Sometime in early summer 1977, a pad of purloined prescriptions came into my possession. As luck would have it, my mate Morphine Steve's girlfriend Caz was able to show me how to fill them, so that they could then get filled by a pharmacist without arousing any suspicion: the necessary abbreviations and bits of Latin, etc. Ironic, as I'd got my Latin O-level prior to being kicked out of public school, and she most definitely hadn't; not being unkind, but I doubt she had an English Language one.
[Steve had his eponymous nickname because he was the only member of our using gang who had an injectable morphine, rather than heroin or methadone, 'script'. He was a good lad, a biker who offered me a BSA Bantam and a George Doland maroon wool and mohair drape jacket, with black velvet trim and collar. I was far too scared to accept the former, and gleefully delighted to accept the latter, which I kept and wore for many years. He had 'morph' and 'coke' tattooed on his fingers, instead of the more ubiquitous 'love' and 'hate'. Caz later went out with another biker friend of ours, 'Motorbike Jim' Vine, who had a motorcycle shop on Haydon's Road, South Wimbledon.]
Anyway, to begin with everything went delightfully according to plan. Copious amounts of Diconal were acquired (a luminous pink synthetic opiate pill one could crush up and inject — very popular at the time. My hallway is painted in that colour now. A warped nostalgia possibly, but it's a lovely colour). Like all criminals, getting out while the going was good was not in my lexicon of larceny, and in due course the inevitable occurred. I'd been on probation already, and missed a good few appointments, so when my sweet probation officer, who had the air and appearance of a middle aged primary school teacher, came to visit me in the cells at Wimbledon Police Station, she apologetically told me that, as they say, was all she wrote as far as probation was concerned. I ruefully accepted it, was held overnight, and the following morning, my poor parents still reeling from the police coming to our house with a warrant — a chaotic lifestyle having forced me to retreat there to stay for a while — felt unable to stand surety for me, or to have me living there, so off I went to Ashford Remand Centre. My uncle, a solicitor, had come to court not to act for me, but to advise my parents, etc., and I think he'd brought me a couple of packets of Senior Service, which you were allowed to have on remand, and I didn't have much of a junk habit, so not too hard a landing on the landing, you might say. It was a funny place, they were nearly all little kids in for TDA (taking and driving away as it was then called), and inconsequential stuff like that. The screws were unbelievably racist, calling all the black kids Sambo etc., but there wasn't anything I could do about it. It wasn't particularly unnerving as I was one of the oldest 'boys' in there; I didn't really see any tear-ups and my cell mate was closer to my age. He was alright and liked a game of cribbage, as do I, and he showed me the ropes.
I wrote a couple of unsuccessful letters trying to find someone to stand bail for me when I went back to court, the sun was out on the exercise yard, and the time passed quite quickly. Halfway through the second week, I got called for a visit, and it was Bill Major (the man who first called me Auntie), and Bill Wells (another bike man who had been out in India and also later had a bike shop in Wimbledon Chase). They'd come on one of Bill Wells' bikes; as they were nearly twice my age and Bill Major probably cast the kids in the visiting room getting visits off their mum, some menacing glances in my interests, I think that helped me get left alone too. They apologised for not bringing me any dope, but they'd brought me ten Player's each, and the Major said he'd get me a solicitor for when I went back to court. He duly did, albeit not a very competent one, but that still didn't solve the surety problem.
After the fortnight's sojourn had expired, on a nice sunny June morning, off we went bright and early in a proper grown-up meat wagon — not that that stopped the little bastards making as much racket as they could on the metal roof and compartment doors — and in due course I was deposited at Wimbledon Magistrates Court. As said solicitor had sent a barrister, I wasn't put in the cells across the road, but allowed to be in the lobby with him. He told me that some of my friends had found someone to stand bail for me, which was set at £500, and that my parents said I could reside there; I think they hoped I'd had a shock, and they were certainly far from heartless, though not about to risk £500 they didn't have. The gentleman who said he'd stand surety for me was a lovely lunatic Irishman called Mickey (pronounced Muckey) McDonald, who was the same age as the two Bills, had always grafted, and thus owned his own house off Wimbledon Broadway. [If you're a householder, you don't actually have to show the money for a surety.] However you do have to undergo a criminal record check. Muckey was aware of this, but to his knowledge had no convictions. He duly took the witness stand, only for the prosecution solicitor to tell the magistrates they had found he had a conviction for, I kid you not, the attempted theft of a dolphin a few years before. His partner in this escapade had been a fellow named Mickey Friar, a small time gangster and chum of the Krays' buddy Joey Pyle, who was based in nearby Morden. More to the point, Mickey Friar was a great pal and drinking buddy of local celebrity dipsomaniac Oliver Reed, so I guess that makes the dolphin episode a whole lot more believable.
Bottom line, no bail through Muckey, but my brief got the clerk to ask the magistrates to put the case back an hour to give me the opportunity to try and find an alternative. I'd already had a 'sorry but no' from my first alternative whilst on remand, and racked my brains to think of someone else. In the end I rang my friend David Wynne, the renowned sculptor of The Queen, The Beatles, and later the Queen Mother Gates in Hyde Park, whose beautiful bohemian house was one of my main sanctuaries then. [I was friends with his stepson Johnny, who'd been the last person before me to get expelled from our alma mater; an amazing luthier.] I wasn't too hopeful, but whoever answered the phone went and got David from his studio, and to my relief, he said he'd do it and be at the court as quickly as he could. He was there in no time, still in his overalls covered in granite, or chalk, or marble, or something dust, and I can see him now standing in the witness stand like that. Bail was duly granted and outside the court, after chatting to my parents who were also friends of his, David took me aside and said that I might think he was a rich man, but if he lost £500 his family wouldn't have a holiday that year, adding that he had every confidence in me. Now as well as the aforementioned, one of his most famous sculptures is the 'Boy With A Dolphin' one, for which the model for the boy was his son Roly, a tortured genius who died tragically young. So a bad luck and a good luck dolphin in the Free Auntie Pus campaign.
Meanwhile, whilst on the three week bail for reports, the burgeoning Auntie Pus career was about to go semi-stellar. During this time I first supported The Damned at Hastings Pier Ballroom: a great gig, little did I know that would be the best I'd ever go down doing a Damned gig. The court reports recommended a suspended sentence, so I was quite bright on my return to court. David Wynne had rung me up to say he was sure it'd all be fine, and to pop up afterwards and see him to let him know how it went. It was as fine as it could be inasmuch as I was at liberty, and I told my parents I'd promised to go and see David. A quick bus ride and I presented myself at his stunning house on Wimbledon Common, Rushmere. [It's next to the school Johnny and I had been unceremoniously dismissed from, and these days the headmaster's residence.] David came to the door, shook my hand, and gave me an envelope, saying: 'I knew you wouldn't let me down. I can go on holiday now, so I think it's only fair that you can. Here's £100 — get yourself away somewhere for a bit.' He also gave me an illustrated edition of Blake's 'Songs Of Innocence and Of Experience', knowing that I was a Blake acolyte. Not any old edition, but one previously given to him by his friend Sir Geoffrey Keynes, the prominent Blake scholar and brother of Maynard the economist, with an introduction by Geoffrey. I do not have to consult the court records to find the date, for it is inscribed, on the inner front cover: 'David Wynne from Geoffrey Keynes 5 Jan 1973', and beneath: 'and from David Wynne for Julian Isaacs 8th July 1977'. What an amazing man. The next day, I set off to hitchhike up North and just explore. Having taken the tube to Hendon Central to access the M1, I had a little browse in a shop that sold windup record players, and speaker horns, needles and other accoutrements, and then bought a copy of Record Mirror. Thumbing to find the gig review section, I found a glowing one of my gig with The Damned. As I jumped up into the first lorry that stopped for me, I rather thought it should have been a limo. Delusion's alright — it's when you delude yourself you're not deluded that you're in trouble.
