Wheels, punks and Gigging (1979-80)

In late1979 I started to go to gigs on a regular basis either with John  who I met at Trowbridge college, Gini or with the Melksham punks. I was mobile by in early 1980 but before then I would get the train down to Yeovil and get picked up by John. On the way back I’d sit quietly in the train and read whatever magazines had been left on the train. Anything local I would borrow my Dad’s car. I wasn’t really a classic country punk with bondage trousers, leather jacket and safety pins, more, red chords and black cotton jacket. Punk liked to set itself out as a working class and unemployed sub-culture but I was working and I couldn’t afford the gear, so how could someone on the dole?

 I used to get a bit of flack from the hardcore punks to for not necessarily being hardcore, yet the big message from punk was “Be Yourself”. I was, I didn’t want my hair smeared with toothpaste and pins in my ear. 

A few years later I did a small fanzine with Dick who sang with punk band the Mental. I wrote an article about anarchy. Punks cried out for it as bit of fashion thing. Go to Cambodia if you want real anarchy was the message, Jello Biafra sang about it later with the Dead Kennedys (Not that he stole my message or anything!). What the punk years did for me was to let me be myself and I learned that I could be radical but in a very subtle way. A band once wrote a song called “If you want to defeat your enemy, sing his song”. That was a cool message; I would be a radical but fight from the inside rather than try and break things down from the outside. Nothing too dramatic though after all this was cosy Wiltshire. I did get the nickname “Wolfie" while I was at Wessex Water though. “ power to the people” ha!

In late March I asked a girl called Julie out, I think it was the first time I had actually said, “will you go out with me “ to a girl. She said yes and we went steady for about two weeks. I had to ride my bike down to Melksham and then wander with her, to wherever we went then ride back again. I bet kids don’t do that sort of things these days. “Mum, can you give me a lift down to my girlfriends?” “Yes OK dear”.

In 1979 I got a red Mini for £200; within a couple of months I needed a new sub frame. Welcome to the real world and debt. The Mini went everywhere, not many of my friends had cars so I was the one who ended up driving everywhere. Once we had 9 punks in and drove from Melksham to Bradford on Avon to watch punk band and Melksham heroes The Mental.

As everyone knows, who has ever driven one there is nothing quite like it, whizzing round corners. Unfortunately this Scared a young lady in the passenger seat Shitless once when we were coming back from Lacock and the roads were icy. We ended up sliding all over the road and ended up on top of a grassy bank. She got straight out and in with Mark who was driving in front. Was I that stupid? Unfortunately, Yes.

In February 1980 I went with some local punks to see Melksham's finest the Mental supported by Vice Squad and the Stupid Humans, I spent the whole evening saying “I think you’re very, very very very very.” to a girl called “Minky”. It was from the new release from the Flying Lizards “TV”. When I say the whole evening I do mean the whole time, she must have thought I was a complete nutter....................

All through early 1980 I fancied just about every girl I met or even saw. The diary entries were endless, Jackie, Julie, Mandy, Julie, Karen, Minky, Kitty, Melissa, it goes on and on. The girl I wanted most was not on that list though. We were great friends and I couldn’t spoil it. I new she was happy as friends and wanted no more than that. We did loads together, gigging, trips to London, nights out, lunch we both had punk trousers too. I bought a cracking pair of black and orange checked trousers, I wonder if they put off the girls. 

In June I decided to write to someone in pen friend sort of way and found a name in one of the music papers. I started to write and exchange stuff with Sharon from Birmingham. We were both into the Buzzcocks and shared some great info.

A small Melksham punk contingent started to form; Walsh with his infamous “Christ died for his own sins not mine” leather jacket, Mitchell, Patterson, “Zoe”, Dick and Steve from the Mental, Ronnie, Melissa, Sid, Walton, Tim, Heather and few other. I hung around but was never quite as hardcore as the others. They were into Crass and the Subs, I didn’t mind the Subs but Crass were just too much. I wanted music, so stuck with the Undertones, Fingers, and the new emerging scene of Indie. The punks would hang around carparks and some would sniff glue, the carparks were OK but glue? I couldn’t stand that it, stank for one thing

September 1980 saw the formation of the Melksham anti-Nuclear association. It was the height of cold war paranoia, CND and the country and finally found out what they had let themselves in for by electing Maggie Thatcher.

In 1980 I went to see the Undertones, Stiff Little fingers, stranglers, UK Subs, Splodgenessabounds. I drove my mini up to London to see Splodge at the so-called Punk Pathetique festival in Camden. The car was not well. It wasn’t until it had broken down that someone told me it needed oil in it. Apparently it went through oil like most cars go through petrol. Anyway we made it to London and back and had a great time.

Around September I went to Melksham to see a band called the Tarts. Nobody knew anything about them, but it was a gig and it was in Melksham. They had a scantily clad singer and a bunch of blokes playing the tunes. It turned out that the guitarist was a young lad called Laurie and the bassist was Fred Legg

I had gone back to college in Trowbridge as the result of joining Wessex Water. I had to do one Monday evening, all day Tuesday, and Wednesday evening. Things were getting busy with CND meetings and trips to demonstrate at Greenham common and all the gigging. I went college in my red trousers, which turned a few heads and was hanging around with “Victor Vomit” and some of the girls I knew from George Ward school. Plenty of girls to dream about but same old story again. None to go out with for more than a week. A few names cropped up in the diary but I have no idea who they are now, I seemed to have fancied Louise, Jackie and Claire, plus the long distance Sharon. About this time while my parents were away I had a nutter girl stay over. She was a friend of a Jackie and totally crazy. She had been in homes most of her live and was always in trouble. I fancied Jackie and thought that by giving Sandra a home for a few nights I might win some points. Unfortunately this did not happen. Jackie went off with my friend Johnny from Beanacre, Sharon went back to a kids home, and that was that little episode over.

October 26^th saw a massive CND rally in Trafalgar Square. Most of the Melksham CND and punks were going up so I joined in. It was a great day out with Killing Joke and the Pop Group playing life. Solidarity against Thatcher? Well for some of us anyway

Crewkerne calling (1979-80)

I met John F at Trowbridge College in 1979. We were both doing some sort of course in technology or something. I was into steel and John was into rubber. Neither of us did much at college and both dropped out before the course had finished. John was one year older than me and had an air of confidence about him. His first line to any girl he met was usually “Do you moan or scream during orgasm?”. This embarrassed me no end. John drove a Triumph Spitfire and while I was still learning to drive I had a drive. Cool car! John was into some great music, he played me the Joy Division songs from the John peel sessions and loads of Indie stuff. I played him my Indie stuff. This was musical heaven, and he had wheels.

We went to college on a Wednesday so started to plan things for Wednesday nights before college and Thursdays during college when a skive was on the cards. As I could not drive one of the favourites for Wednesdays was to go to a gig in Bristol. John would drive up from darkest Crewkerne, Somerset (Why the hell his employer sent him to Trowbridge college I never found out).

One day in march 1980 we went off to see Joy Division in Bristol after work and the following day we skived off college, drove to Cardiff for the day and got interviewed by a welsh TV outfit, it wasn’t until late that day we thought, what if we were being watched by our work mates later in the day? Oh well let’s hope it’s only shown in Wales. We wandered through Cardiff castle and inscribed “the International Tearaway Squad” on the wall near the top of one of the towers. This was the name of our band. We had not really done a lot but write a few songs and not perform them.

As soon as I passed my test I could drive down to Somerset and have fun in a new area with new people. John played guitar and had discovered that I wrote poems and songs. I couldn’t sing but so what. We decided we’d start a band. Because of my lack of talent we decided it would be something like John Cooper-Clarke meets SpizzEnergi with a touch of Buzzcocks. The latter was the band we both loved along with the Ramones. We both new all of their songs and had all of the records. We wrote some songs together the most catchy being “Don’t kill the turkeys” a Christmas ditty:

            Don’t kill the turkeys

            They did you no wrong

            Don’t kill the turkeys

            That’s the title of the song

On 16^th October John Friend who I met the previous year had rug up for the first time in ages. We were 50 miles apart and had both changed jobs since May when we last spoke. Around the same time I was not only writing to Sharon in Birmingham but a Mohican’d punk called Ashleigh from London. She asked if I wanted to go up to see the Buzzcocks in London. YES PLEASE. I went up to London with John friend and met old school friend Tim Hyde who was at uni there. I also met up with Ashleigh and Sharon of Birmingham who got us all backstage where I managed to take some great photos of the band. This was on a Saturday. I had the following Monday off work as john had informed me that the Teardrop Explodes were coming to Yeovil college.

After a few months break we started hanging out together in November 1980. On 14^th November I drove down to John’s new place in Crewkerne and had a load of drink. The following day was some sort of free for all concert and John had talked me into performing. We had no material at all; other that I’d written months ago and none of it was in my memory. We did one “song” with a guest bassist and drummer who just jammed along with John on guitar. I stood at the front and did a sort of Ian Curtis doing alternative comedy! I got well into it but did not have a clue how it went. There were some girls at the front who I sang to. They had a good laugh, so that was cool. The rest of the hall was empty. I returned home on Sunday, it was my Mum’s birthday, back to reality.

John had moved since the previous year and was now residing at Henhayes Lane in Crewkerne. It was rather a bizarre house, typical turn of the century terrace with an outside toilet. The first floor walls had been all removed so what was left was an open plan bed room coming living room with virtually no light and only one place to sit other than the floor. Downstairs were two rooms. A kitchen that was always full of dirty plates and flies gorging on the remains of last months spag-bog. The other room was what was originally a living room but contained one bed and an upright bath. Presumably awaiting installation. Quite who and when this would be done was a complete mystery. It never moved in all the time I went there. The downstairs room was where the guests went, other than John’s girl friends who had the privilege of the upstairs accommodation.

1980 ended when I met Laurie from local band the Tarts down the pub on New Years Eve and Steve P got off with girl called Lizzie who I fancied.

1980 had started with Punk, The Mental and Crass and ended with Teardrop Explodes, Doors and Echo & The Bunnymen on the turntable.

I made a resolution for 1981. To concentrate on my monetary affairs a bit more, get a band together and forget about Melksham.

The Tearaways  (1981)..the next chapter 

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