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
Penguin
April 3, 2010 at 1:11 amBlimey, Sam, Chris and myself all writing similar comments at around the same time John. Believe me this was not organised by the three of us! 🙂
John
April 3, 2010 at 1:15 amI’m 20 and just reading up all about these young lads and what there actually life is like now.
There is several young guys even my age with the cross in the forehead.
Sam was Pat in prison? Are them actually prison tattoos or did he just get them because he was hard fucker?
I take a shine on Pat them tats look fairly cool in my opinion but do you think when he was younger he gets stared at and avoided branded as a ‘thug’ basically?
I read the wiki page of ‘Skinhead’ and says in the 80s most skins got the face or forehead tattooed with stuff associated with skin symbols but where on earth have spider and a tattoo got to do with it?
Also Sam if you don’t mind me asking was Pat a CB lad or which part of London was he from? Where is West Hampstead exactly?
So out of all the guys on the photos have all of them basically just died? :S
What about that Bonner and Belsen now are there still knocking about?
Also is this Pat again on this photo : http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Boneheads/?action=view¤t=facialtat8.jpg
Was all the guys who did the facial tattoos into NF etc, why of all places did there tattoo there face and I’ve also read previous posts saying there have kids etc, who will go out with someone with these kind of tattoos on the face?
Do any of you guys see any of these lot still about today?
Sam do you remember Pat Dasso from school too what was he like?
John
April 3, 2010 at 1:26 amYou’re also saying don’t bring them back to my house.. why not?
Why judge someone because of there first impression?
It is what is on the inside not outside.
Chris L
April 3, 2010 at 1:41 amActually there IS an old looking (looks late 40s to me) punk guy I have seen at a few gigs (he was at PIL at the Electric Ballroom earlier this year) and also in Camden a few times recently who has a spiders web on his cheek and stuff on his forehead. The tats are so old and blurred it’s difficult to make out what they originally were though. He reminded me a bit of ‘Hurricane’ Higgins (as he is now) ie really battered and beaten looking… not exactly someone you’d bet much on to cross the finishing line in a marathon anyway. I only noticed him because he has the old facial tats, clearly having got them in his youth and you DO NOT see many ‘survivors’ of his ilk about. There used to be another oddball around Camden who had a butterfly tattood on his forehead but was otherwise fairly normal looking, maybe a bit hippyish in fact. Deffo a freakazoid tho.
John, I think you should start up a blog about this topic and post up all the photos you’ve found on t’net. Maybe if any of these characters are still about they will contact you?
And surprised you hadn’t found this, third comment if you google his name:
>>>theres a bloke called pat dasso who lives in west hampstead. he was a skin in the 70’s and had a spider web on the face tattoo. he used to sniff glue and terrorise all the kids. we used to like him because he was a chelsea supporter… i see him hanging around quiet alot now, hes got a couple of kids and seems like a gentle sort. probably not the brightest pick of the bunch though<<<
Well I Never… (etc)
John
April 3, 2010 at 2:00 amI tryed searching ‘pat dasso’ on google couldnt find anything I don’t think – where is that of?
I would love to contact Pat to be honest, how do I start a topic about him?
I really am curious about him and people say web is prison tattoo I wonder if he’s been to prison.
Chris L
April 3, 2010 at 2:00 am>>>You’re also saying don’t bring them back to my house.. why not?<<<
I dunno, sometimes there's just something about some people that might indicate that perhaps they might not be the best of houseguests:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5951708-504083.html
or the best of companions to grab a bite to eat with
http://www.belch.com/blog/2007/06/25/racist-tatooed-freak-kills-guard/
😉
John
April 3, 2010 at 2:34 amOh c’mon Chris I don’t mean them absolute morons, I’m not racist I don’t believe in any of that shit, but I just think these guys with the face tattoos should at least not be judged on first appearance that is stereotyping and is wrong.
If Pat Dasso was a skin in the 70s that means on the video thats the 80s, he is 50+ not 40+ so he proves that you still do survive with them, face tattoos arnt hardly life changing not like them idiots who you showed me.
Can you confirm that Pat is also the guy in that Tommy and such and such in the photo?
If people got his tattoos now, what will there be judged as? I’m just very curious and if I don’t ask I don’t find out.
Penguin
April 3, 2010 at 8:45 amJohn, you seem to be incredibly stubborn in your ‘curiousity’ and in your searching out of these 1980’s boneheads (sorry upstanding citizens, must not judge people as they were then, now) and one of them in particular, but honestly mate they were bad news, and I would be very surprised if their mental outlook has changed drastically. Why not keep up the search on a more relevant site than this KYPP one. I am sure there are 1980s skinhead site forums for instance. E.D.L, B.N.P or Combat 18 would definately be there and possibly have forums included in the site with subject matter in the area that you are interested in (and no, I do not have links to help your curiousity, use google). I hope you find what you are looking for. I hope you invite them all to your parents home. I hope you all have a great time together. Knock yourself out!
baron von zubb
April 3, 2010 at 11:36 ammost of the boneheads were indeed bad news…sam, jah pork, pat dasso and some others were the exceptions. some of them, hopefully are suffering a great deal for what they did as far as i know pat dasso is dead. i heard this years ago. found dead in a squat in that bunch of council houses (further up lymington fd than 18c sam) opposite the playing feild in lymington rd west hampstead. thats the area between kilburn and hampstead village john. post code nw2/nw6. if you want to invite anyone in to your house john, i strongly advise you to check it out it with the folk here who are, now, all cool people.(we were a lil bit mad then….
chris,can you chase james vice on a ‘gary crithchley’ article?
hope everyone is superfab. j
Martin C
April 3, 2010 at 1:07 pmIn an ideal world, people with facial tats wouldn’t be judged, and having a load of Maori swirls across your chops shouldn’t disqualify you from doing any job you’re good at. However, in an ideal world, I’d be 6 foot 2, stunningly handsome and related to a generous, eccentric billionaire called Lord Rodney.
If you’re interested in ‘Belsen’, I have a copy of a now defunct Sunday paper magazine (Correspondent) from 1990, which has an interview with him and two punk girls who used to share bedsits in Earls Court in 1983. He has hair and an arty beard, and he talks about his past, including squatting in Waterloo, homelessness, smack addiction and having kids. If anyone’s really interested, I could send it to Penguin or Al to scan it, s’pose…
Martin C
April 3, 2010 at 1:14 pmOh, and I actually got a copy of ‘Trash Can’, which is ace – only drawback was the omission of this great piece Bob wrote, called ‘Halloween ’79’ – it used to be online (on the 3am site, I think?) but can’t find it now – if he’s still reading, any plans to publish this at a later date? Cheers
Bob Short
April 3, 2010 at 1:46 pmI’ve been avoiding writing comments on this page because I have no interest about men with facial tattoos. I have no interest in any project to make buddies with them. I remember what they did and I don’t like them. However, this weekend I seem to have thirty or so messages in my in box. It was nice to see a message from Martin C who I hope is Cobb. Haven’t heard from you in a while so hello! The Halloween piece is available in the book entitled “Filth”. If you’re still in Melbourne, I think “Off the Hip” has copies. Mojo in Sydney certainly does and Off the Hip does a pal act with them. One piece that KYPP should consider putting up on line is Martin’s “Yoakley Road” thing. I laughed so hard when I read it, I almost cried. Martin is a damn fine writer. Now I will vanish again. Clearly, I’m still out here watching.
John
April 3, 2010 at 1:49 pmPenguin I know who them edl are I’ve seen them on the news just drunk hooligans that like trouble but you say pat dasso is dead but earlier up people say hes still alive and well with kids?
I’m intrested in this Belsen thing to Martin C, is Belsen still living or what?
Why are these called boneheads not skinheads what has these young lads got to do with nazi stuff that Pat Dasso was wearing a union jack t-shirt in the video, how does that mean he’s racist?
I read up somebody said people would cross the road etc if you seen these guys, are these people intimidating or what?
When you say there ‘bad news’ what do you mean by that?
Also I wouldn’t mean literally bring them back to my house, I mean go into a pub for a pint and ask them about there life I’m very curious.
Penguin
April 3, 2010 at 1:49 pmThat chapter is in his other book ‘Filth’ Martin:
https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=474
Check the bottom of this post for details.
Penguin
April 3, 2010 at 1:57 pmJohn, I will put this very politely.
Can you please take your ‘very curious’ stance somewhere the fuck else please?
You are obviously just posting comments on this site for a wind up.
Well done. Now go and get a life yeah?
John
April 3, 2010 at 2:27 pmNo Penguin, I’m not I never lived where these guys lived (down south) if I was to be taking the piss I’d be saying shit which I’m not I am just curious on these peoples turn out of life why do you have to be so naive? :S
I just want to know what is the difference between a ‘skinhead’ and a ‘bonehead’ and how these 40-50+ guys are today.
Don’t use bad attitude man I’m only being friendly there is guys on this bit that can help me there was around at this time.
Penguin
April 3, 2010 at 2:32 pmThe word ‘curious’ comes up for the upteemph time.
Browsers please ignore this guy and he will eventually go away.
He is a wind up. lol@msn.
Martin C
April 3, 2010 at 2:35 pmBob – nah, I’m not that Martin, sorry! But thanks for the info, will check out ‘Filth’.
John
April 3, 2010 at 3:06 pmPenguin yes I use that email I don’t want to disclose my personal info or have notifications for when I get replys.
Sam
April 3, 2010 at 4:44 pmIf you’re genuinely interested John, I don’t think Pat was of white Anglo Saxon stock. Could have been of Greek, Indian or Italian extraction. One of my few memories of Belsen is helping him strip a squat of copper piping and going off to sell it as scrap. We had an argument regarding whether The Jam were a mod band or not. He used ‘All Mod Cons’ as conclusive proof, whilst I disagreed. Why this has stuck in my head along with a lot of other pointless, 30 year old ephemera I do not know.
Sam
April 3, 2010 at 4:54 pmJust enlarged the CB photo and it’s my opinion that the people in the punky punky room are not in Campbell Buildings. Who are the 2 ladies on the right who look like social workers? I don’t recognize anyone, though the girl sitting down far left looks a bit like NZ Debbie who played bass at the time.
Julie
April 3, 2010 at 9:21 pmHi all of Gary’s friends and those of you wanting to help campaign to clear his name and obtain his freedom.
Wendy and I spent over two hours today with Gary at Rowan House. He is a lovely chap as we had already realized from all of the letters we have received from him and he talked non-stop and very eloquently indeed.
He is alright though very thin, not like some of us out here, and appreciates very much everything you are all doing for him, your thoughts, prayers and deeds.
We are waiting to hear from Carol (recently wrote here above) regarding campaign ideas.
You may write to Gary and even phone him should any of you wish to speak directly with him just @mail me and I’ll pass on his phone number.
We don’t really know what happens next but he is in a better place right now and the time has come for us to act.
We hope to meet up with Glyn, Gary’s solicitor in the near future, probably in London and I’ll let you know as if any of you wish to join us please do so, the more the better.
Gary does not remember Carol so can you remind him from when/where you know him.
We took him loads of stuff, clothes, art books, edibles etc and he’ll let us know of any other things he could do with but he now has a TV and is getting on with painting. We want to take him a CD player and he will be allowed to receive shop bought CD’s.
Please do not give up on Gary, he does not deserve having spent all this time in very difficult places and we must prevent him at all costs being sent back behind bars.
If any of you would like to visit him there is no problem at all, perhaps just the distance. Rowan House is just beyond Norwich but I think it can be done by train and then taxi if you do not have a car.
Looking forward to hearing from you and enjoy the rest of the Easter.
Julie
dave
April 11, 2010 at 10:19 pmthe picture above is definately not c.b
Penguin
April 11, 2010 at 10:28 pmThe outside photo in colour Dave or the insert room photo? Or both?
Sam
April 11, 2010 at 11:47 pmI think both.
Penguin
April 12, 2010 at 9:07 amOK dokey, in that book link it stated it was C.B. I will remove the picture later on tonight and replace it with Dave’s original one.
dave
April 12, 2010 at 9:10 amoutside definately isnt inside doesnt look like it either
interestingly or not one of the pics on you tube of cb isnt cb there was no lifts
the lift looks more like the one in lambeth north tube stn
Sam
April 12, 2010 at 6:35 pmEvery flat in CB I remember having those bar electric heaters. The interior shot seems to have radiator. Just call me Shorlock fuckin’ Hermes (to quote Sid the Sexist).
Chris Low
April 12, 2010 at 7:05 pmActually, to solve this, if Martin C. is about there is a (quite remarkable) photo in that ‘Inhalants’ book which, if I recall correctly, says “A Sniffer’s Corner” and he could upload here. It is the back of what I take to be the building in the colour photo above – but looks really like some of the old Eastern Berlin buildings that used to overlook the wall/Checkpoint Charlie. Horrible and bleak as fuck.
There are also some figures in the photo. Unfortunately tiny and dwarfed by the pigeon shit pebble-dashed walls they’re standing beside, but I do remember them looking a bit ‘punky 🙂
Penguin
April 12, 2010 at 10:45 pmOK Daves photo of the real CB up heading the post again. The imposter photo of CB has been slung away.
Martin C
April 13, 2010 at 3:19 pm“Imposter photo’, ha ha! Sorry if anyone got the impression I was leading them on, the CB reference was just a throwaway comment cos it sounded good at the time, and I only put the link up here for the guy who was asking loads of questions about where Bonner ended up.
Yeah Chris, that bleak pic’s in there, but I don’t have a scanner and it’d look absolute crap if I took a photo of it (like the others do). But I know a man who has, so if you want, I’ll try and get a large pic of it next time I hit him up for loads of scans (you’re right, the kids look miniscule).
Most of these pics would have been sourced randomly from photo libraries by the publisher’s art guy (probably with three deadlines kicking off at once) and shouldn’t be taken seriously (in the fake CB pic, they’re just sitting round smoking fags, not a glue bag in sight!). Most likely a case of, “Shit, need more pics…I know, stick some punks in”. There was a whole series of these books dedicated to various drugs and the Heretics were in one, but I’m not 100% sure now whether it was Amphetamines or Alcohol.
Martin C
April 13, 2010 at 3:29 pmOh, and in the Sniffer’s Corner pic they’re just smoking too!
Chris Low
April 13, 2010 at 4:46 pmPathetic!
Actually, when I was working for LiveTV the ‘stock’ footage they always used to use at the beginning of any new items about the evils/legislation of cannabis was film of my hands rolling a joint. Just for a bark, before it was shot, I also pawed in the flower bed outside the studios so my nails would look grubby and marker-penned an anarchy sign between my thumb and first finger.
For “news” stories about feral kids/underage drinking etc we just went out, found some kids, bought them some bottles of alcopops and told them to stand about swigging their drinks, spitting and aimlessly kicking the wall and fence along the road.
I imagine most stock image library shots employ similar artifice in their set-up. Still, you should have seen what we did for stories on the perils of under-age sex! 🙂
Anyway… have you ever tried searching amazon/abe books etc for the publisher of that series of books? Might turn up trumps. The copy I picked up of the book was ex-libris, as I noticed most of the others were.