In 1988 a short tour brought Deaf School back together, ten years after their last show. Team spirit seemed miraculously restored and their audience were no less committed. Where 1978 had been a year of frustration and resignation, 1988 revealed new creative energy. It brought a dawning recognition that being in Deaf School – rather as Derek Taylor had said of the Beatles – brought life membership.

Ken Testi, the band's old mentor and tour manager, had by now returned to his ancestral calling and was running a pub in the Cheshire village of Eaton. But he was restless. It was more than a decade since he'd left Eric's, and la vie en rock was calling once more. ‘I was on to my second pub now, the Red Lion, and I hadn't had a breather. I had a four-acre site in a nice country village and I got the itch for another Deaf School show. I said to Clive it was time to do this and amazingly he said “Right. Brilliant!”’ To make the reunion viable they would need more dates. A few small shows were set up in London, beginning at Camden's Dublin Castle on 14 June; two bigger shows were booked at Hardman House in Liverpool and finally a marquee in the field by Ken's pub, on 25 June.

Clive: ‘The ‘88 thing's weird, because I was very busy. But obviously I had a few months free. It was the anniversary, ten years since we'd finished. I just thought, What a great idea. Let's do it. Why not? Everyone seemed to jump at it. Tim couldn't do it, because he'd been in a car accident and so we had to get a different drummer. But everyone else could apart from Ian, and wanted to.’ Sam Davis, by now teaching art full time, recalled the obstacles: