31 JANUARY: Tour begins at Sheffield University.

Johnny Marr (guitarist, The Smiths): It was our first real tour, but we'd just lost our manager, my old school friend Joe Moss, so Morrissey and I were looking after the business side of things. Joe said his wife was about to have a baby and he wanted to spend more time with his family, but in fact there was friction between him and Morrissey. So, being a good friend of mine, rather than let that friction cause problems between me and Morrissey, he took himself out of the picture. But as a result of losing Joe, we were a bit like a rudderless ship.

Dave Harper (press officer, Rough Trade): They did that tour in a panel van. It didn't have seats, just a load of bean bags and a mattress in the back, and carpeting stuck up the wall.

Gill Smith (press officer, Rough Trade): I had been brought into Rough Trade to look after Hand In Glove, the single The Smiths were doing with Sandie Shaw. At the start of the tour, they got a new tour manager, Phil Cowie, who didn't fit in.

Grant Cunliffe aka Grant Showbiz (sound engineer): I didn't respect Phil Cowie at all, and wouldn't do what he wanted. I refused to carry the gear. As far as I was concerned all I had to do was the soundcheck. I wasn't being a good team player. There was resentment because, at the end of the night, I'd be swanning around getting beer and talking to people at the front of the stage.

Johnny Marr: Phil constantly seemed to be under stress. There were constant dramas with the crew and, as we had no manager, Morrissey and I were always left to sort it out.

Gill Smith: One of the first things I learned was that Andy [Rourke, bassist] had a heroin problem, but Morrissey, who was very naive about drugs, didn't know.

Johnny Marr: In certain situations, you could say I protected Morrissey from things. Andy had been my friend from the age of 14, so I knew all his problems, but I always thought, "It's going to be over soon, it's just going to stop". But that's an ongoing story in that situation all the time. Another thing was, we were terrified because we had a public anti-drugs philosophy. Morrissey would always have to have taken the stick. That probably made Andy feel worse. That was why it was kept under wraps, plus obviously things like the police.

2 FEBRUARY: The gig at Loughborough University is cancelled because Morrissey has taken to his sick bed.

Gill Smith: Morrissey was always getting sick, because he wouldn't eat properly. He gave me a food shopping list once and all it had on it was crisps, chocolate and croissants. That was typical.

8 FEBRUARY: Rough Trade press officer Scott Piering is appointed as the band's caretaker manager, and Morrissey manages to record an appearance for the following night's Top Of The Pops.

Geoff Travis: (MD, Rough Trade): Because Joe Moss had quit, we had to deal directly with Morrissey on business matters, but we needed somebody to be their representative, so Scott Piering, one of our press officers, was appointed.

Johnny Marr: Morrissey still wasn't well. I remember looking at him at about 10:30 in the morning and thinking that he seemed a very strange colour, but he ploughed on and did Top Of The Pops.

11 FEBRUARY: Despite Scott Piering's appointment the previous day, American agent Ruth Polsky announces that she is now The Smiths' manager.

Geoff Travis: Ruth was a booking agent from New York. She'd booked The Smiths over there, and adored them. To my surprise, one day, Ruth walked into my office and said she was their manager.

Johnny Marr: Somebody in the band must have told her she could be our manager, but it certainly wasn't me.

14 FEBRUARY: University of East Anglia, Norwich.

Hugh Fielder (journalist, Sounds): The band didn't arrive until eight o'clock, four hours late and they didn't have time to do a soundcheck. When they got on stage, though, they seemed to have almost telepathic communication, and it was like a pop gig, just whipping through the songs. The audience already seemed to know all the songs, even though the album had just come out, which is always a good sign.
In the hotel afterwards, Johnny did the interview because Morrissey immediately retired to bed. Johnny was bemused by the way their audience was changing. The lyrics of Hand In Glove had appeared in Smash Hits, and they were starting to get little girls pursuing them.

22 FEBRUARY: University of Reading.

Johnny Marr: There was an odd atmosphere in the crowd before we even started. The support band had a hard time with the crowd throwing things. I think a lot of older students were drunk and causing trouble. When we went on, by the third song I was drenched with water thown from the front row. I freaked out for five minutes because, apart from anything else, there was the danger of electrocution. I played the rest of the show with my back to the audience and, when we came off I said, "I'm never playing here again". And we never did.

29 FEBRUARY: At the University of Leeds, Phil Cowie has to rescue a fan from being beaten by bouncers during first song, Hand In Glove.

Johnny Marr: We always had problems with local security staff. We would encourage the crowd to move closer to us, and these security gorillas didn't like that. Morrissey incited something close to hysteria in the crowds, and these guys were just bullies. We were constantly having to rescue people.

2 MARCH: Queen Margaret Hall, Glasgow.

Stewart Cruikshank (audience member): Morrissey came on with a spray of daffodils sticking out of his back pocket, and he really played to the gallery, giving a performance full of energy and humour and spirit. There was a lot of heckling so Morrissey lectured the crowd about bad behaviour. It was very rock'n'roll, giving just the right edge of tension to the set. They played very tight that night and you left knowing you'd just seen a really great band at the peak of its powers.

8 MARCH: Town Hall, Middlesbrough.

Johnny Marr: About 40 fans climbed onto the roof of our van, trying to get into our dressing room which was upstairs. We couldn't get out. Phil Cowie came in and yelled, "The van's had it". It was like being in A Hard Day's Night.

12 MARCH: Hammersmith Palais, London, Sandie Shaw comes onstage for the encore.

Gill Smith: Before the gig, I drove Sandie Shaw over to Campden Hill Road in Kensington where Morrissey lived, to pick him up. But neither of us knew which house he lived in. It was getting dark, and in the end, Sandie, short-sighted as hell, got out of my car with her dresses flapping in the breeze on dry-cleaning hangers, and started running up and down the road, calling out, "Morrissey! Where are you?" until we found him.

Johnny Marr: That wasn't a good gig. The sound was like playing inside a bucket. Elvis Costello came along, but there were hundreds of people on the guest list, so many it didn't feel like a real gig at all. I didn't enjoy it and then, when Sandie was supposed to come on, we couldn't find her.

Geoff Travis (MD, Rough Trade): The band kept on playing the introductory chords to Hand In Glove, to fill in time until we could locate Sandie. I eventually found her.

Johnny Marr: Sandie Shaw coming on was the only high point of that evening.

13 MARCH: Sandie Shaw comes on stage again at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester.

Gill Smith: The Smiths knew Sandie was a Buddhist, but they hadn't worked out what that really meant. So once again, come show time, they couldn't find her. We were searching everywhere until I heard this infernal noise, like something out of The Exorcist, this deep booming voice, coming out of a dark little cubby hole. She'd gone in there to do some chanting to calm herself for the show.

Johnny Marr: That was the best gig of the whole tour. It was home, and it was where we'd seen all our favourite bands when we were younger. Just before we went on stage, Morrissey came up and said, "Do you realise that T. Rex didn't get as many people here as we've got tonight?" It was a very celebratory night.

20 MARCH: The tour ends at the Town Hall, Birmingham.

Johnny Marr: The original plan had been for the tour to end in Manchester but, because we'd cancelled dates at the start, we had to tack them at the end. We were scheduled to be in the recording studios working on new songs. As a result, Birmingham was a bit of an anti-climax.