Angie Cooke

Favourite track: 'Never Had No One Ever'

The Queen is Dead is one of my favourite albums ever as it's so powerful, emotive, clever, witty, brave, full of fire and ire, and wonderfully in your face!

After I'd started on a voracious and urgent mission to purchase all of the albums by The Smiths when I was 16 (on cassette, which I still have now!), I recall being sat in the dark at the bottom of the stairs of the family home in Almondbury, Huddersfield on my own as everyone else was out, listening to The Queen is Dead for the first time on my trusty old walkman. Talk about my tiny mind being blown! It was an amazing moment in my life which I have never forgotten, and for some reason Some Girls are Bigger than Others made me giggle like mad as I knew it was a bit saucy! Love it!

On a more serious note now, Never Had No-one Ever particularly from The Queen is Dead resonates with me as it perfectly demonstrates the feeling of discomfort and unease felt by Morrissey and his parents living in Manchester despite them having moved there decades before to find work and start their family. This was reflected by my own clan as we had similar hostility and aggression sent our way even though we'd lived in Huddersfield for a long period of time, so I can completely understand where he was coming from. It's that sense of displacement also in that I was born and bred in a certain area in a particular country, but was never made to feel like I was actually from that place due to my ethnicity and cultural background which I know Morrissey also went through.