1980 – Bob Short – extract from his book ‘Trash Can’

Doctor Death (not his real name) was about as bad an advertisement for five years worth of medical training as you could possibly imagine. It wasn’t so much the fact that he was a bad doctor . Whilst he was definitely crap in his chosen field, that was beside the point. It is just that you’d expect some kind of reward for that much work, wouldn’t you? Five years worth of sleepless nights on duty in a public hospital? Years of treating the great unwashed and washed alike? That has to worth something. You’d at least expect a receptionist and a car with the vaguest hope of passing its next MOT.

I don’t know who he’d pissed off in this (or some previous) life to earn his current lot but it must have been some unbelievably evil bastard. The judge’s gavel had fallen hard with a sentence that included a fleet of trucks worth of bad karma. Shit, we’ve all been there, done that and visited the souvenir shop.

Condemned by the local Health Authority to work a dingy basement surgery on a Waterloo council estate, he sailed ever closer to the day of his inevitable striking from the Medical Register. He had little to look forward to. There was the bottle of Sainsbury’s scotch in his bottom desk drawer but that was more of an everyday thing than a treat. Retirement looked good if he lived that long. In the meantime, from dawn to dusk, he received a steady stream of punk rock zombies craving Valium and Mogodon. At least, despite appearances, they didn’t want to feast upon his living brains.

I was not really interested in his problems because I had enough of my own. It was a quarter past eleven on a Friday night and I was wondering whether I dared put my penis in Doctor Death’s hand. I’m sorry but I had to give you a little heads up about his medical standing and the dangers such an act might involve before I got on with the details. Standing over the toilet, inspecting the tell tale signs of newly discovered venereal disease, it was a decision that I, myself, was not taking lightly. There was the clap clinic at St Thomas’ of course but last time I went there, the blood test had revealed a large and diverse range of pharmaceuticals. So large and diverse in fact that the attending nurse had loudly introduced me to all and sundry as the walking chemist shop. Such familiarity is rather inappropriate in such settings but she was cute as far as nurses go. The cutest nurses always work the clap clinic. It is the one place no-one seriously tries to pick you up.

The doctor confirmed the nurse’s diagnosis and assured me such variety of substance abuse represented something of a record in his experience. Not realising this was a bad thing, I was quietly pleased at such recognition . Don’t tell that to anyone. A good drug fiend has a reputation to uphold but it should be spread in whispers.

My main problem with the staff of that venerated institution was that they liked sticking that horrible umbrella thing up the eye of your cock and giving it the kind of good hard scraping that is difficult to forget. A quarter century on and the wince is still there. I still clench my teeth at the memory. If you thought the burning sensation you experienced due to the disease was bad, here was a procedure that would have you contemplating celibacy as a serious life option for at least several days. You have to admit that several days is a long time to consider celibacy.

The other disadvantage with the clinic was that it wouldn’t be open until Monday. The sooner I got onto those antibiotics, the sooner I’d be able to fuck again. The way my dick looked, I didn’t even want to touch it myself so a wank was out of the question.

I knew that I had to deal with the problem and I had a fair idea that I could just demand penicillin from the Death dude and he would oblige. His bedside manner was generally restricted to the phrase “What do you want?” His pen would already be quivering atop the prescription pad in bored anticipation. He positively groaned when presented with an ailment that you didn’t know how to treat yourself.

The trouble would come if he suddenly decided to take his hypocritical oath seriously. (I’m sick of writing sic.) Alcoholics can be so damn unpredictable. Doctor Death could suddenly become overwhelmed with quiet sentimentality towards his patients. Paternally, he would turn to you and tell you that he wouldn’t feed his dog the crap that he was scripting out. I doubted he had a dog or at least not one that hadn’t died of neglect. I figured that he sometimes just liked the company. He had once decided to stare into my inner ear for a good twelve minutes for no apparent reason other than my request for sleeping pills. Maybe he was just checking if I had any brain left in there to damage.

What if he reached into that tattered plastic holdall he carried in lieu of a black leather bag? God only knows what he kept in there. What if he pulled out some rusty hooked device of his own design? I imagined the good doctor downing another healthy swig of whisky whilst trying to work out which one of my dicks he should plunge one of his bent coat hangers into. It was not a thought to inspire confidence.

My course of action was clear. Tomorrow, I had to see the doctor but remember to keep one eye on the door in case he asked me to take my pants off. In the meantime, I had to take lots of downers and try to remember not to fuck anyone. Normally, that would be easier said than done but there was the whole question of how I’d managed to get myself into this situation again. That had not raised my stakes in any of the major popularity contests. The queue to my bedroom door was noticeably thin.  

I had met Toni under rather unusual circumstances. Waking up on the toilet to find a strange girl pumping some unknown chemical into your blood stream cuts through all those usual social niceties one expects by way of introduction. Apparently, she thought I was cute but urgently needed some kind of a pick me up to awaken me from my drug induced stupor. A syringe full of what I can only assume was sulphate certainly caught my attention. My introduction to intravenous drug use thus came unexpectedly and unasked for. Don’t let me try and convince you that I was complaining. I was out of my fucking gourd. Besides, it was a good lesson about not falling asleep in the toilet with the door open. I mean to say… anything could happen and it probably did.

Things had taken a fairly predictable course from there. Within an hour, she had climbed over a fifth floor balcony and threatened to throw herself upon the cold hard courtyard below. In a voice that quivered with existential angst she proclaimed the world cruel and bemoaned the fact that nobody loved her. Well, that was a feeling I at least understood on some level and, not having had sex for a fortnight, my testicles felt swollen like watermelons with backed up sperm. It all made a quiet kind of sense at the time. Who says the age of romance is dead?

The next morning, she scarpered early because she thought her boyfriend would probably be worried, Toni, or Puke as she preferred to be known, strapped on her Docs and headed back to the wilds of Kennington. Unbeknownst to me, I had just secured another black mark against my name in the eyes of the Campbell Buildings sewing circle. It was bad enough that I had copulated outside of the group but no-one had pointed out to me that Toni was only fourteen.

With such a large group of reprobates gathered in such close quarters and with so little to do between ponced cigarettes, gossip was the order of the day. Cliques, sub cliques and secret societies blossomed. An anthropologist would have had a field day.

The sewing circle was a loose collective well known for its member’s skill at needle work of one sort and another. They were the princesses of the block, the in-crowd, the squats’ equivalent of a cheerleading squad. They would squeal with delight if you liberated stock from the local off-licence or illegally rigged their electricity supply. But they were fickle in their favours. They had the skills to cut enemies to ribbons with the sharpest claws south of the river and they weren’t afraid to use them. What good is power if you never use it?

It was easy to fall from grace in a shifting moral landscape. I had initially fallen foul of the sewing circle because I snogged Evelyn under the kitchen table one night. Cold shoulders, tongue lashings and cries of “unclean” taught me that it was one thing to have Crass records and go to Rock against Racism gigs but that didn’t give you the automatic right to kiss women of colour.

Such concerns had not occurred to me. I just liked the way Evelyn hid the most beautiful pair of eyes behind the nastiest pair of granny glasses that the National Health could supply. In her green plastic sandals worn over pink florescent socks, she was strange and other worldly and thus reminded me of me.

I thought racism was the preserve of skinheads and the mentally sub normal. Swastika shirts were ironic rather than iconic. Skin colour had as much significance as eye colour in a world of rainbow hued hair dyes. Of course, I lived in a world where bald headed boys with home made British Movement tattoos listened exclusively to Jamaican records. The nation’s morality reeked of insanity. If any proof were needed, the recent election of Margaret Thatcher underlined it. If I couldn’t follow the rules it was simply because the rules made no sense.

Once again, the news was out all over town. I had been a very bad boy.

This moral outrage did not stop the sewing circle adopting an under aged runaway of their own. This sweet young thing clearly idolised the shop lifting pink Trojan mini-skirt lifestyle and all those who walked it in sharp stiletto heels. She would have crawled across hot coals in a bid to fit in so that is exactly what they made her do. They named her Tea, not through rhyming slang acknowledgment of criminal skill but because it became her duty to make that beverage on request. That along with any other household duties required, demanded or merely dreamt up in a fit of casual sadism. I first met her on her knees as she attempted to scrub a bathroom floor with a nail brush. I suggested she rebel against this task but she feared the consequences. They might not take her thieving later. Lincoln had freed the slaves but not in beautiful downtown Waterloo.

Campbell Buildings was a sprawling between-the-wars estate that Lambeth council wanted demolished to make way for a bus terminal. Quietly, it was probably policy to turn a blind eye to the hundred or so punks who had squatted in the interim. There were a lot of hard core lefties in the Lambeth administration who believed all the homeless should be housed and took this as an ideological stance. It was, however, the pragmatists in the regime who finally reigned. For them, we were a way to save money. It was good we made such appalling neighbours. The existing tenants who had previously held out for the better deal to which they were entitled were suddenly none too fussed about which new hovel they were transferred into.

There was also the advantage that it was cheaper to leave us where we were rather than build a brand new state-of-the-art prison facility. That could wait until the new Tory Government provided funding to open up the internment camps. In the meantime, we were free to make our own Abaddon which is exactly what myself and the others did.

Despite my unkind words, the sewing circle was not wrong all of the time. Sleeping with fourteen year olds is never clever especially when they are fourteen going on fifty. Listen boys, you don’t need a degree in psychology to guess at the traumas you’re complicating when you go there. That said, the squatters of Campbell Building were all fucked up one way or another; literally, figuratively and most often both. We sought comfort not just in the arms of strangers but with anyone who would have us.

The sewing circle was also right about not sleeping with people outside the immediate vicinity. My newly festering penis was ample testimony to that. 1980 was a different world of course. Condoms were the weapons of choice for disgusting old people raised before the contraceptive pill. AIDS was not even a blip on yonder horizon. Disease was defeated and we all lived better through illicit chemistry. We could be the generation who lived fast, stayed beautiful, never died and never grew old; a veritable army of Peter and Petra Pans. It was a grand scheme until its inherent follies were exposed.

Scarecrow had been the first to die. Loaded up on sleeping pills, he went up to the roof for reasons unknown. He might have been bored, depressed or just needed a minute to himself to watch the moon come up over the buildings. Who knows why any of us do anything? He either overdosed or fell asleep and froze. We never found out which. By accident or design, it was a sad and lonely passing. In the morning, the police played a game where they threw tiny stones at his open mouth to see who could score the first point. Grief spilled out onto the courtyard below but the authorities had marked out their patch with strips of Metropolitan Police tape, He belonged to them now.

From that moment on, death watched over us with an icy gaze. It was capricious but it would not be denied. Parents came to reclaim bodies, cut hair, choose suits and re-brand with long abandoned names. Their control, thought long lost, won out in the end. These prodigal sons and daughters found repose in the leafy suburbs and towns from whence they thought they had finally escaped. They had found their little piece of England whether they liked it or not.

The ghosts of those we knew and loved were never laid to rest. No graves marked the names we spoke. Their stories were wiped clean and altered as if Jesus was a real person and he himself had washed and forgiven them of their sins. History is always written by the victor and the battles we waged looked all but lost.

The world was dark and that darkness was rising up against us. It was chucking out time on Friday night at locals across the land; the most dangerous hour of them all. The blackest of hearts were granted courage through alcohol but now found themselves ripped from the nurture of the publican’s breast. Angered by these severed ties, the well worn path between boozer and council flat were littered with half eaten curries, bad intentions and the bodies of unwary travellers.

We were held up in a ground floor flat. The council had boarded up the windows and we left these four ply sheets in place not merely through laziness but also for defensive purposes. Even sunlight was our enemy now. The only access was through the front door and, even there, precautions had been taken. Bolts, locks and chains merely offer psychological defence for those who believe their safe European homes to be their castles. In reality, these devices fail all too readily at the first hint of serious attack.

In all the flats, we removed the kitchen doors and propped them up at forty-five degree angles against the front doorways. This was the kind of defensive installation that allowed you to catch several winks of wary half-sleep if you kept one eye open. Well, it did if it was used in conjunction with a bucket load of downers and a strategically placed blunt instrument left under the mattress. The claw hammer was the Teddy Bear of our new generation.

Though we took many chances, in this we took few. Attacks were common and we didn’t take any chances by offending any deities. Charms and amulets began to proliferate along with spells, talismen and hexes. We weren’t fussy about Pantheons. We made a new voodoo from our superstitions. Certain pavement cracks were avoided whilst walking, matches were always snapped after third light and hats were kept far from beds. Various items of clothing were deemed to be lucky and were thus worn until they rotted from our skin. The line between mental illness and religion is a thin one. Once you convince another of the truth of your lunacy then all doubts are cast aside. Convince a few more and you can start picking up tax deductable donations.

It was a boy’s night in and pickings were scarce. We collected our dole on Thursday and the cash had gone the way of dreams. It had vanished with the dawning. We spent the night with prescription drugs, talking and smoking Benson and Hedges cigarettes. The floor was a gold field of abandoned packets.

There was Cory Spondendce and Quick Phil, Two Tone Steve and me. Fat Phil was off sulking in the kitchen or some other dank corner. He had been pretending he was in a time warp for the last few days and this attention seeking had become rather tiresome. Cory had suggested he go and fuck himself – but not anywhere that we could see him doing it. There were certain things you had to specify in Campbell Buildings. Self help books addressing boundary issues were at least a decade off.

Others came and went over the course of the evening. Ruthless and Jessica asked if we wanted to go to the Marquee and see Cowboys International. As if. There was a group who played no part in anybody’s top ten thousand must-see bands list. Pinki and Blowjob made a visit to inform us they were up to no good somewhere. It involved a group of the local estate lads and we thought it better not to know any more before the event. We’d certainly hear all about it in explicit detail later. That went without saying.

A portable record player spun an endlessly repeating loop of Siouxse and the Banshees singles. After they left the charts, top forty records tended to end up in the local newsagency at forty nine pence a pop. That put them within our price range unless, of course, the sales assistant wasn’t paying too much attention. The discount then grew to be five fingered.

I had been in better moods. Frequently. Life was going the way life tends to go the minute some fool claims that things couldn’t get any worse. Some people have so little imagination that it is scary.

I had only just got up to take a leak when I discovered my symptoms. You don’t need to know the foul details but, suffice to say, if you’re one of these people who believe in divine retribution then I had proof positive that yours is a vengeful God. If I needed any more proof then it came in the form of the commotion at the door. The alarm was raised. The Scousers were coming.

Hang on a second. Who the fuck were the Scousers? Much like primitives who choose to live under the shadows of volcanos, we had set up home at the nexus point between a Mod pub, a Rockabilly pub and a Greaser’s pub. In all fairness, the Greasers just sat around listening to Deep Purple albums but anyone who could do that had to be twisted in some kind of sick and evil way. One had to always quietly suspect the worst. To top that off, skinheads were free ranging ubiquitous troublemakers and Mad Dog’s Faginesque punk troop could also be counted upon to make unwanted intrusions. We couldn’t have planned it better if we tried.

Who were the Scousers? Even if you religiously read NME, in tribal London there were hip fashion trends that could rise and fall in an afternoon. A vague image formed of cleaver wielding Liverpuddlian mop tops serenading us with such ditties as “I want to hold your hand” whilst hacking away at various parts of our anatomy. Stranger things have happened in the big town.

Of course, it could have been a glue sniffing flashback too. Stranger things than that have also been known to happen.

There are a whole lot of theories about why people watch horror films. Some will tell you that horror films desensitise the viewer so that they may overcome their fears and learn to face the horrors life will inevitably throw their way. Others claim this desensitisation leads to sociopathic behaviour and the breakdown of society as we know it. Thus, these latter critics claim, that horror films should be banned accordingly. I think that is all a crock of shit. I repeatedly went to screening of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” because it provided me with a range of educational insights into the kind of situation I had just found myself in.

The main thing you learn from a horror film is that when you do something stupid then you tend to die fairly early on in the piece. If you do something unbelievably stupid you will be lucky just to see out the opening scene. As is so often the case, fact proceeded to follow fiction instinctively. Emerging from the toilet, I discovered that the front door was wide open and everyone was running to the back of the flat. The fact that there was nowhere to go back there didn’t seem to be occurring to anyone at the time. The messenger had been let through the barricades only to see them abandoned in the ensuing panic. This was turning into a frigging bloodbath without even trying.

I focussed my fear on the problem at hand. I was not in the mood for bashings, beatings murder or rape. These things would not bring a perfect end to a perfect evening. I got the door down just in time to hear the first bangs of fists on the wood outside. Sam Raimi couldn’t have timed it better even if he tried. Actually, he did try in the first Evil Dead film but he couldn’t cut his timing any closer to what I’d just pulled off. Now all we needed was a soundtrack by Goblin and we’d have something that would put bums on cinema seats.

An undecipherable blur of drunken accents began to howl something that probably amounted to assorted threats and abuse. Scousers my arse. Drunken Irish builder’s labourers more like with enough Poteen in their bellies to present a fire hazard. They lived over in the next block but I had no idea what their beef was. In life threatening situations, it is often better not to know as there is little time to ponder life’s little absurdities.

“Little pigs! Little Pigs! Let us come in!”

“Not by the hairs on our chinny chin chins.”

That’s about as good a translation as I can really give you. The words were all different but I think I captured the spirit of the piece. The huffing and puffing that followed seemed a little more forceful than simple exhalation. These guys were putting their shoulders into their work big time. I was putting all my weight down on the buttress and still I bounced up with every heave ho. I looked around for the nearest large heavy object.

“Phil! Get your fucking fat arse over here!” I demanded with the kind of voice Marine Drill Sergeants use in the movies.

Fat Phil preferred to be called Phil Free for obvious reasons. However, no-one really wanted to take him up on that particular implied offer. Being told to feel free does not, by definition, demand obligation.

There was, however, a duty to differentiate between him and Quick Phil. We called him Fat Phil because Slow Phil would have been even more insulting than our eventual choice. Besides, he was not merely big boned. He had, despite the most meagre of rations, still retained sufficient padding so as to cover up the fact he was big boned. In addition, he wore the kind of coat that Uncle Fester would only wear in the depths of a Siberian winter. With his thick black eye make-up he looked like a vaguely satanic panda. Satanic Panda Phil would have made an ideal rechristening if not for the fact that it was too much of a mouthful.

“No,” he replied. “I’m scared. They’ll hurt me.”

I felt like slapping him around myself at that moment. My fear had bought out a cruel streak from deep inside. I went with the feeling even though he was a friend who was already close to tears. I could tell you that I spoke for the good of the group but part of me meant every word that I said.

“Listen to me, you fat pile of shit. If you don’t get you’re arse over here right now, you won’t have to worry about them because I will personally come over there and beat you to death myself.”

I must have been fairly loud and fairly scary because even the banging on the front door stopped. The room took on a deathly silence as Phil assumed the position. I glared around the room.

“Now, will one of you useless fucks get me a bloody hammer so I can nail the first cunt who comes through the door.”

Outside, there was a half hearted volley of abuse and a few random kicks to the door. It was all over bar this shouting. What was planned as a simple massacre was turning into something more difficult. Someone other than us might end up getting hurt. The assaulting force vanished back into the night as if they never were there at all. The silence just swallowed them.

The next morning, when the buttress was raised, the front door was shattered and torn from its hinges. Locks and bolts hung off of bent and mangled screws but most of the damage was invisible. It lay deep within us in a place where no investigative surgery, electron microscope or endoscopy probe could find it. It was the kind of damage we all take on one hurt at a time. It’s just that some of us take it harder than others.

There are many who will tell you that the rock and roll dream is all about fast cars, loose women, money and the kind of shit that money buys. In Campbell Buildings, we lived a dream all right – but it was nothing like the one advertised on the box. One can only wonder at how much worse the straight world must have been for us to not just choose the life we did but also to revel in it. Is it better to rule in hell than serve in heaven? To us it seemed better to just live in hell.

Original mugshots from Waterloo station photo-booth courtesy of Leah D…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Short claims he has not only heard the chimes at midnight, he has stayed up past dawn to hear them again the next time around. Before being old enough to drink, he haunted Sydney’s beer barns with proto punk band Filth. Later on, he gained some notoriety in the UK with the band Blood and Roses when he was described as everything from a “shambolic messiah” to a “long, tall streak of piss”. He has been a DJ and worked in a sex shop, the civil service and as Musical Director for a theatre company. He claims the only thing ever to surprise him was seeing his thirtieth birthday. Currently, he lives in exile in the penal colonies of New South Wales with his son, Billy. There he has makes low-budget films such as Makers of the Dead, Kings’ Cross Vampires, Lone Gunman Theory and Bad Animals. He is also working on a novel entitled “Red”.

Available from http://www.lulu.com/content/956220

580 comments
  1. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    April 20, 2010 at 3:11 pm

    As regards quality nutters, anyone remember Joseph and his Amazing Circus? (Tottenham Ct Rd underpass circa 84-86?) He was a middle-aged bloke in thick specs and hat with pervy raincoat who stood on a wooden box, in total silence, surrounded by placards with pointless slogans written on them. One day, me and a pal decided we’d had enough of this living oracles’ sullen indifference to his surroundings and resolved to purloin his hat. As I distracted him with my double-jointed feet routine (guaranteed to work on any unsuspecting or even suspecting member of the public) my mate reached up and grabbed his battered hat. Much to our alarm, we discovered that it was attached by elastic to his head (had someone tried this before?) and the thing snapped back with frightening alacrity. Expecting some sort of Benny Hill style chase through the London streets we legged it, only to see that our idiotic hero had quietly stepped back onto his plinth with an air of even more sullen silence. As if nothing had ever happened….A few months later we ventured up there to discover that Joseph had vacated his spot permanently. We were informed that a passing Japanese camera crew had abducted him and taken him back to the land of the Rising Sun. (No idea if this is true.) I suspect that he resides, still in sullen silence, in a shrine somewhere near Kyoto.

  2. John
    John
    April 20, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    So it wasnt Pat Dasso after all in the youtube video it was Kev McG******k, why wont you say his full second name???

  3. Sam
    Sam
    April 20, 2010 at 8:11 pm

    Ah….London nutters. One of the strange things about living in the US is the car culture. Unless you live in a major urban metropolis, you never really have to deal with the strange subculture of the mentally unwell.
    There was a fairly young, though disturbingly puffy woman who used to get the 73 back to Stoke Newington. She’d sit next to an unsuspecting victim and go; “It’s going to rain isn’t it? Am I right or not right?” The embarassed co occupant of the seat’d mumble an embarrassed “Yes” but she’d continue the Gestapo-like interrogation. “I think it is going to rain. Am I right or am I not right? I’m right aren’t I?” On and on and on. She was on the 73 the night of the Kings Cross Tube fire and I listened to her monologue for about 3 hours stuck in traffic.
    The shouters’d always get me though. You’d be standing there, it’d be fairly quiet and they’d start bellowing at no one in particular, making you jump out of your skin. I did go through a phase of trying to have a conversation with the ones who’d sit next to you on the bus. I wondered for a while if within the endless surreal drivel there could be some secret to the universe. Sadly, I gave up after about 6 months as they were all simply mad as backsides.
    Two famous nutters were these twins who lived in Hackney. Both identically dressed in granny coats, sensible shoes and plaits. One would start a sentance and the other would finish it. More like a monologue than a conversation. I think they were on a documentary in the eighties. They always struck me as the twins in The Shining grown up.

  4. luggy
    luggy
    April 20, 2010 at 8:58 pm

    Used to work for a housing association for people with learning difficulies who housed the twins, they were a handful! Not sure if they’re still around, got a mate who lives 2 doors down from where they were living but they might have moved on by now as they used to spend a fair bit of time outside London.

  5. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    April 21, 2010 at 8:21 am

    @John

    Everyone has a right to privacy, dead or alive. If a name is already mentioned on a thread then fair enough. But you will never get more than a first name and the first letter of the second name from me. (Errr…Actually I gave a bit more than that…Oh well, sue me). His brother (Spider John) was still alive about five years ago and was doing okay. He was also, if I remember rightly, the more approachable of the two. Why not spend a weekend in West Hampstead and see if you can pick up his trail? Try the pubs for starters….(I’m sure people will know where he is now. He could hardly be described as inconspicuous now could he?)

    This is what he looked like nearly 30 years ago…

    http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/6034/spiderjohn.jpg

    Best of British luck to you!

  6. Penguin
    Penguin
    April 21, 2010 at 1:40 pm

    Hello Kerr, hoping you are tip top, as you have appeared unto this site and reread some old posts that you may have missed, I wondered if you could shed some light on the subject of this lady who is attempting to find her father. The mail was sent via personal email to the site using the contact option above and originally I placed it on these comments back in January. It follows thus:

    Does anyone out there recognise the man described below at all? His daughter wants to meet him for possibly the first time in over a quarter of a century.

    “My names Sian and I was born in north London in 1983.

    I believe you may have known (or know of someone that knows) my Dad.

    We have never met and I don’t think he even knows I exist.

    I’m not going for any shock tactics. But I’m a 26 year old, with 2 kids, getting no joy from my Mother, she was a 19 year old single mum. And as far as she’s concerned, she did her bit, so why should he get to meet me now?

    This is a real long shot, but I’ll describe him anyway and give the (very vague) details I’ve been able to gather:

    His name is Steve (maybe Steve Cooper), AKA Crazy or Strange. From Tufnell Park and would hang around Freightliner farm sometimes.

    He has a tattoo of a spider web covering his head, two swallows on his neck. Both arms covered in tattoos and he may have had “cut here” on his neck, which may had been covered.

    He had a pretty impressive Mohican too apparently.

    Sorry, it’s not much to go on. But if you’ve got any clue where he might be, or just put the word out, it would be much appreciated.

    Thanks in advance”,

    Sian J

  7. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    April 21, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    Haven’t got a scooby who that is. Sorry. Maybe Dave might remember him? Although, if he was from north London, it is possible that our paths never crossed. Weirdly, I have seen about four blokes with face tatts in the 45+ age range in the past year or so, whereas I don’t recall seeing any in the previous 20 years or so. Must be some sort of recurrent meme. Tufnell Park was heavily squatted back in the 80s, there must be a KYPP regular who lived there or visited one time. Even I ended up in Hackney (Penpole Rd) and Marylebone (Lisson Green estate) briefly and I never ever travel north of the river unless humanly possible.
    *Puts on best village idiot voice*
    “Cos I ‘eard some of you fuckers fought for that there Oliver Cromwell in the late war…”

  8. Sam
    Sam
    April 21, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    Beats living in Northern France.

  9. dave
    dave
    April 22, 2010 at 4:48 pm

    Better ask Dave though, he went from white power and glue to hunt sabbing and road protests. Maybe he just stuck out his thumb and a gaily-coloured van pulled up… thats not a million miles away from what happened!
    i was living in a car on an industrial estate, when i get talking to a couple of spikeys looking for pallets.. moved onto Epsom site (silver birches) and one thing led to the other.

  10. baron von zubb
    baron von zubb
    April 22, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    ‘south of the river’ yeah i’ve heared of that.
    near brixton right?
    ive met ex N F skins when travelling who’d completetly changed and never realy got how
    so is the link from bonhead to stonehenge urban crusty sites?
    ok
    but mentaly how does one go from paki bashing to being a tree hugger?
    l s d 25?

    (it, maybe its no odder then going from ‘anarchist boot boy’ to vipassana buddhist?)

    no clue realy…

    sam, went on plenty of public transport in S F and we were scared of the nutters that got on that got on.every time.loud brash big american nutters. most unpleasent.U S reminded me of a contempory version of victorian england.
    wanna go back and drive across sometime

  11. John
    John
    May 2, 2010 at 4:07 am

    Thanks for uploading that picture Kerr Ray Z very intresting.

    So was that the Brother of Kev?

    See I just read the comments on the youtube video and somebody posted ‘that is pat dasso and hes still alive’ then another ‘i seen a similiar face in scotland’ or something.

    So these both belong in W.Hampstead?

    I wonder if he ever settled down because to be honest what woman wants to date a guy with them tattoos? :/

  12. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    May 2, 2010 at 8:04 am

    Heh, you’d be surprised what some women will go for. I knew a very attractive Swedish lady once who went into erotic palpitations at the sight of hideous facial scars. Spider John (Kev’s brother) is doing fine last I heard. They WERE jocks (as was a large percentage of the face tatt crowd – maybe some sort of primal Caledonian atavism resurfacing from the vomit-caked Jungian toilet-bowl, who knows?)

  13. John
    John
    May 2, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    I don’t think you would ever find the lass you wanted or into with them tattoos it just is the first thing people see and to be honest it just looks stupid. How can you explain to your kids (if you had kids with a lass) why you got them on the face?
    I bet both of them regret them now. How old will spider john and kev actually be now? I doubt either of them have had any job neither with them on the face just on benefits in council houses for the rest of there lifes I bet.
    Did both of them go to prison does anybody know?
    I was reading the cobweb means prison???

  14. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    May 2, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    Well, I didn’t know any of the face tatt crowd who weren’t habitual criminals. They were in trouble with the law long before they met any tattooists. But then not many of the skins back then avoided stir either, tattoos or not. But some worked. I saw one working for Conway the other week doing road surfacing. Okay, so limited job progression but the cocky fucker had actually had his recently re-inked. It was his arm tatts which were faded. lol.

    Can confirm that Kev is dead btw. Smack o.d. about fifteen years ago.

  15. John
    John
    May 3, 2010 at 12:48 am

    So you can confirm Kerr Ray Z the guy on the video (Kev) is dead?

    It’s just his brother that is still kicking about and doing fine?

    I wonder if Kev actually did anything with his life i.e kids, house, working, etc.

    Yeah I read ‘skinheads’ racist or not was a saint lol always in trouble with the law.

    Was it actual tattooists that did these tattoos because over 75% look half done and crooked.

    If you was to go into London is there actually a lot of face tattoo 40+ guys knocking about?

  16. Sam
    Sam
    May 3, 2010 at 4:25 am

    Pat Dasso is apparently alive and well, drinks in The Steels in Hampstead and was described as ‘a typical beer boy’ by Si, whose friend sees him there quite a lot.

  17. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    May 3, 2010 at 10:13 am

    @John

    As I said above, there are defo a few still around. Yep, Spider John is still alive, as of one year ago.

    Mark Saint did all the face tatts at his parlour in Notting Hill.

    Sam’s given you a good lead. Go and buy Pat a drink. You know you want to…..

  18. John
    John
    May 3, 2010 at 6:55 pm

    But does Pat Dasso actually have facial tattoos or not?

    Does anybody have any photos of him?

    He isn’t the guy in the video remember…

  19. John
    John
    May 3, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    Been surfing the net for donkeys now and the guy in the 1980s spider tattoo on face Kerr who you said is Kev I found another actual picture of him I’m not sure of the location but he has had another piece done above the cross in the middle of his forehead I can’t make out what it says though.

    Here is a link I’m 99.9% it is him because of the shape of the head similiar tattoos and eyes.

    http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5965/61572293.png

  20. Penguin
    Penguin
    May 3, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    “Been surfing the net for donkeys now” Whatever rocks your boat John! Good luck with that. Hope you find one. 😉

  21. John
    John
    May 3, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    Yeah I have, I just am interested in how there lifes have turned out.

    Kerr – is that picture a photo of Kev?

  22. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    May 4, 2010 at 9:17 am

    @John

    Yes, that is Kev.

    @Penguin

    At a former place of work, we had a chirpy cockney van driver who had adopted a ‘junky monkey’ (it had belonged to a heroin addict who needed a companion apparently) in a sanctuary somewhere and he had a photo of it in his cab.

    Being naturally sensitive to issues involving the abuse of animals, I jovially quipped:

    “Can’t you get one of it with a tourniquet ’round it’s arm about to jack up!”

    *Silence and tumble weeds blowing followed by an uneasy smile*

  23. John
    John
    May 4, 2010 at 11:47 am

    Thanks Kerr I see he had more done above the cross on his forehead than the video.

    Kerr just asking do have any idea where that photo is taken?

    I’ve been reading previous posts and these guys actually can get work???

  24. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    May 4, 2010 at 12:38 pm

    Think it’s Trafalgar Sq. That was one regular hangout. The West end skins strolled between there, the ‘Dilly, Leicester Sq and Carnaby St and finely honed their aggressive begging routines on the way. It was a daily soap opera representing all that was best about the Thatcher years in London.

  25. John
    John
    May 5, 2010 at 8:30 am

    Thanks alot Kerr Ray Z seeing as you know a fair bit about all the skins with facial tattoos was any of them actually nice people to speak to?

    Thatcher came into power ’79 so judging by the photo it again is an early 80s photo?

  26. alistairliv
    alistairliv
    May 5, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    But what about the donkeys John?

  27. The Martin C who doesn't clean out squat toilets
    The Martin C who doesn't clean out squat toilets
    May 5, 2010 at 2:54 pm

    Al! Spurs are playing away tonight…don’t jinx this. Look, the season’s nearly over, then we can focus on the donkeys.

    Right, so….er…does anyone remember this guy?

    http://www.derekridgers.com/index/module/media/pId/102/id/220/category/gallery|documentary|skinheads/start/117/Skinheads;-subculture;-Oi!;-th.html

  28. John
    John
    May 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm

    alistairliv it was just a phrase most people knew what I meant.

    Bloody hell.. these facial tattoo thing must have been a fad like when everybody has a certain type of dog everybody gets one.

    Jeez new faces appearing all the time.

  29. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    May 5, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    @John

    Nice people? Never met any! So wouldn’t know about such rarities.

    Most of the face tatt crowd had mental problems. They tended not to be very bright either. The drugs and alcohol tended to make them more so. As fucked up as I was back then, I still seemed dimly aware of some promised middle age and self-satisfied shangri-la where face tatts would be about as much use as a mahogany frying pan or a framed David “Diddy” Hamilton autograph.

    These were young men, boys even, who, despite a lifetime of kickings and quasi-parental horrors that boggled the imagination, had nevertheless decided that the best way of standing on their own two feet was to start by sawing off one of their own legs. This did not strike me then, nor does it now, as a fully coherent strategy for dealing with life’s disappointments.

    But then again, having witnessed our society decline into a conformist nightmare populated solely by permanent pre-pubescents devoted to the chimera of endless capitalist progress and mindless lifestyle gurudom, I still feel it hard to completely condemn their nihilistic endeavours. Sitting near the summit of a crumbling corporate pyramid, obsessed with sub-celebrity subtexts and crawling with semi-simian vacuous meringue people, I sometimes think that the oft-quoted bonehead catechism of WE ARE THE FIRST OF TOMORROW, NOT THE LAST OF YESTERDAY! may well turn out to convey the horrifying truth at the centre of their tattooed heart of darkness; indeed the sanest trope ever regurgitated by an evostik-encrusted maw.

    We could well be fucked.

    Pass me the butane!

  30. alistairliv
    alistairliv
    May 5, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    There you go John – stick with the donkeys. A donkey will never let you down.

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