I hate the punks.They are skinny little bleeders and half of them are
queer…They should not be allowed to walk on the same streets as ordinary
people (Jimmy ‘Elvis’ Smart: Why I hate the punks. The Sun 28/8/77)
Windsor was a place of mild extremity. A short drive from Heathrow
Airport and Londons Western suburbs, there was (is?) the Queen,the
Castle, the Long Walk and the Great Park, hordes of tourists and the
exclusive St.Leonard’s Hill with its ‘Private Road’ signs. Then: the
yearly Horse Show, sprawling sleepy middle class suburbs shrouded by
whispers of wife-swapping, two barracks (one for the Irish Guards),
pissed squaddies rucking on the grass outside the castle with
white-helmeted MPs wading in, council estates and even a lone high-rise
(one of the tenants was Chelsea football legend Peter Osgood: these days
he would have owned the block), the Windsor Hells Angels, the legendary
Windsor Valley Boys (the graffiti lasted well into the 80’s, but who
were they?), the yearly fair by the river that forever ended in
free-for-alls between locals, squaddies and gypsies (a tough call for
those of us who ticked two of the above boxes), ‘Granny’ Waters and the
epic myth that was the FA Cup tie between the local non-league side and
a pre-Premiership Wimbledon, where hundreds tried to take apart the old
Plough Lane in sedate South London (the local paper printed a front-page
‘Parade of Shame’, apparently).
Punk appeared in late 1976, the first devotees fanatical soul boys who
travelled up to London and returned bearing dark, mysterious tales of
exclusive night clubs and a strange, bizarrely-attired new cult, before
introducing us to the delights of amyl nitrate and bars that stayed open
beyond midnight (a revelation in the days of Sunday closing, shots shut
at 5pm sharp, last orders at 10). Then there was Jo S-, with jet-black
hair and cobalt blue eyes like the Mediterranean, so strikingly
beautiful that the first time I tried to speak to her (immaculately
dressed, she surveyed my early attempts at punk frippery with a
withering, deserved contempt) I uttered a dislocated gabble of sound
only vaguely related to the English language. And there were the Teds, a
distantly-menacing gaggle of figures occasionally seen on the bus or
walking down Peascod Street, subject of a curious disdain on our part,
but also a muted, grudging respect, last remnants as they were of all
the skinheads/hippies/ football hooligans that lived on only in old
photographs seen on the mantelpieces of older brothers. There was an
afternoon skived off school, bunking the train to Slough and the
Inter-City to Paddington, Circle Line to Sloane Square, a walk up to
Seditionaries, then suddenly a mob-roar and the throng of people
scattering this way and that, fists and boots flying, police, the scared
faces of afternoon shoppers, and dodging into a shop to watch a lad left
lying on the pavement with his DA irreparably splayed out on the
concrete and a trickle of blood painting his lips (look how long his
hair really is, we marvelled, like a Sikh without his turban).
Walking back from a 999 gig at the Sundown on Charing Cross Road, Teddy
Boys mooching around the fountain at Trafalgar Square, one or two in
tears. Elvis is dead, someone says. Some punks jeer and throw cans.
As a group of us straggled into Windsor railway station one Saturday
evening (it consisted of a pungent public urinal, a fag shop and the
mandatory barbers where various balding middle-aged Italian men
practiced their vast tonsorial repertoire of a No.1, a No.2, a No.3 and
No.4 crop and short back & sides), a slightly older, brawnier and more
skinhead/squaddie type cannonballed through us shouting ‘Punks!’
derisorily. He was pissed, we were sober, which gave him the element of
bravado. We fragmented, reassembled and continued with a collective
growl, noticing only a tall Teddy Boy following in his wake but looking
more than a little embarrassed. Was this War, we wondered idly, the
opening gambit, the prelude to watching your back on the rickety local
bus service, of strength in numbers, of tactical preliminaries in the
few dimly-lit backstreet boozers that would have us? We had the
advantage of fluidity and of having no base-camp, whereas everyone knew
the Teds lived in the Donkey House, a pub down by the Thames where only
the slickest of DA’s and loudest brothel creepers gained you entry. The
Ted in question was John S-, over 6ft tall, with jet-black hair that
glistened like Elvis in his prime. His sartorial elegance was so
impeccable that my sister (a younger punk) and her friends sighed with
repressed desire whenever he and his equally statuesque, but blonde and
more Rockabilly-orientated, pal Mick R- passed in the street. But
they’re Teds, we hissed, hopelessly. As the press began to feed
on the frenzy that was 1977, the ‘Punk-Ted Wars’ were grist to their
greasy mill, a cauldron to stir and keep bubbling at will. In fact the
reality was that we spent far more time dodging soul boys or squaddies,
but the local gigs buzzed with rumour, accusation and counter-accusation
regardless. Broken heads, gangs lying in wait, knives and bottles. The
reality was less prosaic:The Jam and New Hearts at Bracknell Sports
Centre, the Stranglers at same (only trouble JJ Burnel flying offstage
after an errant gobber), Open Sore and The Rage at Slough College
(headliners The Adverts didn’t turn up for two years, some fights
ensued), then Bracknell again with, reputedly, ‘gangs of Teds’ outside
the Elvis Costello gig (Elvis Costello?!). White Riot, my arse.
Summer 1977 I was working on a hot dog stall outside the Marina in Old
Windsor. The owner was a pissed Kiwi who left me alone until afternoon
closing-time. I would turn on the color gas heater to start warming the
water, open the industrial-sized cans of hot dogs, and slice some buns
whilst waiting for the truck drivers to pull in. Every Wednesday morning
I’d rush into the nearby newsagent to buy Sounds, NME or Melody Maker
(or all three), then spend the day poring over them obsessively
inbetween serving the passing traffic. Like most other 16/17 year-olds I
dreamt of escape, or at least seeing my band in print.
Cranked up by a venal Press and word of mouth, pre-internet such rumour,
hype and gossip was every bit as pernicious in a small-town UK fuelled
by petty rivalry and tribal feuding. In Windsor itself low-level
resentments stewed between Trevelyan School and the Grammar, in Slough
it was Britwell Park/Langley and occasional Sikh:Pakistani flare-ups. In
Windsor town itself the squaddies alternately warred with the local soul
patrol and football lads, or with each other (Irish Guards v. Blues &
Royals or Lifejackets). Everyone took a pop at the Eton boys, to the
point they were ‘confined to quarters’ or advised to stay on the Eton
side of the bridge dividing the two. Most of it was bollocks of course,
small scuffles and inflated rumour. Punks v Teds. In reality we shared
the same streets of a small town, and the same last bus home to suburban
sterility when the pubs shut.
One day, John S- approached us in the street and invited us to the
Donkey House. See how we live, he said, fuck the press and their
imaginary divisions (or did he say “It’s all just rock’n’roll” ala Danny
Baker in Sniffin’ Glue in words to that effect?). So, one night
we went down to the Donkey House, feeling our way with mild trepidation
along the misty, murky riverside on a gloomy weeknight, visions of
‘Warriors’ in our head. The interior was grimy, smoky and everything a
pub today isn’t, sadly. The landlord was an ex-boxer from the East End
with a no-bullshit demeanour hewn into his craggy features. A few
middle-aged teds surveyed us suspiciously from the bar, and the jukebox
blared out rock ’n’ roll 45s with barely a track made after my date of
birth. After a few pints and some animated conversation we all realised
just how much of this so-called tribalism had been foisted upon us from
outside sources, none of which had our best interests at heart. In fact
the same idiots, namely the local squaddies, tried to make sport of
harassing us all, Punk or Ted. The jukebox was full of great, raw music,
not a hint of post-GI Elvis or,god forbid, ‘My Ding-a-ling’; a world
away from the sanitised, corporate disco or prog-rock we each
fashionably derided. Whilst the elders with their enormous sideburns
retained a healthy, if grumpy, suspicion of our hairstyles and the
occasional heretical safety-pin bedecked drape jacket amidst our
wardrobes, the younger ones (the majority) were in fact just like us,
passionate about music. That we considered ourselves more Modern was
down to the times (or was it just that our guitars had fuzzboxes?);
within a few months everyone knew everyone else and within a few years
it was punks/teds/ rockabillies/skinnyheads, Andy Weatherall (whatever
he was that week, bless him) and the odd Mod drinking together in the
same pubs. Did any of us have a prophetic vision amid the fug of beer
and tobacco smoke that night? I doubt it, wrapped as we were in our
comforting inner sanctum of youthful arrogance that brokered no hint of
adult concerns. The Donkey House is probably now a sparkling Cappuccino
bar for fashionable droogs in all-weather sunglasses and identikit high
street togs, but 30 years on I somehow hope that the Teds of Windsor
aren’t slouched in front of Sky Sports with beer bellies and tracksuit
bottoms, that a trace of their professional and sartorial pride lingers,
that they haven’t dissolved like everything else into dull homogeneity
Later on, a few bands and even a fanzine or two popped up. Even later,
the Old Trout briefly revived the tradition of the Ricky Tick Club,
which operated in the early 1960’s out of venerable old dumps like the
Star & Garter, hosting the Rolling Stones 39 times between 1962-64
alongside other luminaries like Tina Turner, Cream, Rod Stewart, Jimi
Hendrix and a thousand others. The Only Ones came to Windsor College in
1979 (John Ashton of the Psychedelic Furs appeared with his girlfriend,
the one who later ran off to manage Martian Dance, and asked me
afterwards: Where’s the nightlife then? to which I shrugged bleakly,
that was it), the same college wrecked a year or two later during the
same feud with Maidenhead Mods that saw Slough College suffer a similar
fate during a Chords gig in 1981, as the real violence (as opposed to
1977’s posturing) kicked in with a vengeance. Also gone is Revolution
Records, to whom (along with Bits & Pieces, a junk shop run by a Mungo
Jerry doppelganger who sold piles of cheap albums and the second-hand
guitars that got us all playing in the first place) I owe most of my
dubious musical education. A few 2nd generation punks like
Revolt, Void (not to be confused with the excellent London outfit of the
same name who operated between 1977-79: anyone know anything about
them??) and Disease occurred in 1980-82, Windsor Arts Centre hosting
the latter one fractious evening following a one-off by an electronic
band led by future superstar DJ Andy Weatherall.
Time passed, Teds and Punks became just two names in an overcrowded
marketplace. As some punks became rockabillies or psychobillies, the
Teds had the last laugh. For all the talk of their dated style, the
‘stick-in-the-mud’ jibes about reactionaries and revivalists, 30 years
on, with ‘Holidays In The Sun’ (sorry, ’Rebellion’!) and the Pistols
milking it one last time, the joke could well be on you, punk.
(The late Tony Wilson once said that, in a choice between the truth and
the legend, take the legend every time. Of course, I’m using poetic
license and some mild element of exaggeration here. It was all a long
time ago. End)
MIKE C,2007
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