For me, Computer games first made an appearance in the awe inducing, intimidating surroundings of a strange, bigger boy's bedroom (oh don't be so filthy!).

It was the summer of 1986, and I had travelled from Broxbourne to East Finchley with my Grandfather - apparently to 'help' him with some plumbing work at a client's house, but in all probability, just to get me out from under Grandma's feet - after all, what does a 4 year old know of U-bends and air locks? Upon arriving, I was introduced to Alistair - a pale, geeky, Jewish adolescent who clearly couldn't wait to show off to a young, impressionable kid like myself. I was led up a spiral staircase, the sound of my Grandfathers beloved, familiar voice trailing off with every step, and into a dark, gloomy bedroom illuminated only by the eerie glow of a television connected to a BBC Micro.

Up until now, I had experienced next to nothing of what I suppose could be called 'Culture'. Being brought up by two 20 something parents with very traditional values and little interest in computing or contemporary culture, my only glimpses of what was then modern life were delivered by short bursts of the radio in my father's Vauxhall Astra or the occasional episode of the A-Team. Other than that, life consisted purely of playschool, nursery rhymes and Lego.

The screen blinked dark for a second or two and the disk drive grunted as Alistair shift/break/shifted with a passive coolness which told me that this guy was quite clearly an expert in whatever this - thing - did. I sat in uncomfortable silence as the screen flickered and the yellow box ticked and whirred. Alistair lazily flicked through a magazine before effortlessly pressing a few more keys. The title screen came up with some words which I couldn't read and may as well have been complete gibberish and then disappeared. The screen changed to something more interesting. A few big birds waddled about pecking grain, whilst a man with a pointy hat stood around near the bottom of the screen. Alistair’s hands once again whirred over the keyboard and the little man moved towards a ladder, which he then proceeded to climb. I watched in interested silence as the little man walked over some grain which popped out of existence with a satisfying sound effect, and felt my fear melt away for a few seconds. It was as if Alistair (officially the coolest person in the world by this point) and I had entered some metaphysical place together where thinking of something to help sustain conversation or worrying about where my Grandfather had got to became secondary to whatever objective the little bloke on screen was struggling towards.

Suddenly this was shattered as Alistair and I swapped seats. Dwarfed by the keyboard and the screen, I struggled with the commands given to me enthusiastically by my excited co-pilot. The limited hand-eye coordination which I had acquired in my 4 years of life served me poorly and the experience was panicking; frightening even. We swapped seats again, and Alistair showed me how to play Chucky Egg properly.

This was followed by a whirlwind tour of his other games, their titles sadly lost to time, but all so completely alien to the nursery book world which I thought I lived in. There existed a new world of monsters, car chases and space ships. It was inhabited by older boys who I came to idolise, and it became synonymous with heavy metal music, horror films and comic books - all the things my parents hated.

With no freedom or money of my own, there was no way for me to enter this world. I was too young, my parents too disapproving, and so when it was time to go back to my Grandparents, life carried on as it had done before. I would have been tucked up in bed with a bedtime story, then collected the next day by mum and dad and driven home. But from that point on, I at least knew of another existence, a gloomy underbelly inhabited by bigger boys, armed with futuristic computers, pasty complexions and horrific T-shirts - people exactly like the Llamasofties with which I frequent today I suppose. Fuck me, I think I finally made it!

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