Prison

(1)

I rather thought, whilst the country was locked down in the interests of public health, now might be as good a time as any to tell you about the brief times I was locked up in the interests of department store profit health. 

As it happens, the first time wasn’t for shoplifting, or hoisting as it’s known in the game, but prescription forgery. My friend Morphine Steve’s girlfriend Caz, who later went out with my other friend Motorbike Jim, showed me how to do it. She wasn’t an especially literate girl, but she knew the form, as you might say. 

Bill Major, the man who first called me Auntie, having been aware that this knowledge had changed hands, happened to find himself in his GP’s surgery, whilst the doc’ had popped out of the room, with a prescription pad on the desk. It would have just been rude not to peel a few off. So whoop whoop, Bill’s your uncle, Pus is your Auntie, and away we went. It was July 1977, and two weeks after I’d been the front page headline story in the local rag, The Wimbledon News, with the headline: Public School Punk Rocks! This article, incidentally, was syndicated by my supposed mate Wensley Clarkson on said paper to the Sunday Mirror and Reveille, and I never saw a penny. Wensley has gone on to become a successful true crime writer, including an awful book on John Bindon which reads like Reveille and, not least, ‘Killer On The Road’ about Kenny Noye, in which he makes his subject out to be a psychopathic murdering thug. Well done Wensley, you were spot on — thing is, he’s just got out. Incidentally, Wensley was then going out with, and is still married to a girl called Claire Maconic, known locally as ‘The Parrot’, because she squawked like one.

Anyway back to the prescribing our own Diconal scenario — Diconal is a phosphorescent pink tablet manufactured with silicone, which one can crush up and inject, but carries attendant risks. It is an opioid but also induces visual and aural hallucinations and the Georgian coving and dado rail in my hallway are painted in the same shade of pink, for old times’ sake — like all good criminals, we knew when to stop, just we couldn’t, or didn’t. So the inevitable happened, and I cracked The Wimbledon News again, this time only on the inside pages, with the rather more inglorious headline: Punk rocker on drugs charge. However, this was after what, if I wanted to sound like a villain I’d call the trial, but was actually a hearing at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court, where I pleaded guilty. 

To jump back to the bust itself, at my parents’ house in Wimbledon Park — I’d left home three years earlier but had to retreat back briefly — it could have been worse, because I’d burgled a chemist a few weeks before and also had large jars of Dexedrine, Diazepam, etc., in my bedroom but no Class A, as I’d failed to get the DDA cabinet off the wall. On actually gaining entry to the premises through the upstairs back window, there had followed an hilarious Laurel & Hardy moment when I had fallen through the false polystyrene tiled ceiling to the shop, and tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor in full view of the shop window, brightly lit with displays of nappies and lipstick. Anyway, whilst the police took said pills, that’s all they did and they were only interested in any remaining haul from the Diconal escapades, which was minimal, as they’re proper moreish, hence the recklessness.

My parents refused to stand bail for me: my mum was in Martini oblivion and my dad consequently at a low point anyway, and I think they thought a short sharp remand shock might work, if only because nothing else had. So off I went from the initial court hearing to Ashford Remand Centre in Middlesex. Although there were some big fellas there and it went off here and there, largely it was like junior school — you had meals in a dining hall, not off a tray in your cell, and there were young teenagers flicking peas at each other. I wrote to my dear friends the Sullivans, surrogate Godparents I might describe them, asking for a bail surety, and got the sweetest ‘no’ you’ve ever had. Anyway it was only two weeks, and I had one visit. Bill Major came to see me with another friend, Bill Wells who ran a British motorbike shop called Merton Motorcycle Spares. They brought me twenty Players’ cigarettes in two packets of ten, and the Major said they’d sort me out a lawyer. They did indeed sort me out a lawyer, who smoked dope and worked for Release and was cool. I only had one meeting with him, in a pub called The Horns by Shoreditch Church; it was a Monday lunchtime and they had topless dancers and strippers on. Anyway he might have been a cool guy, but the barrister he instructed was newly qualified and useless, and my uncle, a very successful solicitor still practising, though never really in criminal law, had to help me get a replacement.

So, moving on, after two weeks in Ashford, back I came in the meat wagon to Wimbledon Magistrates Court, where Bill Major and a couple of other pals had also organised someone to stand bail for me, an entertaining lunatic dipsomaniac Irishman called Mickey MacDonald who, all those endearing attributes aside — and I mean them to be endearing — ticked all the boxes, being a householder with no criminal convictions, or so he and we thought. However, when he went into court and took the oath, the police objected on the grounds that they had found a conviction from a few years before. This was when, in the company of a man named Mickey Friar, who was Oliver Reed, the film star’s, right hand drinking man, he had been charged with: ‘The attempted theft of a dolphin’. I was the one not laughing as the court wanted reports, and it looked like being shipped back to Ashford for a further three weeks. 

Anyway, I was allowed to make a phone call, and I rang my friend David Wynne, the sculptor, who lived in a beautiful house called Rushmere, next to the alma mater that had disowned me, well until punk rock that is, and who had an amazing bohemian household where I used to hang out. David Wynne after that sculpted the Queen Mother Gates to Hyde Park, but at that time had sculpted inter alia, the Queen and The Beatles; also the Taylor Woodrow tug-o-war over the Edinburgh Gates to Hyde Park. When I rang that morning, not only did he say he would come to the court and stand bail for me, but he was in full throttle in his studio, and arrived at the court and took the stand in his overalls with marble or granite dust in his hair. On top of that he liaised with my parents to have me back for the three weeks until the next hearing, so I was released. The surety was £500 and, as we were leaving the court, David Wynne took me aside and said: ‘You might think I’m a rich man, but if I lost that £500, I won’t be able to take my family on holiday this year.’ I nodded and he added: ‘I’m sure you will turn up for court, and I’m sure as it’s more or less your first offence you won’t go to prison, so come up and see me afterwards and let me know how you get on.’ I managed to keep a relatively low profile and duly did turn up and get two years’ probation. When I turned up at David Wynne’s afterwards he handed me an envelope with £100 in, saying: ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down. That’s so you can go on holiday too.’ What a gentleman — I left a couple of days later and hitch-hiked all the way to John O’ Groats and onto the Orkneys, then back via mine and Bills Major and Wells’ friend Ginger’s place down in North Devon, but that’ll have to keep for another time. Before I left David, knowing I was a William Blake fanatic, gave me a copy of Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' with a forward by the great Blake scholar and brother to economist Maynard, Geoffrey Keynes, who was a friend of David's. It is inscribed: from Geoffrey Keynes to David Wynne 5 Jan 1973, and beneath that: and from David Wynne for Julian Isaacs 8th July 1977. I still have it.

So that was Ashford Remand Centre. Oh, I forgot, my gran sent me a radio in, which was proper handy. Also she was a housekeeper and companion to an aristocratic lady called Frances Chenevix-Trench in Alexander Square, South Kensington, where at one time the film star Ava Gardner lived next door. My gran was permitted to have me to supper once a week, although we ate, not with Mrs. Trench, but in the kitchen downstairs. When I went on the week following my release from Ashford to see my gran, she asked me if I’d come up and say hello to Mrs. Trench, which was the standard procedure. I’d get offered a glass of sherry and we’d converse for ten minutes or so. Being aristocratic, she loved the horse racing like my gran and I, so there was always something to talk about. This time I queried the invitation, asking my gran if she was sure about it under the circumstances, and she replied that Mrs. Trench had said she would like to see me. I went up into the first floor drawing room, where Mrs. Trench sat in her habitual armchair, dressed in her habitual purple. Purple is traditionally ‘semi-mourning’ and she was a widow and traditionalist and never wore any other colour. I bade her good evening, and she asked me to sit down, then she said: ‘Your grandmother’s told me where you’ve been. I wouldn’t worry too much about it — one of my ancestors was hanged in the Tower.’ Next stop Act Two. Two Years Later. HMP Brixton and Pentonville.

Venues in Hammersmith c. 1978-81

This entry follows a discussion on social media of the sad demise of the Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith, where I played many gigs in the Basement Bar with Auntie & The Men From Uncle c.1980-83, including a Monday night residency with my pals The Satellites, where we alternated as the headline band. A few days ago I came across a photo in my scrapbook of one of these nights, at which some over-zealous Satellites fans had debagged me. 

This also occurred at another venue in the locality, The Kensington in Russell Gardens where, the following week I believe, I saw The Stray Cats at their first ever London gig, when they were sleeping on Keith Altham - The Rolling Stones’ PR man, inter al. - 's floor, and yet to have a record contract. The debagging at The Satellites gig was when they were supported by a one off outfit, later to morph into The Blubbery Hellbellies, featuring four bulky boys, namely Arturo Bassick, who went on to form and run said Blubs, Derek Gibbs, The Satellites’ singer - aka Dr. Strangelove -'s dad Big Del, Pete Haynes (Manic Esso from The Lurkers), and Johnny Pi R 2, The Satellites’ bassist. They played a selection of humorously rewritten punk classics, such as ‘Curry Up Harry’ and ‘No Buns’. It was the first night I’d had a home for months, as I’d that day moved in with my friend Mick O’Dwyer, known locally as Weird Flex, on what Derek Gibbs refers to as the Acto-Chizz border disputed, or yards from where W4 becomes W3, or the other way round, if you’re coming from Acton, of course. It was only a camp bed in a room that also contained a five string banjo which I tried unsuccessfully to master, various motorcycle parts, and Mick’s own single bed, but it had a landline, quite an important thing in those days, both for people on the lower rungs of show business and part time heroin dealers, both of which I was. Anyway, such stability being a not inconsiderable achievement, I thought it rude not to drink a gallon of lager to celebrate. 

Hammersmith venues also included the teddy boy stronghold The George, where in the punk-ted wars Derek Gibbs was brutally jumped upon. Moving down King Street, we come toThe Salutation, which I think is still extant as a ghastly overpriced gastro pub. My long time friend and musical colleague of over fifty years, Robin Bibi - also an original Blubbery Hellbelly, despite being of slender build, as they needed an exception to prove the rule, plus he’s bloody fantastic on the guitar - used to play there with an Irish Country band called Pat & The Lamplighters, lovely warm hard drinking Irishmen, who had a Sunday night residency there. I went with him once for something to do, and was sitting there at the bar listening to the band and minding my own business, when the IRA bucket came round. Luckily I realised what it was, and luckier still I had some money to put in it. 

The Swan which was on Hammersmith roundabout by the Metropolitan line tube station, is still a pub by another name - I know that because I’ve ‘watered the horse’ in there a couple of times in recent years - where Robin also used to play regularly a couple of years earlier in a great funk band called Panties. The two singers in Panties, one of whom was Robin's then girlfriend Kim, whose dad was a famous British jazz sax player, and Maz, who went out with the Panties drummer, an ex-member of NYJO whose day, or rather night, job was playing in the house band at the Savoy Hotel, went on to be Paul Young's backing singers, The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts. I was there watching them once on a weekday evening with my pal Adam Cox, a man the size of my dear friend Arturo Bassick/Arthur Billingsley, i.e. six foot two, eyes of blue, and eighteen stone, who at that time had his blonde hair cropped and dyed pink and blue, and was dressed entirely in black leather, when the chap I had hit on the head with an R. White's lemonade bottle at public school, André Golay - after not inconsiderable provocation, I might add - leading to my expulsion from said school, walked in - he’d come as he had maintained contact with Robin and I think they’d written some songs together - but on glancing round and seeing first me, then Adam, swiftly egressed. The other guitarist in that band was a man named Pete Flaskett, who had a day job in Roka's guitar shop in Denmark Street, and who was not only a great player, but an hilariously funny man. The bass player in Panties was a good looking, smooth talking, top player called Sam Harley, who was in the rag trade by day and had a stall in St. John’s Wood market. He went on to be in The Lucky Saddles with both Robin and Arthur, inappropriately named after what chaps on building sites shout after beautiful girls on bicycles. I say inappropriately as everyone thought they were a country band, lots of people didn’t know the saying anyway, and they played Arthur’s beautiful, but quite weighty in content, home compositions. I managed this great outfit for a few months in 1981 but that, as they say, is another story.

Start It Up

Start It Up

I think I’m probably more of an ‘in medias res’ man, than a ‘to begin at the beginning’ one, but just for once I shall endeavour to start at the start. 'They' say, or was it Sherlock Holmes said: 'always expect the unexpected', but my dad didn’t until my mum was. My father was and is an Oxford Modern Languages scholar, and my mother was a society girl from Sydney, besotted with an archetypal Oxbridge Englishman. He in turn was equally in love with her.

I only found out I was ‘unexpected’ by chance when I was just coming up to my eighteenth birthday and working as a legal clerk, fishing about sometimes in the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, then in the Kingsway. As I was already well set on going off the rails, it was like a red rag or a green light or both, but we’ll come back to that. My two grandmothers, both of whom I trusted and was inordinately fond of, informed me when I confided in them, that I was very much wanted. My mother, seven years older than my father, was posh Aussie through and through and must have been much in love to have suffered damp, cold, smog, and the smell of fried or over-boiled food, which she refused to cook or consume. They had some rooms in Summertown in Oxford; it was the summer of 1957 and my father had not so much flunked his finals at Teddy Hall, as got a 2:2 when he was destined for a first, because he had other things, i.e. me, on his mind.

Soon after my birth my father got a job teaching French and German at Bushey Grammar School and we moved to a house in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, which belonged to my paternal grandmother, following my father’s parents having bought it as a self-evacuating wartime sanctuary. It was, and still is, at the end of the Metropolitan line, so the first thing Sherlock Holmes would have found, if he’d hit the trail at Baker Street and then fallen asleep after a night on the pipe (in both senses) would have been me, or at least the nearest station to my house. Please note that Sherlock Holmes is fictional, unlike any events you read about here, although there's quite a lot of not expecting the unexpected.

In Amersham our neighbours on one side were a family called Padgham. The father, Charles, made and played keyboard instruments, such as clavichords, in the garden shed, and they had a son and daughter a couple of years older than me. The son, Hugh, went on to produce Genesis and, bizarrely, features in one of the bits in American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis, where the author uses the literary trick of diverting from extreme horror by bringing in something mundane, to accentuate the horror when we return to it, and talks about Genesis.

At Sunnyside, the name of the house at 16 Woodside Close, and the only residence I've ever had with a name, we were quite not poor but basic, and we had a horsehair sofa, which the stuffing was escaping from, and I remember my mother making a joke about it being all horse and no hair. We also had a lodger called Laszlo, a Hungarian refugee, whose appearance I cannot recollect at all, but possibly my first awareness of global goings on was when my dad told me about 1956, and how Laszlo and his family had been listening to Radio Free Europe until they announced they’d have to go off air as the Russian tanks were rolling down the street. I recalled this in the 90s when my friend Simon Tickner married his gorgeous Hungarian girlfriend called Wendala at Brixton Registry Office, and our mutual friend Roger Patron not only successfully hired a tank to take them to the registry office but also inveigled the police into closing Brixton’s one way system. It was an expansive and expensive gesture, but no-one had quite thought it through. Roger told me how it was only when Wendala’s parents arrived from Hungary on the eve of the wedding, that it dawned on him they were exactly the age to have witnessed the events of ‘56, and sure enough...

Not much else occurred in Amersham, other than my Australian grandfather sending the money for me to have a shiny new red and blue tricycle, and I remember excitedly but nervously awaiting the trunk call where I heard his voice the one and only time, and got, or was instructed, to thank him. He was a successful Sydney accountant, and a prominent occupant of the 19th hole at his golf club to the point of dipsomania, and came according to my late brother’s genealogical research from impeccable convict stock, an ancestor having been a Jewish jeweller in the City of London, who was transported after a forgery conviction. He died the following year, leaving my mum a bit of money and lots of addictive genes, if there are such things. The money helped us buy a house in Raynes Park, on the outer edge of South-West London in early 1961, after my dad got a better job at King’s College School, Wimbledon. As for the addictive genes, you will hear quite a lot more about them, whether there are such things or not. 

To complete the Australian maternal grandparents, my mum’s mum, Nell, came over to England to live, following not so much her husband’s death, but more their divorce. In fact, she might have already been here when he died. She is the gentile element on the maternal side making me three quarters Jewish but definitely not Jewish. She came from a Liverpool Irish family called Cooney, who emigrated in the 1860s from a Liverpool that was nearly as starving as Ireland, and landed in Melbourne, slap bang in the middle of the Ballarat Gold Rush, so happy days. My gran Nell arrived in England just in time to accompany me up to London on the train when we moved, my parents having gone in advance to wait for the removal van, as you do. I don’t remember the view from the window or the stations but I remember it being just me and her and my beloved bunny Barrington, whom I’ve had since the day I was born, sitting on the seat next to me. At 131 Grand Drive, the 1930s pebble-dashed semi that was our new abode, we were still quite but not poor, but now my mum had limited funds of her own and Ideas! So instead of a horse hair sofa losing its stuffing, we had a Victorian sofa, newly upholstered in gold velvet, on which we were only allowed to sit when we had guests.

Ruts DC - The Fleece, Bristol - 9th March 2013

Ruts DC: well, I've always had a minor issue with the DC moniker - the boys said they chose it because da capo in Latin/Italian means literally 'from the head' or, in common musical parlance, back to the beginning. However, in music, it actually signifies going back to the beginning and playing what one's already played all over again, exactly the same, and this couldn't be further from what Ruts DC actually did, and are doing! What they really did, in my humble opinion, was reference their eponymous first single 'In A Rut', and being close to being in one, boy did they get out of it, and in incomparable and uninimitable fashion.

Events conspired against me even to get to this gig, but I'm a rebel and I in turn conspired against events. My lift to the gig having fallen through, as had my accommodation options in Bristol, 3pm last Saturday found me in my trusty Saab leaving my geographical home for my spiritual one. What - bloody Bristol, I hear you ask? No, dear reader, a Ruts gig! (Though I did have the old Mike Absalom lyric going round in my loaf: If she was French she'd be from Brest / I always did like Bristols best...)

Anyway, arriving in time for the sound check, after a brief meet and greet, as the yanks say, I was taken down a road of olfactory reminiscence. I don't know why, but for me certain styles of music have particular nostalgic triggers; for example I first saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Jimmy Rogers et al at the 100 Club in the mid-70s, which in those days had a doubtful Chinese restaurant outlet at the opposite end of the club to the bar, meaning that the whiff of MSG-enriched sweet and sour sauce often engenders thoughts of Chicago blues in me. In the same way, the smell of stale lager and cider in a darkened, empty venue makes me think of punk gigs. Well, The Fleece, bless it, as I'd observed when seeing and supporting The Members there the other year, definitely lives up to expectations in that department.

To cut to the chase, the set! First, some wonderful deep reggae. How do you know - you know nothing about reggae, I hear you ask? Well, maybe not, but (a) I know great music when I hear it; (b) who better than The Ruts to educate one in this department? (c) I challenge anyone last week to have popped down the road to St Paul's and got the most devout Rastaman they could find, and brought him to the show, not to have had the feedback that the only thing that denoted he wasn't in the tightest soundclash he'd ever been to, was the fact that there was only a band at one end of the hall. Shall I have a little Pus-style rant here? Why not? Damn the expense! Well, people, then and now, talking about punk rock, often cite The Clash - admittedly a great band of creative musicians - as veering from the punk thrash norm because they had a strong reggae influence/content in their material...the old heckles always rise at this, and I think: have these 'people' never heard The Ruts? So...one step forward...and...two steps forward...and, in the case of Ruts DC, no steps backwards now or ever. As is commonly known and told, The Ruts and Misty in Roots have always been close chums and colleagues. The very name Misty In Roots has pantomime undertones, and WHY NOT? An old criticism of The Damned was that they were a 'vaudeville band.' Why a criticism, I always wondered, surely a compliment? I maintain that a small strand of slapstick marbleing the rock face of serious music validates, not undermines it - it helps connect the punter to the product, and should never be knocked, so very nice it was to hear Segs put his tongue in his cheek inbetween numbers.

I'd like to say, after the reggae, what we'd all come for, but I'd be speaking for myself - I'm sure lots of people came for the reggae too, I know I met at least four of them in the pub next door to the gig! Between ourselves - and I hope there's thousands of us - I came for The Crack, and I wanted to hear it. And, guess what? Fucking hear it I jolly well did! Maybe I should have been a music journo, but I'm not, so I made no notes, and enjoyed it so much I can't tell you what order they played the tunes in. My back - not my bum, as we used to joke in the old days - was duly bitten, I was got with SUS, etc., etc. I am unable to report any highlights, as every word, note and harmony was a highlight.

Every song had a special souvenir, in the French sense, for me. Staring At The Rude Boys puts me in mind of a gig on the Grin & Bare It tour at an old civic hall somewhere in the Midlands, possibly I think the Victoria Halls in Hanley. The soundcheck was over, and the doors had opened. Punters were filtering in, and the soundman or DJ had some records on. Now the first Human League album had just come out, and Malcolm loved it. We were sitting in the dressing room having a little libation when in bursts Malcolm, shouting: "Guess what? I've just put the Human League on, and all these fucking skinheads are dancing to it!"

Babylon's Burning hit the charts during a little three month holiday I had with Her Majesty in the summer of 1979, thoughtfully scheduled by the constabulary between my joining the lads as support slot on the earlier Damned tour, and doing so again on their victorious post-hit Grin & Bare It tour on my release, and hearing it still gives me the same joy and warmth that it did bursting out of the old tranny in the cell. Typing that last phrase alerts me to its possible ambiguity, and I can just hear Segs and Ruffy saying: "You had an old tranny in your cell, Aunt? Well you are a dark horse!" Ha, ha ha...

West One (Shine On Me) is a strange dichotomy: from the day of its release, through melting at watching a YouTube clip of Segs singing it at last year's Rebellion festival, right up until last Saturday radiates, pulsates and glories in Malcolm shining on. It never fails to move me, and I would quite possibly find it unbearably heart wrenching, were it not for the levity injected by the fact that I used to labour under the misapprehension that the lyric 'inside it's only me who's straight' was 'lost in a bar somewhere in sunny Spain.' Well, Malcolm's stunning model ex-missus Rocky had moved to Ibiza, things'd definitely gone downhill after she left, and I reckoned he missed her, quite probably correctly!

I find it very hard to say anything about the insuperable guitar, keyboards and harmony vocals. The best way I can find to express it is that they were so wonderful and so appropriate, that they managed to be simultaneously uplifting, driving and undetectable. It might seem a bit off the subject, but I love the Rolling Stones, and the best way Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood could ever find to be Brian Jones was by being themselves. I had a lovely chat with Leigh Hegarty, Ruts DC's great new guitarist, after the show and he confided in me that he worried he "had some big shoes to fill." I could only respond, and I echo this here, that he has no shoes to fill whatsoever. Ruts DC are a renaissance not a re-creation, and he needs to be very proud of his contribution which underscores, fills, cuts and rocks! He exemplified how to acknowledge and reference a great influence whilst being simultaneously innovative, and without descending to the depths of tribute band territory. To quote Ruffy, in a recent Louder Than War interview: "He'€™s a monster player. We could never find anyone to do that job as well as that. He nails it. He knows exactly what it is."

To finish, as is traditional - one can't rail against every tradition, ha ha - the encore. (Another musical misnomer, as it's French for 'again', and not 'more.') The first single, released on People Unite records all those years ago. Vraiment, the people united last Saturday in Bristol! In A Rut: "You're in a rut, you gotta get out of it" - when I first heard and worked with The Ruts, how I liked to deceive myself into thinking this meant: you've got to get out of it. It took me nearly a quarter of a century, but finally the proverbial penny dropped, and it dawned on me that it meant I should get out of the rut, and not my head. Similarly, with H-Eyes, what harder way to rebel than by demonstrating that they weren't going to fuck my brain?

(Why is it that, when famous people have a tragic demise, they are remembered for this and not their creativity and humour? Take the great Tony Hancock, for example - sad that he died alone in an Australian hotel room, but he made and is still making a lot of people laugh, me included, and jolly loudly too. Now I never met or knew Jim Morrison, but I've read virtually all there is to read in the public arena about him, and as well as liking girls and getting off his head, he was clearly an extremely lively, and funny person. Well, let me tell you, so was Malcolm Owen, who also liked dangerous drugs, pretty girls, and left us at R 'n' R death age. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell the world, already I trust aware of his singing and songwriting genius, quite how amusing his husky idiosyncratic humour was. No, no quotes, I've told you and that'll do - but I like to recall Malcolm, a man who never possessed a driving licence, swinging the band Transit through the goalposts of a college gig football pitch in Hull with Segs and I beside him in the front seat, and a couple of terrified groupies screaming in the back, as the open doors swung to and fro, with a smile on my face, not a tear in my eye...)

To conclude, without wishing to over personalise, and thus render inaccessible, what started off as, and was supposed to be a gig review, I need to tell you that this band has been instrumental in precipitating most of my major life achievements e.g. the release of my first record, travelling the world, and showing hard drugs the door. I'm sure that the lads were as glad as I am that I didn't pitch up at their gig destitute, homeless and wanted by the forces of law and order, necessitating them taking me on tour with them for the combined reasons of subterfuge, compere duties and true love. However, the latter is ever present for me at the very mention of the word Ruts and, wishing to communicate the poignance this show resonated for me, rather than to be unnecessarily corny, I could still feel it in every note! Delighted as I was to be thankfully neither destitute nor homeless - though still penniless, the ongoing plight of most musicians - and having a lovely Georgian flat in Plymouth calling me back down the M5, I knew in my heart that there was a place in theirs for me. I can say no more than that this is forever reciprocated. As I write these words, the boys are about to take the stage at the Middlesborough Rock Garden revisited, where the promoter told me in one breath that I was a living legend since my performance there thirty-four years ago, and in the next breath that I wasn't welcome on the bill. Plus ca change! Well, give 'em hell lads, 'cause that's what they gave me thirty-four years ago!

22 PINTS OF LAGER & FUCK THE CRISPS - Chapter 3: Blood On The Norfolk Broads

Not only was youngpunkfan's dad's flat barren and cold, so was the day that greeted us on Saturday, November 8th, 1980. It was also grey and damp, in time honoured South Yorkshire tradition when, clutching our priceless Woolworth's instruments, remarkably still no more scathed than when we left London, Arthur & I attempted to follow youngpunkfan and dad's directions to the bus stop for the station, accompanied by Dan, weighed down by no more than a pair of sticks poking from the pocket of his Generation X emblazoned Lewis leather jacket. 

Mission duly accomplished, we alighted at said station. I say 'said', but cannot say, at this latter juncture whether 'twas Rotherham or Sheffield. I can say that we determined that we needed to board our train fairly swiftly, and thus through combined reasons of expediency and shortage of tour support funds, our meagre two hundred pounds' tour support from Albion being long consumed, we were running for the rattler. Being the Saturday before Armistice day, my route was temporarily impeded by a poppy seller. "'Ere - mind out!" I exclaimed, as we collided in what I'd like to say was a cloud of steam from the approaching locomotive we aimed to catch - sadly, being 1980, it was just moist Yorkshire fog hanging on the air. "What's that for?" I added. "Armistice," replied the British Legion chap. "Never mind that," replied I, quick as a flash, "Get out my way or I'll MISS this train!" Boom boom! Well Arthur and I thought it faintly amusing, as did some of the audience, when I was inspired to share it with them later that evening.

It was quite a journey, and merits note for our resourcefulness and determination after in excess of fifty hours on the road, or should I say train, in our case. National Rail inform me that, were I travelling today, I could go directly from Sheffield to Norwich. However, I think we had to change at Crewe, as I'm sure I recall larking about on the platform singing Please Mr Porter in deference to Will Hay. This could conceivably be a combination of failing memory and wishful thinking, but I remain convinced it occurred. Regardless, after about three hours we alighted at Norwich station where on the concourse, whilst looking for information for the onward connection to West Runton, we encountered most of that night's audience, already raring to go, fuelled by cider and what one might term vitesse de vivre. Obviously it didn't take detective skills for us to identify them but, whether they recognised us as I'd like to think, or whether we introduced ourselves, I can't remember. Nonetheless, having made our acquaintance, they were both chuffed to accompany us up the branch line to West Runton, and to show us the way to the gig when we got there.

Now, there were a few explanations for our looking forward to arriving at that gig, discounting the obvious one of unwinding by blagging drinks off the fans after a c. five hour awkward train journey. Foremost was the fact that my fantastic lead guitar player and producer Dick Taylor, lead guitarist of ineffable dirty British R 'n' B pioneers The Pretty Things and founder Rolling Stone, was driving up from London to join us, and bringing with him our large, loud and regular drummer Pete (Manic Esso) Haynes, like Arthur an 'ex-Lurker for life'. (This was a band joke at the time as both Arthur and Esso were attempting to pursue alternative post-Lurker careers, and were daunted at every step, or should I say review, by being dubbed ex-Lurkers. Incidentally, Arthur has been a Lurker again now for over twenty years, whilst Esso is playing with original Lurkers' guitarist Pete Stride and bassist Nigel in the aptly named God's Lonely Men, so Lurkers for life it appears they are.) The only thing that had to be resolved was what Dan's role in the proceedings would be as, much as I'd loved to have had two drummers a la Pink Fairies, there was only one borrowed Splodge drum kit to be abused. How this was resolved and the ensuing chaos it provoked will be revealed in good course. We were also looking forward to seeeing Dick for lots of other reasons: principally that he was and is an amazing guitarist and a dear and loyal friend to us all but also because, at the then princely age of thirty-seven he was like a dad to our young selves, getting us out of trouble as he often did, whilst simultaneously often managing to have a hidden hand in helping us initiate it. (Dick was also a great diplomat, a skill he brought into play after the show that night when the promoter didn't want to hand over the dosh.) At the time Dick's day job was as a delivery driver for Jean Machine, the renowned chain of denim emporia, and I used to drive him mad en route to gigs mocking his unelected elder statesman's role by repeatedly singing the country tune Rock 'n' Roll I Gave You All The Best Years Of My Life.  Anyhow, next reason for being over the proverbial moon at seeing Dick was that he'd be in said van and would transport us home - none of us held driving licences in those days - after the gig to warm beds and a heroes' welcome and the accolades that would accompany our exaggerated (or not) tour tales in the local boozer the next day. In the interim, it was to be a long and eventful few hours before we boarded the trusty FUs mobile. Before I proceed to detail said events, let us take a brief detour.

For those of you who haven't read, or have yet to read, Esso's great book God's Lonely Men - ostensibly the story of the Lurkers but in reality a very readable but poignant tale of social exclusion and the demographics of Ickenham, Middlesex from whence The Lurkers hailed, which I myself equate to a kind of English response to Camus' L'Etranger, about displacement and an inability to integrate - I shall recount in brief what happened when we supported fellow Acton punks The Satellites at a Sunday afternoon gig in the Blue Coat Boy at the Angel, Islington a few months after the Splodge tour. In short, The Satellites loyal following had for some time been blessed by the infiltration of some hard core skinhead representatives of the Ealing National Front and it transpired that the Blue Coat Boy was the stronghold of another NF contingent. Esso tells the story in the terms of everyone being desperate to do gigs, but my being so desperate I'd do gigs that no-one else in their right mind would. Least ways, before we could play, let alone The Satellites, the most God awful fight erupted and we fled through the debris of broken glass and furniture to the safety of Dick's trusty van. I have taken this aside as this tale has an amusing and ironic postscript - namely that, when discussing Esso's book with Dick the other year, he reminded me that I'd been delighted on arriving at the venue to find Halfway To Venezuela on the jukebox (an almost unprecedented occurrence) and that, as we'd cast a farewell glance over our fleeing shoulders at the riot that was breaking out, the last thing we'd seen was the ruins of the smashed jukebox and my hit single weaving on its edge, like a punchdrunk marathon runner, through the shards of broken glass.

That was not as irrelevant an aside as it might first appear as we immediately observed that West Runton Pavilion, on the night in question, had a largish skinhead contingent present who were gathered around the then Sounds journalist and champion of the proto Oi Oi movement Garry Bushell. Mr Bushell was then in the process of perfecting the inflammatory inarticulacy that he went onto champion in his later capacity as televison critic for The Sun, an oxymoronic position if ever there was one. On this occasion, whilst he was displaying pride and joy at hanging out with and writing about ourselves and Splodge, we were immediately wary as he seemed all too keen on inciting, if not actually orchestrating, some kind of flare-up to enliven the proceedings and expand his material.

Anyway, back to the dressing room where Esso was offering to stand down from the drum stool for the night as Dan had been playing the tour to date, whether through reasons of deference, personal safety, or just because it would've given him the time to drink more lager, I'm not sure. I'd hazard an educated guess at the latter, as Pete's dear departed brother Dave, also a not insubstantial drinker, had jumped in the van with him, and they probably fancied a night on the lash together. Following a brief exchange and examination of the possible scenarios, chaired by Dick and I, it was determined that Dan would join Dick on lead guitar, in Dan's case one of our spare Woolworths' issue guitars, but wouldn't plug in, as the notes would in fact issue from Dick's guitar!

We duly took the stage, fuelled as usual with ample beer, apart form Dick who remained sober and employed his habitual self preservation strategy of playing his heart out whilst standing in the wings, out of the way of any threatening missiles and/or sputum. Dan took to his new role like a freshly shot duck to water and, as they say, the crowd went wild. The type of wild they went was to throw and gob as much as they could, whilst simultaneously giving us the most appreciative reception of the tour. In the course of all this revelry, a flying beer can struck Dan right on the temple, incurring a large gash, which soon had claret streaming from it. Dear Dick duly abandoned the stage after that number and whisked Dan off to the nearest casualty unit, whilst Art, Esso and I soldiered on for a couple of tunes to what I must say was remarkable acclaim, before we abandoned ship and left the stage to the art school dance cornucopia that was Splodgenessabounds. Instead of quietening down, as we would've expected when Splodge went on, or at least lessening the level of stick they were inflicting, the audience upped the ante, going on to boo Splodge off, when they demonstrated they were less well equipped than us to withstand it.

Whilst we were all cowering in the dressing rooms and the ridiculous Mr Bushell was out the front rubbing his hands in idotic glee at the level of both potential and actual violence, lo and behold, what did we hear but the crowd starting to chant: we want Pus! We recovered from this unheard of adulation and went back on stage. No sooner had the three of us launched into a number than Dick arrived back from the local hospital with Dan, who was proudly displaying a good few fresh stitches in his bonce. They both joined us and I fib not, you should've heard the roar that went up when Dan took up the unamplified Woolys' axe once more. Mr Bushell related the incident thus in the next week's edition of Sounds: '...the crowd decided to respond in strictly bootboy style, upping heckling and missile input to levels intolerable even to Maxwell and after a brief swapping of insults the band trooped off to outrageous chants of "We want Pus".' There you are, dear reader, it was in the paper, so you know it's true! (It is, by the way!) The postscript to this gig is that, only last week, I was directed to a Facebook page commemorating West Runton Pavilion and lo and behold, the chap that threw the offending can owned up in a public forum. Well I have liaised with Dan and I tell you mister middle aged East Anglian punk, you need to be afraid, very afraid...

That, as it happened, turned out to be that as far as the tour was concerned, although we didn't know it at the time. The Sunday and Monday were days off, and on the Tuesday, as luck would have it, Dick had deliveries to make in the area of that night's show, the location of which I can neither recall nor determine via the information super highway. Suffice to say it was somewhere not far from London, and I'm fairly sure North. It was also a bright afternoon, the sun pleasantly warm through the windows of the van as the advance party of Dick and I meandered our way, replete from a very nice lunch in a country tea room that was a haunt of Dick's, to the gig. We soon learned on arrival that it, and the rest of the tour, transpired to be off, at least as far as we were concerned as the PA company were, in the nicest possible way, refusing to work with us due to the high levels of beer, bodily fluids, etc. going in their monitors. When, with Dick by my side exuding tranquility, I duly pointed out that Splodge engendered even more unwanted liquid in their valuable kit than we did, they responded by saying yes, but Splodge paid their bills! As Joey Ramone might've said, hey ho! It was a good lunch anyway, cheers Dick...

There is, dear reader, one final post postscript to this little saga. Namely, that we'd been trying to outdo Splodge in the practical jape and joke department ever since arriving at Manchester, in our own sweet, if meagre attempt to emulate the havoc The Ruts had wrought upon The Damned when the former had supported the latter the year before, all of which is documented elsewhere. To cut to the chase, after speaking to the PA guys, they told me I could speak to Brian Bonklonk, Spodge's aptly named manager and chef de pathetique, to verify the state of play. This I did, and was duly informed, unsurprisingly, that his loyalties lay with Splodge. He put me onto Max, who was faintly and insincerely apologetic. I told him not to worry and that, when he got to their next gig, which was in South Wales, I had a joke for him to tell the audience. Now this was the time during which the renowned Welsh boxer, Johnny Owen, was critically ill in a coma, and there was a dreadful sick joke doing the rounds which went: 'Have you heard the Welsh have changed their national vegetable? It's not the leek anymore, it's Johnny Owen!' Now, I truly never thought that Max'd be mad enough to relay this to a Welsh audience, but I hadn't bargained on Max having been so preoccupied with his dual roles of heavy drinker and newly famous pathetique pioneer, that all other current affairs had passed him by. What actually happened was...Splodge went to Wales, Max told the joke, they had to abort their set in the face of the greatest violence since Plaid Cymru had been burning down holiday cottages a few years earlier (those incidents themselves engendering the joke pastiche gas board slogan: 'Come home to a real fire - buy a cottage in Wales!'), fled in their van, but were chased back to their hotel and on up the motorway in fear of their lives, after their access was barred at their lodgings, by irate bouncers armed with baseball bats. Max has never forgiven me for this and, indeed, was still harping on about it when I saw him last summer at the Auntie Pus London comeback show.

22 Pints etc. Chapter 2 - The North Without Hatfield

Well...we duly arrived in Manchester, famished and craving alcohol, chips, fame and the chance of (self) exposure (in that order). Having located the gig and hooked in with the Splodge troupe, we swerved the soundcheck - it would've made precious little difference as we'd had no rehearsals and weren't playing our own instruments anyway, Arthur having procured (also for safety's sake, see Part 1) the loan of Colin Gould's faintly serviceable but inexpensive bass guitar - and we found a nearby B & B where, as self-elected tour manager, I booked us in for the night. 

We returned to the gig - Manchester Polytechnic, where I recall the wall of the student union where we played was appropriately emblazoned with a larger than life version of Dennis The Menace - and drank as much as possible by blagging, ligging, poncing off the punters and endeavouring to share Splodge's rider, not an easy task as there were about eight of them and about enough alcohol for a respectable punk trio.  We duly knocked a rudimentary rockin' punk set out without too much ado, a little bit of flying sputum and the odd missile but nothing unexpected, and half swaggered, half staggered back to the aforementioned B & B, fairly faintly drunk and even more faintly elated, having successfully elicited that evening's paltry £50 fee. Dear Dan, now a much more seasoned tour veteran than myself, had at that time never been on tour but had been regaled by Arthur, Rat, myself and others with tales of on tour demolition, carnage, etc. On entering the landlady's lounge, we collapsed exhausted into her armchairs and in ran her large hound, which was as 'faintly' friendly as we were 'faintly' drunk. As soon as her back was turned, Danny gave the poor beast a good punk kick on its rump with his size eleven Doctor Marten boot, necessitating the use of my not inconsiderable placatory negotiating skills to enable us to stay the night there, once the dog's howl alerted the landlady to what had occurred. I can't remember what I said to the woman, but the fact that we were still on the premises the next morning means I would've put Kofi Annan to shame!

Talking of knocking things out i.e. our set, the only other incident of note was when Arthur was caught by the chambermaid in the morning in flagrante but hardly delicto, as it was only with a magazine, and not a groupie! We then ate as much inclusive breakfast as possible for the combined reasons of hangover hunger and economy, then Arthur hit upon the novel idea - probably to deflect attention from the aforementioned J Arthur incident - of trying to launch Dan into the Guinness Book of Records by challenging him to brush his teeth continuously for one hour for the princely bet of £2! I am still laughing now remembering Dan asking, in a muffled voice thorugh a mouthful of Colgate foam, how long was left, as Art & I loked at our watches and giggled. Dan duly achieved his aim and objective, but informs me that Arthur still owes him the £2! After recovering from this hilarity, we set off for Piccadilly station and the rattler to Sheffield, another Polytechnic gig, where we were shortly to realise why The Damned always said they hated students...whilst it was quite an adventure being on tour with no van and minimal tour support, something told me it was going to be a long night - how right I was...

By the time we reached Sheffield Polytechnic, my body, nerves and brain were crying out for alcohol, not least because I wished to quell the unease about the previous night's B & B having been a luxury we probably couldn't afford again that night. Whilst Charlie Harper could probably tour the world being accommodated by fans, I wasn't that well connected and was thus suitably apprehensive, as it was even bloody colder oop North than it had been in London. I abandoned Arthur and Dan backstage and set off for the Student Union bar, in search of cheap libation. There I ran into Fred, the Splodge keyboard player, who was a lovely stocky, wacky feller and a good drinking partner. As we stood there chatting and slurping, we were approached by the spokeswomen for the nastiest, most militant bunch of butch man-hating lesbians you ever saw, who told us their mission for the night was to prevent Splodge performing as they had been (unreliably and innacurately) informed that Splodge used strippers as part of their routine, which they perceived as degrading women. Bolstered by my peacemaking achievements the previous day, and backed by Fred, I tried to both reason with them and point out they had been misinformed. This went down about as well as a porterhouse steak in a vegan restaurant, and the feminists let us know that, if we were intent on proceeding with the show, they remained just as intent on stopping it.

Fred and I gave up the verbal battle and went back to the dressing room, where I informed the lads of the physical battle that was doubtless about to ensue. Arthur was just as incensed as I was, if not more so, when I told him of the 'demo'. "Right," he said, "that's it!" By the time we took the boards, we'd had a fair few and Arthur had (a) stripped down to T-shirt, Y-fronts and Doctor Martens and (b) found a dog-eared copy of Playboy or a similar publication (probably the same one he'd been reading that morning when rudely interrupted by the chambermaid) which he could blatantly leaf through as we walked on. The 'ladies' were all grouped down the front in battle formation and heavily armed with e.g. cut glass ashtrays. I strode up to the mike and announced: "Good evening! I'm sorry we're a little late coming on, but I had to pop home and untie the wife so she could get on with the ironing!" Within a few seconds we knew how the Hungarians must've felt when the tanks rolled in in '56 and, within a couple of numbers, so much beer had been thrown along with the accompanying glasses and ashtrays that the stage was awash, causing Arthur to slide ungraciously to the deck mid-song where he just lay there, battered, bruised and drunk, but also cleverly realising that most of the missiles were now flying over, not at him. Dan of course had the kit for protection although, bless him, he did intervene by coming out from behind it and winding the lovely girls up further. 

Somehow we escaped without serious injury and retired backstage to locate the young punk fan who'd kindly told us earlier that we could stay round his house for the night. It soon transpired that he'd left out one vital piece of information, namely that he resided not in Sheffield, but about eight miles away (I'd always thought it was in Bradford but modern technology tells me that's about thirty-two miles away so, after consulting Arthur, I think it must have been in nearer-by Rotherham). Well, after about an hour and a half's route march through the icy Yorkshire night carrying bags and instruments - our young fan, bless him helped out - all four of us were completely sober and ravenous, so the dear young chap took us to a local late night curry house where we were the only non-Asian customers, and where we ate one of the best, cheapest curries I've ever had outside India, or come to that even Tooting! Feeling a whole lot, well slightly, better we walked the last couple of miles to the young feller-me-lad's mama's house, where she wasn't too pleased to see him at what was by then about 2am and even less pleased to see us, his new punk heroes, swiftly informing him that no, we couldn't stay there for the night. 

"Don't worry," said youngpunkfan, "my dad will definitely let you all kip there." 

"Great," said I, "is it far?"

"About a couple of miles," said youngpunkfan.

Our hearts sank, but we had precious little choice, and off we set. His dad, it turned out, liked his music too, and was quite honoured to have us, apologising for having only a couple of tins of beer that we could all share, and eager to tell and show us how he'd helped his son paint his punk leather jacket up with the names of his favourite bands. The flat was cold and barren but youngpunkfan and dad were as hospitable as theycould be, and I remain eternally grateful. In the morning we put some funds in to purchase some food and all cooked and ate some breakfast together, before being pointed in the direction of the station and trains to Norwich (for West Runton and its well known Pavilion), a tortuous journey by train, even in these days of online info, but a proper minefield back then...

22 Pints Of Lager & Fuck The Crisps 

The Hitherto Untold Story of Auntie Pus on the Splodgenessabounds Tour - November 1980

Chapter 1 - The run-up...

Well...mid 1980 saw me out of prison and on the run, but not really running or hiding very hard, as I was gigging as much as possible and blagging as much press as possible, which usually - plus ca change, ha ha - amounted to not enough. Even The Damned were finding it hard to find a slot for my compering expertise and The Ruts, post Malcolm Owen's tragic R 'n' R demise, were mid-metamorphosis into Ruts DC which was engaging our shared manager, Andy Dayman's efforts more than I was; John Dummer had yet to step into the breach, leaving me to fend for myself. This had led to what might now be termed social networking, but was then just a bloody good night or two out on the lash in the Thomas A'Beckett in the Old Kent Road, haunt of various doubtful semi-retired boxers and their cohorts and a punk pathetique stronghold, where Splodgenessabounds often played, and where I went to hear them with Ruts Foxy & Segs et al. It didn't take much to establish that Max, Baby Greensleeves & I were singing from the same defaced, sacreligious hymn sheet and, after some high level business discussions with Splodge manager Brian Bonklonk, it was agreed that Auntie Pus, plus the rudimentary Men From Uncle, would support Splodge at their forthcoming pathetique festival at Camden's Electric Ballroom in August. 

There were about eight bands programmed and advertised, of which we weren't one! The first band on were Peter & The Test Tube Babies, who appeared to have a strong nazi following - there was lots of sieg heiling and other unfortunate behaviour down the front, and I left the safety of the dressing room, accompanied by Arthur and Esso, to meet and greet with John Peel, a long time Lurkers fan, and the only man to play Halfway To Venezuela on national radio. Before leaving the dressing room, I'd posed for one of my most R 'n R shots ever with Dick Taylor, taken by Virginia Turbot (yes that was her real name, though Max couldn't have dreamed up a better one for the hapless Sounds photographer sent on this unfortunate errand!) I had an all star band that night featuring not only ex-Lurkers for life Arthur and Esso, but three, yes three, hot hot hot lead guitar players, namely Robin Bibi, Mark Sullivan and Dick Taylor, all of whom bravely withstood the hail of abuse and missiles generated when we took the stage as special guests before Splodge, and I dragged the intro to the set opener of Riot In Cell Block No. 9 out for minutes, whilst mincing up and down the stage smoking a Senior Service a la Lee Brilleaux (least that's what I thought!), apart from dear Dick, who always ensured to have a long enough guitar lead to enable him to retreat to the wings whilst still playing when such stick ensued. I then further antagonised the skins by posing the question: "Who is this Hitler chap? I thought he was a decorator!" We survived for most of our set before Segs and Foxy ran on stage and debagged me, leading to my unceremonious removal from the stage by big, bad, unpersonable bruiser Steve English, on behalf of promoter John Curd, who reinforced my eviction saying: "You'll never work in London again," or words to that effect. (Sorry John, but you were wrong!)

God knows how, but following this unparalleled success, and after even higher level business talks with Mr Bonklonk, it was subsequently determined that we would support Splodge on their scheduled upcoming UK tour, at an agreed nightly fee of £50. Things were looking up, or that's what I thought...

Well, the first step was not so much to recruit the band, but to see who was (a) available to waltz off on tour at rather short notice, it now being November and the tour due to start any day, and (b) who was prepared to do it after the Electric Ballroom debacle. I soon narrowed it down by establishing that Arthur was the only regular Man From Uncle available, so realised that I needed to recruit a drummer, at least for the first two dates, which were on a Thursday and Friday, until Dick Taylor could herd the rest of the troops into the old faithful Jean Machine (FUs - how appropriate) van and join us. After yet more high level discussions, mainly in the Tabard pub by Turnham Green tube - but no auditions - Arthur and I selected Danny Heatley, then drumming for West Acton punk pioneers The Satellites, and soon to go on to play for, inter alia, The Exploited, Boothill Foot Tappers and Shane Macgowan & The Popes. (Well, Dan, I think we gave you a good grounding in on tour havoc.) 

There was, however, one slight snag in that Danny wasn't technically available at all, as he had a day job in the CBS record pressing plant in North Acton, a job where he did about three movements all day at a machine, and which he was only too eager to leave. However he resided at home with his mum, and she was far less eager for Dan to leave his not-so-steady job. Dan's dad is the great Spike Heatley, probably the most revered British jazz double bass player, and at that time not so long divorced from Dan's mum Viv, whose actual words when Dan proposed to leave his job and set off on tour were something like: "I've heard all this before - it was the same with your dad - he had a perfectly good, secure job in the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra, but oh no, he had to jack it in to do his own thing!" After placating Mrs Heatley by acting grown-up and responsible (yes, dear reader you may well laugh) and agreeing to pay Dan's housekeeping contribution for the length of the tour - three days as it turned out, and I probably still owe her - the triumvirate of temporary Men From Uncle was cemented.

The next step was to drum up some tour support money from somewhere, as I had no job, no money, and no record company, discounting my own one, Septic Records, of which I was and am the sole director and which, then and now had no funds whatsoever in its coffers. Then...Arthur had a brainwave - we'd go to Dai Davies and Derek Savage at Albion Records, to whom Arthur had been signed with his recently disbanded outfit Pinpoint and was about to fulfil the last couple of years of his deal by forming the gloriously named Lucky Saddles (with Dan Heatley on drums)...we'd point out that Halfway To Venezuela had recently been awarded Single Of The Week in Sounds music paper (a near, but thankfully not so narrowly avoided, minor payola scandal involving my journalist chum Mick Wall), that it was riding high in the semi-fictitious Oi Oi Charts in same rag, and that we had this not to be missed opportunity to ride high on the pathetique bandwagon. Arthur duly rang up Dai & Derek and arranged a meeting; so off we hopped the next morning, Wednesday 5th November 1980 (how appropriate, once again) up to Oxford Street on the jolly old Oxo cube for a little meeting. We went into the Albion boardroom, plotted up round the table, and put a copy of Halfway To Venezuela on it. Dai responded by picking it up and tossing it frisbee style over into the waste paper bin, then they asked us what we wanted. We both started to speak at once, then after prompting I shut up and let Arthur do most of the talking, as he had their respect, and it was through that that we stood any chance at all of leaving the premises with any ackers.

Now we really were into high level business discussions...after some twenty minutes or so they'd bargained me into selling them the publishing on the two tracks on the single for £200 advance on a rotten deal (80%/20% or thereabouts), and then haggled still further to get me to throw another two tracks in. This didn't hurt much, as it was all quite academic, manager No. 1 David Scott already being the owner of all of 'em! It appeared that it would take 24 hours to draw up the necessary paperwork, and release the cash, so it was determined that we would return the next morning to sign the deal and cop the bunce, making it a trifle tight for time, as we were due in Manchester for the opening date of the tour that evening. Arthur & I then hopped on the tube back to Turnham Green to meet with Dan and share the good news; I would say tell him to pack his kit, ha ha, except that the deal was we'd use all Splodge's gear so he didn't need to, in fact I'm not sure he even took his own sticks...still, as you'll find out if you keep reading, stick was something we were not going to find in short supply. After getting very and suitably drunk to celebrate we walked merrily home on what was a bitter early winter night.

At that time I was lodging with my friend Mick O'Dwyer and his mum locally in Bedford Park. Now, following my beloved Gibson having had its headstock split (and subsequently beautifully repaired by my dear pal Johnny Bennett over on Wimbledon Common), the advice was not to take it on the Splodge tour at any cost, so I'd asked Mick if I could borrow his. Mick wasn't really a guitarist but was the owner of a Woolworths solid guitar, remarkably similar, if not identical, to the one the Damned had bought me on tour the preceding year when the Gibson was damaged (Captain Sensible's clever way of avoiding me using any of his guitars, least of all his lovely Gibson Firebird), and christened the Puscaster. When I got in that night, and stumbled into our shared bedroom, always a perilous task as it was cluttered with discarded motorcycle parts, I found Mick's guitar on my bed, tied up with a ribbon, and with the words Puscaster Mk II emblazened in permanent marker on the headstock - Mick and our other good pal Colin Gould (both 999 crew stalwarts) had done this for me, and I was suitably touched.

The following morning the three of us set off early for our appointment at Albion. Arthur & I had appalling hangovers, it was even more bitterly cold, and we were sardined into the rush hour tube carriage...I remember Arthur wearing a very heavy tweed coat and some ridiculous, tiny wire rimmed sunglasses, the former to counteract the cold and the latter the hangover...we duly collected our £200 and passed Go - next stop Manchester!