There are some years which stand out as special, both for the noteworthy national and international events that were crammed into them, and because of their significance to us personally.

Inside those special years there’s likely to be a special month, and in that month, a special day.

My special year is 1958 – a full half-century ago. What a momentous year that was for a lad in his teens just starting to take note of what went on in the wider world beyond Bradford!

The mushroom-shaped shadow of the atomic bomb had hung over the generation passing through childhood in the post-war world. There was no avoiding the fearful speculation about it in conversations between adults. So when thousands of people demanding nuclear disarmament marched with their banners on the first Aldermaston march…Well, that was an event of significance.

So was the terrible air crash in Munich in which so many young Manchester United players died. Even those of us who couldn’t get terribly excited about soccer realised what a catastrophe this was in human terms.

There were big names in the news that didn’t mean a lot to us but kept being talked about. There was a French chap called General de Gaulle, apparently a wartime hero, who accepted the post of President and set about trying to solve a crisis in a distant place called Algeria. And there was someone in Cuba called Castro who was making a reasonable job of waging a revolutionary war against the Batista regime.

Britain’s own Prime Minister Macmillan opened what was acclaimed as the country’s first stretch of motorway – an eight-mile section of the Preston bypass which he described as “a token of what is to follow”. Not half! It was the year, too, when parking meters were given a trial run in London.

In the United States, a woman stabbed (but failed to seriously injure) a civil rights leader called Dr Martin Luther King. And in South Africa, any hope of civil rights for the country’s black population was scuppered when hardliner Dr Hendrik Vervoord was elected Prime Minister.

Race riots gave the London district of Notting Hill a reputation that was to taint its name for decades to come. And it was announced from Buckingham Palace that Prince Charles had been created Prince of Wales.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, events were taking a nasty turn (not for the first or last time). It was hard for teenagers to get their heads around what was going on there. Apparently the pro-western King Faisal of Iraq and his uncle, Crown Prince Abdullah, had been assassinated by Egypt-backed army officers.

US Marines flew into the Lebanese capital of Beirut, British paratroops were sent to the Jordanian capital of Amman, Russia made angry noises at the United Nations and things started to go from bad to worse as the mushroom cloud’s threatening shadow loomed large for a while.

On the lighter side of things, a couple of odd little cars were making their debut at London’s Motor Show: the German-built Messerschmitt TG500 and the British-made Isetta three-wheeler, trailblazers of a new style of motor known as the “bubble car”.

But it was events in showbusiness which were most likely to grab the attention of teenagers back in 1958. There was Jerry Lee Lewis, for a start. He arrived for a tour of Britain accompanied by a 13-year-old girl. When it was revealed in a newspaper that she was his wife, and his cousin into the bargain, all moral hell was let loose and Jerry Lee had to flee back to the United States.

There was a bit of an upset when Elvis ceased to be a rock’n’roller and became instead a member of the US Army. Fortunately his draft was delayed for a while to enable him to finish filming King Creole – which none of us could have known at the time was the last decent movie he was to make (although he was to go on to make many movies).

September, 1958, was a special month on the British music scene. July had seen the try-out of a couple of pilot shows for a new pop-music series directed by a talented, highly-original man called Jack Good. Featuring the likes of Marty Wilde, the Dallas Boys, the Vernon Girls, organist Cherry Wainer and a brassy band going under the name of Lord Rockingham’s XI, it was fast-paced and brash and its young target audience of teenagers loved it.

When the 13-week run of the show began towards the end of September, it included another new British singer – one Cliff Richard, whose debut single Move It shot into the charts at No. 5 the following month.

In September, though, the list of Top Ten singles was headed by the Kalin Twins’ When, followed by Connie Francis’s Carolina Moon. Dean Martin was in there twice, with Return To Me and Volare. The Everly Brothers had a double-sided hit with All I Have To Do Is Dream/Claudette. Then came Peggy Lee with Fever, Ricky Nelson’s Poor Little Fool, Marty Wilde’s Endless Sleep and comedian Charlie Drake’s version of Splish Splash (beating the US version by Bobby Darin).

Those were the songs that were on teenage minds during that September of 1958 – five months before rock’n’roll suffered its first of many tragedies when Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash.

None of this, though, was on the mind of a 14-year-old schoolboy as he cycled towards a bus stop to meet a 16-year-old girl on the way home from her first job as an office junior and ask her if she’d go out with him – “not just for a date, but sort of permanent”. She, with barely a second’s hesitation, replied “All right, then” and a lifelong commitment was made at an early age – something which wasn’t uncommon for that generation.

And so it was that just 50 years ago last Thursday, September 25 (also on a Thursday, as it happens), at around quarter to six on a still autumn evening in a year that was special and momentous in so many ways, I did the best thing I’ve ever done in my whole life.

l What was your special year, and why? Write to Past Times, Telegraph & Argus, Hall Ings, Bradford BD1 1JR or e-mail mike.priestley @bradford.newsquest.co.uk