my coat. A lady I work with who I hadn’t talked to that much and who is lovely, but normally fairly quiet, came up to me when she saw it and was talking about Joy Division with me, saying how she loved them as well.

Then today I was wandering around work singing Smiths songs to myself and she started telling me that, when she was about 15, they were supposed to be her first gig. She’d organised a coach trip with all of her friends to go and see them in Manchester, but halfway there the coach broke down and they didn’t make it. 
We were talking for ages about it and about how I said I would have just wept if that had happened to me, she must have been gutted.
Then she said she had brought something into work for me, and it is an Ian Curtis biography written by Tony Wilson’s ex-wife.

Although it’s pretty poorly written, it’s an interesting book, and nice to get a viewpoint other than Debbie Curtis’. It also has a load of set lists, letters and previously unpublished photos such as this one.

The caption says:

Ian’s last photograph, taken in a Manchester photo booth for the US visa he required for Joy Division’s aborted tour of America.

I’m going to try and scan some of the others as they’re great.
But anyway, it just made me think. Isn’t it nice how music brings people together.