So, for a dissatisfied, young black Britain searching for inspiration, the time was ripening, and there was a deeper undertow, an undercurrent of restlessness going on amongst other disaffected individuals in other areas of London too, boiling beneath the surface. Not long before, Malcolm Mclaren had tried his hand rather unsuccessfully, at managing the New York Dolls in NYC. He had returned to London, looking to create new environments and to stir other restless spirits in London. So it was into this environment in the King's Road, that

the young Don Letts walked, an environment also being explored by King Mob Situationist fanatic, Malcolm Maclaren, a fledgling Viv Westwood, and all the other characters time has placed so markedly in our consciousness.

DL: Something really happened for me, and a lot of other people I came into contact with around this time. I have to say I learnt a lot from Vivienne and Malcolm, I learnt a lot regarding subversive elements in European culture, I learnt about the Situationists, like Guy Debord ("Society of The Spectacle") and Raoul Vaneigem ("Revolution of Everyday Life"), which Malcolm and Vivienne were so into, but you have to realise they were truly fascinated by subversion in all its forms as it manifest itself in all cultures, and of course that involved understanding subversive undercurrents in Jamaican culture too: And that element was Rasta! So they learnt a lot about those powerful and compelling elements of Jamaican society from me, drum and bass culture, sound system culture, dreadlocks rebellion. One of their earliest T shirt designs when they were in their "Sex" incarnation, "You are gonna wake up one morning and KNOW which side of the bed you've been lying on" lists a column of good and bad phenomena in their new cultural vision… read it closely, you'll see Jamaican Rude Boys, Zoot suits and dreadlocks, along side all those other things such as Raw Power and Durrutti, so this gives you some idea of the intermingling of cultural ideas going on, and we all benefited in our insights…

Don's eloquence is in full flow now, as he warms to his train of thought. Some times he gets carried away, ad libbing and rapping as he follows some line of thought, memory or logic, and he pulls himself back to focus on the subject at hand. He has a point to make and it is clear he wants his words to be concise, clearly comprehended "I always do my best," he says, "People should always do their best," he adds, almost to himself, reflecting aloud on his thoughts, before we return to the subject at hand.

NOW, this is when things became really interesting, for Don Letts and for London as a whole, then all of England too…

DL: What you have to understand now is just how powerful the effect and influence of Jamaican BASS CULTURE, which is our offering to the world, actually has been on British Culture. It's an attitude, and it's been there since we arrived, and it isn't going away".

How did you become more aware of roots and Rastafari?

DL: My mind was ready, I was ready for the message that roots and culture conveyed so powerfully. By this time, growing up as a black British youth, I was looking for something I could truly identify as my own, something which didn't act as some kind of mental or cultural straitjacket. We'd go and check out the Rasta sound systems, and the message to us, which we heard through sound systems like Jah Shaka, Moa Ambessa, Coxsonne was so compelling that my political and spiritual consciousness was increasing. We'd hear these messages in the music through sound system, and we'd want to go and check them out deeply, seriously. This is what roots and culture does, it's literally, musical reportage, African talking drum culture transported within the inner cities, Griot culture. Sound system has this way of IMPARTING INFORMATION, informing, spiritually, politically, culturally. It raises awareness in all these ways, and as young black British guys, we were especially sensitive to these messages, these modes of communication. I have to say, the young white kids, the punks were very open to it too. We had our strong messages in the music, "Burn down Babylon" "Dub down Ian Smith rock", "Babylon fall", "Wicked man drop", and the punks had their own strong message too, so there was a common ground in these respects. Listen to those early Pistols tunes: Both were interested in some kind of destruction and regeneration, a reinterpretation of the "reality" that had been presented to us.

So how did all of this fuse with your emerging lifestyle in Acme Attractions, meeting and hanging out with The Sex Pistols, Malcolm and Vivienne?
 

DL: Well, by 1975, I had my own "soundtrack to my life", and that was roots and culture. Soon enough, a lot of disenchanted, restless guys were attracted to the shop, and these guys became a posse, a school of thought in their own way. John Lydon, Steve Jones, Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon all of them would congregate there. So they were these "upstarts", and we had some wild times. I would hold my corner, kicking out some heavy drum and bass dub tunes all day, burning spliffs. I was king of my space, and these white guys wanted to claim some space of their own, because of course, all the white guys were totally fed up with all those terrible rock bands that were around at the time, playing dreadful, arrogant stadium rock. They wanted to deal a death blow to all those bands, and they went on to do that: for a while at least, they savaged those bands, totally deposed them . So for a lot of reasons, me and these upstarts, we all had a mutual respect for each other."

Don & Jeanette at Acme

Which of the characters really stood out for you at that time and why?

DL: Some of those guys were smarter than the others: John Lydon for one. He just had a kind of vibe that attracted people to him, which I believe stemmed from the fact that he was aware of all he could be , not what he had been told he could be. Joe Strummer was smart too. These guys were the intelligentsia if you like, undoubtedly the brains behind what was emerging.

What are your memories of Sid Vicious ?

DL: Of course Sid Vicious stood out too at that time, though to us, he was just John Beverley (One of the "gang of John's", made up of North and East London boys, Jah Wobble "real name John Wardle", Sid Vicious real name "John Beverley", and John Lydon). I have conflicting memories of him, which I'll go into a little later, but being direct with you, he wasn't the monster that the press made him out to be. In fact, I remember him as shy and quiet, gullible even. I remember time after time, he used to complain to us that he had been beaten up when he went out clubbing. He believed his own press which is just so sad, whilst in reality, I'd go so far as to say he was a wimp. He took a definite shine to Jeannette Lee, but then again, everyone did. We saw him as harmless, and we took the piss out of him a lot. I remember one particular example of Sid's gullibility; I'd somehow got hold of this jacket which had belonged to The Who, this really bright, garish gold lame jacket. I wore it for awhile, then passed it around, John Lydon had it for a while, Steve Jones too, and The Slits. Later on I said "Hey Sid, this was Elvis Presley's jacket, you wanna buy it?" which of course he did! His gullibility was sad.

Any other memories?

DL: Well there was one incident which has left a lasting impression, but infer from it what you will: I remember I went out to New York. I had to get Sid's signature for his appearances in "The Punk Rock Movie". He sat on a sofa, playing with Nancy. He had this huge six-inch blade knife, and he just kept on prodding her with it. A week later she was dead.
 

It wasn't long until Don took his love of hard dubwise rhythms into the clubs, playing on a single deck sound system at The Roxy. The punks loved it. They loved the drugs too. Speed was the usual drug of choice if you were listening to Detroit garage punk bands like the MC5, or the demented buzz saw roar of a Stooges track, but once that heavy bass dropped on a Prince Far I track like "Under Heavy Manners" replete with its almost psychedelic dub outing, spliffs were the obvious order of the day. At the same time as his friends were picking up guitars or working on clothing designs, Don picked up a basic video camera, and started filming the experiences and scenes being played out around him:

DL: You have to understand, punk rock was not a spectator sport! In the beginning, punk was not a fan thing, by any means, it encouraged you to get up, get involved, and do your bit. That much was fundamental, almost a prerequisite demand made on you. It followed an ethic of a good idea attempted is infinitely better than a dull idea perfected, so all my friends and contemporaries were out there, picking up guitars, and I'm like "Whoa, the stage is full, but I wanna get on this ride man", you see? Of course I didn't have any formal training, at that time I didn't want any formal training, I was following the punk rock vibe, of just get up, get out there, and do it! That was our culture, so it was then I reinvented myself as Don Letts, the film-maker.
 

Was the transition easy, from DJ with a single turntable and spliff, to film making? DL: It's as simple as this, I'd always had a visual mind, a mental make up that is moved by sounds and visions , so as soon as the then fashion editor of Vogue Caroline Baker passed on a basic Super8 camera to me, there was no turning back. Respect to Caroline!"

So how did you balance the primal urge toward impulsive creativity, nascent in early punk, with developing the obvious skills inherent in the film makers craft?

DL: To me there is a definite duality, a kind of contradiction in my thoughts here… Let me quote Orson Welles to preface my views, he said to aspiring film makers, look if you want to make a truly original film, don't watch any more films! Can you appreciate where he's coming from? For me, I just kicked off, rolling film in the heat and sweat of The Roxy, but as I did more and more, shot more and more film, I came to understand the importance of being rooted in the discipline of learning a craft. Then there is the artistic process: What justifies you in picking up a camera in the first place? Are you aware, deeply aware, of what constitutes good picture composition and framing of your subject? So yes, I am aware of a deep duality present within me, because I know there is also great deal to be gained from a kind of blind "fuck you" energy of just going out there and doing it, without any preconceived notions or value structures. I work with that dichotomy all the time.

How much footage do you still have of The Pistols, Lydon, Wobble, Levene et al and how much had he contributed to the "Filth and the Fury"?

DL: Yeah, a whole lot of those Pistols clips in that movie are from my archives, and I have rolls and rolls of footage from that time at home, Islington Screen on the Green stuff is a particular favourite, lots of images to go through one day."