{"id":12175,"date":"2026-09-09T22:02:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T21:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/?p=12175"},"modified":"2026-09-30T23:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:38:35","slug":"in-remembrance-of-mick-lugworm-queally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/in-remembrance-of-mick-lugworm-queally\/","title":{"rendered":"IN REMEMBRANCE OF MICK ‘LUGWORM’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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On the 21st August 2026, we learned of the saddening news that Mick ‘Lugworm’ Queally AKA ‘Luggy’ had passed on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

May he continue to rest in peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This news was greeted with much sadness throughout his family, his friends, and also the people who were around him in the early eighties, when he was a well known face on the anarcho-punk squatting scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Below are some words from some of his companions from those days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The photographs, along with the newspaper and magazine articles added to this post are from Luggy’s own collection, from Mark of The Mob’s collection, from Val D’s collection, from Tarquin’s collection, may he also continue to rest in peace, from Tim Paine’s collection, from Mickey ‘Penguin’ collection, from Simon Collins collection, and from Tony D’s collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Without Lugworm anarcho-punk in London would have looked very different, it would have been a less vibrant, friendly and blossoming scene.<\/p>\n

A few significant things happened in 1982 which helped the scene grow and expand away from the \u2018anarchists all wear black\u2019 killjoy mentality, which anarcho- punk was always in danger of becoming. These good things were The Mob moving to London, becoming regulars at gigs and making an iconic album, the weekly gigs at Centro Iberico, and the Black Sheep housing co-op recognised by Islington council to provide homes for punks.<\/p>\n

The link between all of these, plus his other wild and crazy schemes too numerous to mention, is Mick Lugworm: he was either catalyst or instrumental in all cases. I was first introduced to Mick by Lou McGrew \/ Harris in late 1981 or early 1982. She had become friends with Val Puppy and started coming round Puppy Mansions, our squat in Westbere Road in Hampstead, and along with her one day came Mick.<\/p>\n

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Having Mick in the house was like someone setting off one of those confetti cannons; he was bursting out with ideas, knowledge of obscure bands, clothing concepts, article ideas for Kill Your Pet Puppy and a million other ideas that seemed to pass from his brain to his mouth without pause \u2013 and they were all great. He also introduced a new vocabulary of \u2018scrotes\u2019, \u2018dodgy\u2019, \u2018sprogs\u2019, and words I now cannot remember but hope others will.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember if Mick\u2019s hair was crazy coloured at this time or not, but it matters not: this was a crazy coloured evening. Lou McGrew \/ Harris moved in when a room became vacant, but Mick was more itinerant \u2013 staying occasionally but having no permanent place to hang his hat. I remember once some bother when he had brought a can of Heinz beans, left it here to find it had been replaced by a can of International supermarket\u2019s own brand version. Funny, the things we remember, but I think that the Beansgate affair led to him getting the hump and then involved in the Stoke Newington squatting scene.<\/p>\n

My memories of Luggy in Stoke Newington were of him setting up the Bayston Bizarros and the Durlston Deviants; bands named after squats in the area; also getting involved in the tangled world there of The Apostles\u2019 Andee Martin and Blood & Roses\u2019 Bob Short.<\/p>\n

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Then suddenly Luggy had set up the Black Sheep housing co-op, along with Alistair Livingston and Bob of Blood & Roses (they are in the picture on the cover of the [ London Evening ] Standard; and just as surprisingly I was knocking on the door of 103 Grosvenor Avenue, cap in hand asking if I could move in.<\/p>\n

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1983; Black Sheep, Kill Your Pet Puppy, The Mob album that Luggy had loaned the money to record, and I got the magazine Punk Lives to feature on the front cover a photograph of Mark from the Mob at Grosvenor Avenue, and also a centre spread feature on the band. My sister; Val D AKA Val Puppy, and Luggy were featured standing in the garden of Grosvenor Avenue as they were renovating it: more madness of the time. An impossible amount of squatted or free gigs happening everywhere; Meanwhile Gardens and The Mob. Luggy was either at these gigs, or had helped organise them. He also got into the idea of himself, selling the Kill Your Pet Puppy fanzine at gigs.<\/p>\n

In Autumn 1983 I returned to Grosvenor Avenue after an extended trip abroad. On the first day back, I asked Mick about the new squatted venue he had been talking about opening up before I left. Upon hearing nothing had gone forward, that evening Mick and me got access to the building on Rosebery Avenue and changed the locks. A few days later Mick organised a crowd to go with him to \u2018open\u2019 the place \u2013 which became the Peace Centre.<\/p>\n

Regarding our initial entry into such a big building, I was crawling along surfaces like a limpet. All these years later I am still breathless remembering my feelings of fear and awe at Luggy\u2019s cat burgling skill as he skipped along the top of narrow brick walls and leapt onto narrower windowsills.<\/p>\n

Luggy formed a band around this time called The Turd Burglars. I loved the Turd Burglars \u2013 their song \u2018Are You Bored Or Are You Boring?\u2019 should have been number one. I even performed it myself onstage at Stonehenge with their original drummer Richard Crow AKA Scarecrow. But every time I hear the name of the group it takes me shivering back to that night in 1983 scaling the back of Rosebery Avenue where any slip would have been death.<\/p>\n

Issue 4 of Kill Your Pet Puppy was printed in time for a Days Of Future Past festival up northern England. I took loads up, when Luggy met me there and found out he could make 5p on every sale he made you couldn\u2019t see him for dust: he cleaned my stack out \u2013 at least five hundred copies, and he would have sold more if I could\u2019ve got more delivered there. What a guy; and he said he didn\u2019t care about the money; it was just a great excuse to meet and chat with people. He kept his 5p\u2019s though!<\/p>\n

Times were changing at Grosvenor Avenue, as Mark from the Mob among others were starting to get restless legs and wanted to be part of the new hippy \/ punk traveller\u2019s movement erupting out of Stonehenge; residents were spending more time on the road than at home. Luggy\u2019s response was to move in a lot of the Stoke Newington crowd as rooms became vacant, then erected benders in the garden to accommodate more. New blood, Luggy wouldn\u2019t let any of us become complacent.<\/p>\n

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Around this later era of Grosvenor Avenue, me and Luggy bonded over terrible records \u2013 The \u201850 Guitars of Tommy Garrett\u2019 was a great favourite and you\u2019d be surprised how many follow up albums Tommy and his 50 guitars made; and how they made Luggy and me happy when stumbling across one of those albums in our trawls through jumble sales and charity shops. It was the only thing that kept us sane.<\/p>\n

In Autumn 1985 I left Grosvenor Avenue with Cravat, and went on our journey to display our street performance act to the world. When we returned in the summer of 1986 there was no room at the inn; so, for many years me and Luggy\u2019s paths rarely crossed.<\/p>\n

Then in the 21st century Luggy started organising meet ups under the name ‘Puppy’ picnics; he invited me along and when we met up again around thirty years later, we chatted as if no time at elapsed at all. Still as close as two beans in a tin can.<\/p>\n

We only met at Puppy Picnics; the last one was at Meanwhile Gardens where he looked frailer, and talked of the various operations he had endured and was still to enjoy.<\/p>\n

I was worried about him, but he waved it away; \u201cThose scrotes with their knives will keep me alive\u201d, and then we probably talked about Kirk Brandon again. He liked the Pack did Luggy.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how the story ends. My sorrow is to not be able to sit at a ‘Puppy’ picnic again with him, but glad his pain is over at last, and he can rest in peace.<\/p>\n

When I hear The Pack, I think of Mick.<\/p>\n