Andy Richardson: The new man cave is music to my ears

I’ve never met Harley and I wouldn’t want his spare parts. There is no red carpet, no pop-up bar, no signs that diss women and absolutely no trace of a pinball table or a juke box. More’s the pity. Who doesn’t want their own pinball table and juke box for unscratched 45s.

Sad to say, the cave does not have a big fat leather couch with a draped leopard skin rug nor a picture of Barry White embossed on the front. I leave such furnishings to the one and only King Lord of Soulsville, Cee Lo Green. Shrewsbury is as far removed from his Bright Lights, Big City as it’s possible to be.

And I hope to stay there for some years to come; if only to feed stale bread to swans on Sunday mornings with my son. It’s the simple things in life. . .

Some other things that didn’t make it into the cave are: a wet bar, mini fridge, flatscreen TV, video game system, a manly rug (y’know, like a bear that I shot with a gun made from rabbit cartilage, or some such), a weights bench, full-sized mirror or poker table.

Goddamn, there’s not even a surveillance system, a dartboard or a comedy photo saying stuff like: ‘Due to the rising cost of ammunition, I’m no longer able to provide a warning shot.’ Boom boom.

But there are shelves. And lots of them. And on those shelves, there’s a world of ideas wrapped up in a more-than-half-decent collection of books and a pretty-good-even-though-I-say-so-myself stash of CDs.

The signed David Walliams first edition sits beside a signed book from Britain’s greatest ever chef, Michel Roux, while favourite menus from restaurants, a signed cap from a late actor friend and autographed box sets by Paul Weller are tucked away.

My love for music and literature stems from childhood, though, in truth, it probably goes back to an earlier stage. I distinctly remember my first parents evening at Wednesbury Oak Junior And Infant School.

My parents walked the short distance to find out what their five-year-old son got up to during the hours of 9am-3pm. When they returned, I’d hidden myself beneath a small table, scrunching myself up into a ball while sure that I’d be castigated for some unknown deficiency. The reverse happened.

My parents were glowing like bioluminescent beetles, delighted that their youngest kid had done so well.

The English teacher had told them how much I enjoyed writing and that my imagination was remarkably vivid.

As a kid, we were immersed in music. An older sister loved the Sex Pistols. I’m sure she was part of a crowd that dressed up in bin liners and safety pins at the youth club disco.

My older brother balanced that with a penchant for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Johnny Rotten and Thin Lizzy became an early soundtrack. When I was old enough to choose, I embraced all things mod: from Weller’s Jam to Lambrettas.

My teen years were marked by trips to Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre with my father to watch Saint Joan, The Tempest and more. On one occasion, a friend and I decided to go unaccompanied to watch a ballet. We walked out at the interval in fits of laughter, wondering why the men were wearing tights that might them bulge in all the wrong places. What did we know.

The Stourbridge invasion of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and The Wonder Stuff coincided with a period of gig-going that frequently included two shows per night. Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the pubs and clubs of Walsall became a second home as I Hoovered up live music like a Dyson sucking dust. And a love of literature blossomed as shelves began to fill with the collected works of Hardy, Steinbeck and such contemporary giants as Barnes and Swift, Kureshi and Garcia Marquez. And don’t get me started on Solzhenitsyn or Kundera.

Thirty years later, my passion for the arts is stronger than ever. And my refusal to throw away old vinyl, trade in dusty Penguin originals or sacrifice boxes and boxes of cds means there’s enough to sink a galleon.

And so, after moving them around from this room to that, they’ve finally found a permanent resting place. The builder thought I’d got an MDF obsession when he saw the design for the shelves, but his work is complete. And now the shelves groan with music and words.

My Man Cave might miss a beer fridge and some of the attractions that other fellas have. But my son thinks it’s cool and my girlfriend seems to like it so I’m not complaining.