LIAM MACKEY: Reeling in the years and tears

There are some who call the ’70s the decade that taste forgot, all too conveniently overlooking the fact that it gave us David Bowie in his prime, Horslips in their pomp and, from glam rock to punk rock, a feast of plenty to bookend the decade on Top Of The Pops.

True, it also gave us a teenage male uniform of long hair and denim jacket which, I suppose, can hardly be regarded as a high water mark in the history of fashion, though I seem to recall me and my mates thought we were pretty damn cutting edge at the time.

It has been a week suffused with memories of that era, the passing of Kevin Heffernan marked by classic television footage of hairy young warriors in blue provoking delirium among the massed ranks of similarly hirsute folk on the Hill.