At the beginning of 1976, nobody knew this would be a watershed year in British pop music. Reigning champions of the Melody Maker contest, Deaf School looked as hot a prospect as any band in the land. Holding court in the Phil, Cracke or Belvedere, they were no longer art students in a band, but professional musicians, with a contract from the world's most famous entertainment company.

There was the novel experience of having some money. Clive Langer: ‘Steve and I got a 20 grand advance when we first signed our publishing to Warners, and we just spent it on a PA, ploughed it into the band. Basically we lost it, which was fine, we never thought about it. We were on £25 a week and the two married members, Sam and John, were on £75 a week. Twenty-five a week was enough to live in Princes Avenue. One week I'd be in the Neal Street restaurant in London with Derek and the next night would be chips and curry sauce around the Rialto.’

Enrico strolled the boulevards of Liverpool 8 in pyjamas and a tweed overcoat. Anne Martin's friend from Canterbury, Dave Sargeant, loved to explore the city with her: ‘You know what Liverpudlians are like. They would all shout out “Bette Bright!” You were the bee's knees to be walking around with her.’

For Max Ripple it was finally time to give up the day job: ‘Sam/Eric and I both had kids and we both had salaries when we got the Warner Brothers deal. Sam was a teacher in several schools in the area. So we were the only two who were fully salaried, and we got the same or more than we were getting as teachers. Looking back, it was incredibly generous of the band. So I had in my passport, “Entertainer”. Which was very nice.

‘It was a funny thing, being professional and doing something like this. The same with shamanism: to keep things alive, you need to know a bit but you shouldn't know too much.