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
Sam
February 18, 2009 at 6:55 amThere were a couple of local lads who hung around. One, mysteriously was called ‘Olive’. I was at college in Waterloo in 1991 and took a little lunchtime trip up to the site of Campbell buildings. The only thing that remained was the front brick wall, still bearing the grafitii’d legend ‘Olive is Bent’. I still think this should be the title of the book.
I wonder what happened to Mad Dog?
alistairliv
February 18, 2009 at 10:21 amHe went out in the midday sun.
dave
February 18, 2009 at 10:28 amI know Olive! he’s a Dave too with the
Adam Ant tattoo on his chest lol
I remember a cop being stabbed outside the chemist shop down the lower marsh.
dave
February 18, 2009 at 1:54 pmoh and for the barons info or slugs I was born in campbell buildings no 10 which was the front end nearest lambeth north, attended johanna school and most of us hung around munroe house and andrews chippy of course.
p.s anyone remember the guy who chopped at his wrists cause his bird dumped him the name escapes me.
baron von zubb
February 20, 2009 at 7:17 pmWell dave why dont you write abook about it? I’m sure it’ll be far superior to either bobs or mine, eh.
And the question is if you were a punk hating local kid why the fuck are you on the KYPP site. Must be dull.
Get this.
Mad Dog became a social worker, for underage runaways, based up in West Hampstead but he lived on that modernist estate in Lisson Grove. Last seen in the early 80’s. In fact saw a few ex Kennington mob Joe etc (cant remember his punk name) at stonehenge in 1983/4.
Dunno if this is old news to folk.
Cheers BVZ
david
February 24, 2009 at 12:49 pmyou obviously believe your books to be good, not at all stories written by reminiscing over inflated egos.
John No Last Name
February 24, 2009 at 6:27 pmI haven’t read BVZ’s book, but ‘Trash Can’ was a great read, so clearly some people do find them worthwhile. Now assuming David is the same person as Dave who posted earlier, the more relevant question is why do you feel the need to talk about people you weren’t friends with in this weird “remember me I may have tried to attack you, 25 years ago” way. Are you so devoid of friends that your only worthwhile memories from the past involve acts of stupidity and cowardice?
Martin C
February 27, 2009 at 1:29 amOK, serious query – does anyone remember a punk/skin called Chris? Might have had a nickname but squatted in Waterloo – had a bulldog and South London Skins on one cheek – two teardrops – all I know is he got on smack, then cleaned up by 1990, by which time he had two daughters (tattooed spiders on his arm with their names underneath, because they were scared of spiders, apparently) – I’d be interested to know how he ended up – and no, I wasn’t there, I was born in 1976, so I don’t have a clue what he was like ‘back in the day’. In 1990, he had grown out his hair.
Graham Burnett
February 27, 2009 at 4:14 pmI too have grown out my hair, in fact I now have hardly any left…
dave
May 19, 2009 at 9:39 pmjohn no last name – oh what a media tart you are… punk was designed for stupidity and cowardise…. no more no less
Jah Pork Pie
May 20, 2009 at 12:38 amI know we encourage a bit of nonlinear narrative and freeform prose on here, but did you actually mean anything by that last comment, Dave, or were you just typing randomly?
By whom was punk designed for”stupidity and cowardise”, why was it so designed, and why so precisely?
And if you’re really the punk expert I’ve been hoping to meet all these years, could you take the trouble to give me the definitive academic answer to what punk *was*? Most everyone else seems to feel that it was a movement which introduced pluralism and eclecticism to youth culture, and by so doing made itself very difficult to identify and define.
Cheers in anticipation…
dave
May 20, 2009 at 9:43 amIt was quite easy to define – musicians (loosely speaking) hiding behind songs of rebellion and change, rather than going out and making a difference. Getting others to make the change for you is cowardise.
pluralism, i dont think so, as the views wasnt that diverse, it was more of a persons view taken and expanded. Punk was more or less a movement of egocentric bored youths (whats new) a modern version of rock n roll, mods, etc, punk was the same as all other musical inspired fashions, people trying too hard to be different!
Ian S
May 20, 2009 at 11:13 am“bashed loads of punks between 1980-82”
So if you were born in ’66, you would have been 14 to 16.
The only thing you were bashing then was your lonely little cock.
dave
May 20, 2009 at 1:20 pmhmm we now have an age limit on being yobbish
Ian S
May 20, 2009 at 1:54 pmDave, claiming to have been a punk basher in your opening comments does not make you seem like Jack the Lad or a hard man.
It makes you look like a lonely forty-something man with no social skills or mates.
Try your luck again on the SE1 forums. Or maybe you have yet to discover the world of YouTube comments?
Sam
May 20, 2009 at 8:28 pm“It was quite easy to define – musicians (loosely speaking) hiding behind songs of rebellion and change, rather than going out and making a difference. Getting others to make the change for you is cowardise.
pluralism, i dont think so, as the views wasnt that diverse, it was more of a persons view taken and expanded. Punk was more or less a movement of egocentric bored youths (whats new) a modern version of rock n roll, mods, etc, punk was the same as all other musical inspired fashions, people trying too hard to be different!”
I agree with that actually. As would Bob Short I would imagine and sums up in part the very self-deprecating tone of his excellent book.
dave
May 21, 2009 at 10:31 pmthanks sam, and an interesting reply from ian which proves the point about egocentric punks, especially when they bite so easy trying to defend what isnt defendable. im no longer lonely now ian and i are friends
Bob
May 22, 2009 at 1:53 amI keep waking up to notifications in my inbox. I try my best to ignore them but they just keep coming. Should I wade in with my size twelve boots or would that be considered egocentric? I like the term egocentric. It is frequently used as a put down. However, the accuser commits the “sin” of egocentricity by definition. I think therefore I am egocentric. The idea that we shouldn’t assert ego is ridiculous. All art is a result of the flaunting of ego. The only way to not be egocentric is to do nothing. But let’s face it, even removing oneself from a society is an act of selfishness.
As for the horror of young people acting egocentrically… You’re kidding, right? That’s what people do. I bet even Ghandi went to sleep on a cloud of smug every night.
I can’t actually remember writing songs that demanded the proles rise up in revolutionary zeal. I always thought you freed your head and the rest just followed. I also thought that the cowardly act of getting someone to go off and fight for your ideals was really the job of governments.
BTW, Dave, I may have grown up in a steelworking town at the very arsehole of the world, I may have never completed high school – but at least I understand that the rantings of a lunatic on the internet do not constitute proof of anything. And what exactly is this thing “what isnt defendable (sic)”?
Sam
May 22, 2009 at 2:03 amOh well. I stand corrected.
Bob
May 22, 2009 at 3:32 amHey Sam,
Actually, I don’t think I did correct you. Correct me if I’m wrong. Yes, punk may have been the zeitgeist of egocentric youth or maybe it wasn’t. I just don’t think that makes it a bad thing. Age allows me a little self depreciation. Hey, I look in the mirror and there’s been a fair bit of depreciation over the years and none of it is tax deductable. Dressing up funny and thinking you could change the world, however, was never a bad thing.
Boasting about punk bashing, well that’s a bad thing. Boasting about any kind of bashing is a bad thing. Pretending you are old enough to have bashed anyone, that’s just a dumb thing.
Sam
May 22, 2009 at 1:35 pmNo…I don’t think it was wrong either.
baron von zubb
May 27, 2009 at 10:07 amOh i’ve missed all this.
The net box is on line again so hello!
“Dressing up funny and thinking you could change the world, however, was never a bad thing.”
Absolutely.
Cheers bob.
dave
May 27, 2009 at 12:55 pmi agree dressing up isnt bad, if your a punk poser, chav or clown.
punk bashing any bashing, yes i agree was a bad thing, but people do worse.
having an age limit on fighting thats dumb. ask any football hooligan, most start around 15.
boasting about having sex with a minor (14) thats just downright dumb!
Bob Short
May 28, 2009 at 12:40 amThis isn’t a story about boasting about anything. It isn’t some heavy metal autobiography in love with bad behaviour for its own sake. This is a story about a group of kids completely isolated from decent society, falling into drug abuse and living under constant fear of attack from thugs. If you want to shout out for the rights of the thug then knock yourself out.
This is a story about consequence. It is entitled 1980 to address the time. I’m not going to talk for everyone but to me 1980 was a tragedy. In 1976 and 1977 it was enough just to be a punk. It was an end in itself because it represented a change from that which had gone before. We rode upon the back of good times until we expected nothing but good times. But decadence leads to indolence. Where was the purpose? I spent a year off my head. It was my own personal season in hell. There were many people there with me. We pretended it was like a never ending party but, by the end, there was not a single person who’d want to return to Campbell Buildings to live like that. And Boast about it? Forget it. Call it a cautionary tale.
What I learnt from Campbell Buildings is that you need to work towards your goals. I wrote songs like “the Tower Falls” about the realisation. “Love Under Will” was about the same thing. Moving away from decadent self destructive behaviour and pursuing purpose. I’ve done plenty of bad things in my life. I’m not proud of them. I don’t boast about them. Most of them, I did to myself. One thing I tried to avoid in the book was to make myself the hero of my own story. It was important to include unsavoury detail. “Trash Can” is a kind of hyper reality in which truths are rearranged to fit narrative. There are parts which are straight reporting and others which are not.
Whatever. 1980 is about hitting rock bottom before reasserting purpose.
Even now, the purpose I persue may be dellusional but any purpose is more important than no purpose at all. I may have dressed like a poser, a chav and a clown. I don’t give a rats arse about what you think about me. I’ve walked this earth long enough that I don’t need to worry about what someone like you thinks.
The only reason why I wrote this response is that I wanted to make sure everyone who read the page above did not come away with a shallow interpretation of idle boast. The story 1980 is a horror story. A nightmare. I included it in the book to show what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men (or the barely laid plans of the same.)
Sam
May 28, 2009 at 2:11 pmI can’t imagine a better piece of writing to represent that place and time. It is exactly as I remember it.
Ian S
May 28, 2009 at 2:43 pm“having an age limit on fighting thats dumb. ask any football hooligan, most start around 15.”
No, that’s a red herring. None of the ex-Campbellites here seem to remember trouble from little lads. Also, you or the person you are pretending to be has said elsewhere that he moved out of the Waterloo area around 1978 – not 1980 as you claimed above.
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/forum/read/1/104982
My guess is that you were a bit closer to the punk scene than you are making out. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother to post here or be resentful. Also, your style of writing is very similar to some hostile posts on a couple of other punk-related blogs, same attitude, same typo’s.
Make your peace with the past and enjoy the present.
Bob: second what Sam says above, some great writing.
Sam
May 28, 2009 at 6:17 pmThe aforementioned ‘Olive’ was pretty young – probably 15 or 16 when we knew him and went around with a mate of his around the same age. But he was a friend of ours and eventually kind of a punky-lad.
Aside from anything else…the war’s over Dave. We’re all middle-aged and I’d say most of us here have examined our past enough to look at our earlier selves with a certain amount of bemusement. It must have been awful for the genuine residents of Campbell buildings, especially those with families. Us lot wandering around out of our heads, the constant violence and crime. It wasn’t like we were trying to build a utopian community. Scorched earth at best.
baron von zubb
May 28, 2009 at 7:11 pmGents I cant believe you’re getting into this with ‘dave’.
And of course I can’t believe you all say Bobs writing is the best about the buildings… Sam,Ian: how very dare you…? He He.
Nah seriously Bob and all, this guy comes on to the site to tell us how he loved punk bashing, thinks you’re a nonce of some sort and whatever else.
He’s a fucking twat, no?
No one here has to defend themselves in ANY WAY, not least to him.
Has he come here to make new friends? Has he come here to be interesting?
Dave, peace n love to all (middle aged) men but do us all a favour & crawl back into the hole you were in before you found the KYPP site.
Sam, I agree that it must have been awful for the council tenants.
But as far as I can ascertain it was, well before we arrived too.
Hope all are fab in KYPP land.
Talkin of KYPP-land, Pengs, are there any of Mr B’s second offering, the signed ones, still about?
I must have missed them by now thanks to Tiscalli brilliance…
Enjoy, J
Penguin
May 28, 2009 at 8:15 pmBaron, all the signed copies are gone, sold at the KYPP spring picnic. I will no doubt get another load in at some point though. Why don’t you get one sent from Bob himself? Sure he will be happy to get one to you for a few squid.
Lets not all get to out of control on this thread chaps, Baron you may well have lost a punter in Dave with regards to your book and the chapters held within.
He seems generally interested in knowing about his and other folks past lives at the now demolished C.B. I can confirm that he is the guy on SE1 forum via the email details on the site admin on this site. The post on SE1 reads valid enough, just wants to see if anyone is about from them times.
Obviously he has been googling C.B. in February, found and posted a comment on this site and then with the wave of enthusiasm went on the other forum.
Dave, I am sure no-one means you any ill will, but you do come over a tad agressive in the first few comments.
Some of these guys have tasted boot soup during 1980 in and around the area that seems to interest you. No doubt they were victims of various tear ups in other areas besides Waterloo.
If you were involved in some of the problems at C.B, then whatever, hopefully you have matured a little by now, if you were a bystander while the older kids did the most of the booting and looting, then whatever, ditto above comment.
Because you came out with a comment which was just full of statements, without any further indepth reasons or any possible regrets (if applicable) being included within that first comment, it got people’s backs up.
If, on the over-hand you had found this forum and discussed your past within C.B. in a more constructive way to start with, including some instances of violence that you may have witnessed or partaken in yourself no doubt, and possibly some words about where you are now and how you have developed since those days, I am sure the ex C.B folk would have responded in a much warmer fashion, as they do on other posts on this site with other browsers.
As it is, because of the way your comments have been written since the first rather unfortunate statement, it is clear, to me at least, that you have been pushed into a corner and seem to be just lashing out with your keyboard in what ever way you can, tit for tat on other folks reply comments, and vis-versa of course.
Perhaps we should all start again and you could write a comment letting us know what it was like living at C.B in the late 1960’s through late 1970’s (pre punk squats). Or, of course, if you were there in 1980 when Baron, Bob, Pork, Sam etc etc were there (many other ex C.B inhabitants view this site, but do not necessary write comments on the posts so they may well be interested in what you have to write) then let us know about that period also.
Was there any 1977 Jubilee parties on the estate? Was it a mixed race estate or a white working class stronghold?
There’s two questions to get you started, assuming you want to continue commenting on this thread or indeed this site.
Also for your information, both of Bobs books are well worth getting and the Barons one is OK too. Both books are available via links on this site if you are interested in reading anecdotes on your old stomping ground of Waterloo from their perspectives.
Campbell Buildings is also liberally mentioned from a squat / punk perspective in two or three other posts on this site, featuring The Heretics (Sam, Sii, Baron and Scarecrow’s band).
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=639
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=751
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=800
You will also see photographs of Baron and Sam on these posts above as they looked 30 years ago.
dave
May 28, 2009 at 11:33 pmfirst of all i’d like to apologise for the first comment, totally unjustified. it was crass (excuse the pun). yes i do remember the 77 jubilee and the first wave of punks. yes i was a little thug after moving away. i came back almost every day causing trouble. i also remember seeing the clash and spex at the anti nazi rally. yes campbell blds was very a much mixed race community, and i think i’m a better person for it now. i also squatted there for a while when i was a skin, when bonner was there in tigers place (no 10 where i was born – spooky). unfortunately trouble caught up with me and i was banned from chelsea fc at 15, youth custody at 18 and prison and a ban from millwall fc at 21.
now working in a hospital. still a little fucked up but finally doing good.
Penguin
May 29, 2009 at 1:16 amJah Pork Pie is a Chelsea supporter I think for his sins Dave, I support Tottenham for mine. Being banned from seeing Millwall play surely is a good thing is it not? 😉
There is a bit about the Viccy Park Clash gig in Barons book, he also seems to have had his fair share of knocks from Officialdom including a (no doubt rather unpleasant) stay in some prison in Thailand. Reading his book gives me the impression that he was into fighting a fair bit in those days whether spanking fascists or nudging police overseers in the riots of 1981.
A very naughty boy…
Hopefully Baron will hard sell you his book now, you might even be in it!
If he does not then here is a link:
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=1966
and some original rough manifests plus stuff on the author:
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=822
And for both Bobs books and some of his music from 1983:
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=474
Ta for sharing.
alistairliv
May 29, 2009 at 1:41 amI heard about Campbell Buildings from two sources.
Firstly from Bob Short when he was living in Stoke Newington circa 1981/2 and secondly from Pinki when we lived together from 1984 til she died in 1996.
From neither source did I get anything other than the impression that living there was pretty much hell on earth.
Bob and Pinki’s accounts of Campbell Buildings were very different from the stories I heard from Tony and Brett about their squatting days at Covent Garden – like the one about having carved model of a pigeon which they used to dangle out of a window on a piece of string to see if anyone would try to grab it…
Likewise the hell that was squatting in Campbell Buildings should be set aginst the creativity that came out of Brougham Road and the west London squats like Frestonia. And don’t forget that the Centro Iberico was a squat which was pretty much the antithesis of Campbell Buildings.
dave
May 29, 2009 at 9:24 ami remember a lot of people squatting coronation buildings in vauxhall. the estate was a dead replica to c.b anyone have any thoughts on that place?
the first wave of punks to enter c.b was at the time lambeth were rehousing the cb residents so i think a lot of flack the punks took was because the residents were pissed off with lambeth council.
believe it or not cb before then was a good place to live with a thriving mixed community, everyone going to the same school across the road!
dr m was a pretty good doc, i think the pressure from some of the punks just tipped him over. i can remember him being bashed and threatened constantly.
having said that whenever i saw him as a young kid he always asked if i could beat up my mum and dad????