Stuff you’d never get away with doing now.” We just fucking had it and did our own thing. We made so much music – good, bad and whatever – but we tried loads of different things and we didn’t listen to anyone. “I had such a laugh and we had so much fun. Those first three years were so fucking wonderful,” Weller says. It's also the subject of a new documentary on Sky Arts, Long Hot Summers, which offer a colourful rummage through the story of The Style Council: playful, political, sometimes baffling and frequently hilarious. And while there’s probably a fair few of those weepy, parka-clad kids who still haven’t forgiven him, what Weller did next made for an even more unexpected chapter. Paul Weller’s decision to break apart one of the most popular bands since The Beatles, at their commercial peak, remains an act of career hari-kari unparalleled in British pop. “God knows, it’s over 40 years since Ronnie Wood split up The Faces, but I’m still getting over it.” “They were banging on the window shouting at me: ‘You tore them apart!’,' recalls Talbot, who still empathises with the kids he says he saw crying on the other side of the glass. As the path to the stage narrowed, the van was set upon by a mob of angry young fans. It had been barely five months since Weller called time on The Jam, to howls of consternation from suburban bedrooms across the country. On a muddy May afternoon in 1983, Paul Weller and Mick Talbot were sat in the back of a minivan slowly making its way through London’s Brockwell Park, where the pair were due to perform at a CND benefit concert.

Who was in the style council