by Lydon, John
The English Literature teacher there in particular was great – loved her. Really proper analysis of poetry and the written word. Even Samuel Pepys’ diaries, we’d have a poke at that occasionally. Just loved it. Behind the scenes, I’d be reading everything and anything. Chaotically. Probably the same way I approached music – ‘I like the colour of that electric-blue book!’
I loved Ted Hughes. That was fun. Years later I had a conversation about him with Pete Townshend from the Who, because he wrote the intro – in German! – to a Ted Hughes anthology. Wow! Ted Hughes’ poetry was just great. The first one that pops to mind was a poem called ‘Thrush’, as in the bird. No, not that bird, a bird. It was great stuff at that level, great stuff for kids of sixteen, seventeen, to be reading. It seems quite complicated and confusing, but as you grow older you realize that that’s quite a childish level. Small steps get you there in the end – don’t rush into Polish philosophy straight away!
Dostoyevsky: there’s another hard one at an early age – you can’t quite get to grips with the sheer audacity of the size of it. Crime and Punishment, yes, but Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina I kind of disliked. And I had no tolerance at all for them bloody Jane Eyre-type novels. That’s Barbara Cartland territory to me, I can’t relate to it, can’t empathize with the self-pitying woman having to deal with a man’s world. It’s Presbyterian, that’s the word. Everybody’s so overly nice in it, and the cruelties are so exaggerated as to be cartoonish, so I have no time for it.
Oscar Wilde I found outrageously funny. Way ahead of the game, that fella, and wouldn’t be ground down, and led what was a very dangerous lifestyle at that time. Not delving too much into exactly what it was he was doing, because there are no hardcore details, but it was the fact that he mocked the class he came from so well; he got at all the faults that were there. He was really criticizing himself at the same time, and I liked that, I learned from that. We’re not perfect. And if I’m approaching things in my working-class way, I’m damn well sure I’m going to be mentioning all the negatives along with that. And there are many.
Sid went to Kingsway too, and within a week or two, I’d met another John – John Wardle, whom Sid named Jah Wobble one night when he was so pissed he couldn’t talk properly. The three of us were all problem children, for very different reasons. One way or the other, we didn’t fit into the system, and I don’t suppose many people can or do. The system I think should be adjustable to us, and our tastes and needs. If you’re not meeting our expectations, then you’re going to get these oppositional scenarios.
Wobble, again, was hilarious. He looked so weird, a little warped. He was trying to affect a tough-boy look but it didn’t quite work on him. He looked more like someone’s dad out of World War Two days, with the hanky on the head and the braces. And a big Tottenham scarf, and a big grin on his face. Hilarious, but a chap full of malcontent.
He lived near that Krays pub, the Blind Beggar in Whitechapel. The first time I went down there, I said, ‘But don’t you know that’s an Arsenal pub!’ We never rowed about football – there wasn’t the need for that. We had much bigger rows with everybody else. I had other mates, like Dave Crowe from William of York, who were Tottenham. Of course there’s always been a big rivalry been Arsenal and Tottenham, but it wasn’t like something you’d resent each other for, because we had other things going on. I’m not going to want to kill someone over a game of football. And I emphasize the word ‘game’. And seeing as I’m not specifically playing or in the team, I have to remove myself from the brawling. Although I have enjoyed a good football brawl from time to time. Sid of course was indifferent, anyway.
I never really discovered what Wobble’s curriculum was. I don’t think we ever sat down and discussed our lessons. He was someone else to hang out with at lunch breaks. You had a group of people to communicate with, and of course we were all on the outside of things. Wobble couldn’t understand Sid, and I’m the unification, how we all knew each other. Sid, me, Wobble – and there were a few others, like John Gray – we didn’t really look like we belonged in this environment at all.
We were all viewed as potential-for-violence people. We understood that, because a friend of ours broke into the files at the college, and they had on file that Wobble, Sid and I had a propensity towards fighting. Now, we didn’t. What we had was a questioning propensity, and then if you talked shit to us, you’d get beaten up. We were in this ridiculous fiasco. It was utter nonsense, the accusations and misunderstandings of what we were and came from – that led us into being violent. Wobble genuinely wasn’t, originally. He wanted to achieve, and he was pushed and presumed by the system. He was Stepney, Sid was Hackney, I’m Finsbury Park. It’s basically the same manor, it really is, with variations on a theme. The problem being that the school system adjudged us as unteachable, uneducation-able.
Wobble was gone in six months – bored. He’d had enough. But he was my best mate, and stayed that way for a while. Do you know why? Because he stood up for Tottenham. He believed it, as ridiculous as it is. And I have no doubt, he believed me, as ridiculous as my Arsenal is. We were forming terra-firma gangs, outside of the regular discipline. That’s good roots to punk, mate.
I was a diligent student, but about what mattered to me. And again the authoritarian encumbrance of times and lessons was not very helpful to me in the long run. Or the short run. After about a year I got so mindlessly bored with it. It just wasn’t moving quick enough, and there wasn’t enough to occupy the head.
I was still working on the side, so I was bringing money in. I had all manner of jobs – I’d take anything that was going. Mainly, I worked on the building sites – Dad got me jobs there for a while. I loved that, the money was fantastic.
On the sites, it was hard having to deal with the threatening behaviour of the Paddies. They were definitely always trying to enforce a pecking order, which I would have none of. ‘Ye need ti knoaw yer place!’ ‘No, I fucking don’t!’ I resented being given a shovel and told to dig a hole. That was not fun for me. What fascinated me on a building site was working with the site engineers, and designers, because it meant I could look at the technical drawings, and I loved all of that. I didn’t mind going out measuring the landscape.
Dad loved his cranes, loved them. He could talk up a storm on cranes of all kinds. He loved any heavy goods vehicle with a jib on it. That was his fantasy. He just loved being in control of machinery, and he was very good at it. Manipulating cranes and moving things about, very excellent, pinpoint accuracy. The workers on the site really loved him for that, because if he was delivering the bales of concrete, you knew it would go exactly where it was wanted. There could be some awful mishaps. I’ve seen people seriously injured with that stuff. If the crane driver wasn’t up to it, there’d be bodies knocked off.
Dad taught me a lot about how to control the cranes. He’d just shut me in the cabin, and – ‘Get on with it!’ The noise alone would terrify me. There was no such thing as ear muffs in them days, and those machines could kick up a noise – solid cast iron, everything. Everything cold and freezing and hateful. I couldn’t make out why he loved this. It wasn’t at all my thing.
If I was misfiring on the pedal, he’d slam his foot down on top of my foot, and that would hurt like hell. I suppose it had to be done, but Jesus Christ, the technicalities of trying to operate two legs and two arms, and making them all do different things at the same time, was just beyond my reach.
One time, he broke my ankle with a shovel. Yep. I was actually in bed watching Mystery and Imagination, and he told me not to watch horror shows, because they give you bad dreams, so he slammed the shovel on the bed, and that’s where my foot was, although he didn’t realize that till it was too late. I don’t remember much, like how my mum reacted, just the pain. My ankle’s been a problem ever since. If it gets in any way cold or damp, oh boy, does that ache. I’ve had a form of arthritis from it ever since. It’s just one of those annoying things that don’t go away.
It’s like when I dislocated my shoulder; it was not for any good reason at all, but I was too lazy stretching out in bed for a glass of milk – I love milk, you see, I drink it all night long, so I always have a glass next to the bed, but I could not be bothered to actually move my body, and so I kind of twisted my whole arm, and dislocated my shoulder. So: hunchback, dislocated shoulder, shattered ankle. . . Now I can’t move like a suave Mediterranean, and my life’s fucked.
Long hair had worn itself out for me. It was just a nuisance. It was a good thing to have on the building sites, because the old-aged Paddies hated it. Long hair made you a magnet for coppers. But then, because that was the case, many thugs wanted long hair. Long hair meant many things. For some it meant, ‘Peace, man, I wanna look like Jesus, and here’s my couch slippers.’ For others, it was a full-on aggressive act, like, ‘Fuck you, I’m not cutting it!’
The crop, the full-on skinhead crop, was an absolute act of aggression. I think most things begin with a form of aggression, even for the most passive of hippies. Passive-aggressive was the stance. It was declaring that you don’t fit in, just let it grow out, and whatcha gonna do about it? That’s going to be the order of humanity, I think, forever and a day; we will strive to be different. By the time everybody catches on, and we find out we’re the norm, then it’s time to move on.
So I decided to have my hair cropped short and dyed green. Krazy colour was genius. It’s a shame it’s not of the same thickness and durability today as it was then. They’ve somehow watered it down, and the colours aren’t as vibrant. It’s pretty damn near next to useless unless you want to look like a faded newspaper. You know the cartoon segment that used to be in colour in rancid old newspapers? Them kind of colours – that’s all you get out of it now. Or maybe people don’t know how to bleach properly. Back then, the colours were really zingy and thrilling.
My dad seriously didn’t approve, though, and it was the final straw that got me thrown out of home. Dad’s famous quote was, ‘Get out the house, you look like a Brussels sprout!’ I never forgot him saying that. I just laughed. Even in the painful separation of child and parent, there was humour. I loved him for it, because it was witty. Up to that point, I hadn’t realized it, but it was true – I did look like a Brussels sprout.
The only way I’d ever get in the house after that was if I crept in at four in the morning. Except of course if my Auntie Pauline was over from Canada, at which point I wasn’t allowed to come near the house at all, because I was an embarrassment.
After I got kicked out, I went straight up to Hampstead, where Sid was squatting. Sid had set up the squat, so well done him. I think he had a lot of help from his mother, so he was the leader in all of that.
It turned out that his mother was a registered heroin addict. I was round at the flat in Hackney one time: we were playing Can’s Tago Mago album, and it was Sid’s birthday, which I didn’t realize beforehand, and she gave him a little bag of heroin to shoot up. I have to say, I was really shocked. Sid said to me, ‘D’ya want some?’ ‘No bloody way, I don’t go down.’ ‘Okay, it’s time for you to leave.’
So, there I was in mid-Hackney at 3 a.m., and I had to run the gang gauntlet to get back to Finsbury Park. That was a death walk, a serious death walk, particularly how I was dressing and how I was. I gave a toss for no one. I knew what was coming. Even local Arsenal boys, they’d still have a reason to row with me, just because of my attitude, and I – don’t – back – down. In them days, you get stabbed on the street, ain’t no one opening the door to help, because you’re not local. Seriously dangerous stuff, but I made it home somehow.
Anne Beverley had the most peculiar relationship with poor old Sidney. It didn’t feel like a family. She never offered me anything, not once, not even a cup of water. It was religiously true, over and over again. There were other nights when there were others from the gang-of-Johns there who’d come over to stay, and they all remarked on it too. ‘What, don’t we exist?’ ‘No, I’m afraid not.’ Strange, strange woman. She wouldn’t accept Sid having friends at all; she didn’t accept any of us. At the time, Sid’s other best mate was a guy called Vince. He said the same thing – ‘Bloody hell, that’s a house of ice.’
I told Sid, ‘You can’t live with a mum like that. Look at her, Sid, she’s giving you devilled kidneys with heroin sprinkled on top, do you really need this?’ Sid had actually been anti-drugs when I first met him, but you know what drug mothers do? It was in the food. Insane, right? She’d go, ‘Here’s your food, Sid, make sure your friend doesn’t eat any of it.’ Sid’d go, ‘Okay, Mummy’, and then we’d go into his bedroom, and he’d go, ‘Try some of this, John, what on earth’s she giving to me?’ And I’d go, ‘I’m not hungry, mate.’ So that was Sid’s inheritance.
His new abode, the squat, was round the back of Hampstead Station, so I went over there and asked, ‘Can I move in?’ and he went, ‘Great!’ He was there all on his own, with nothing to do, so now there were two of us with nothing to do. Somehow two are much better at doing nothing than one.
There was no electricity and no hot water, but the toilets flushed, so to me it wasn’t that grim – that’s what was available, and quite frankly it was of a similar standard to when I was younger and we lived in Benwell Road. But this place had an indoor toilet, so I was one up on the Richter Scale.
The whole block was squatted by old hippies and Teddy boys, and we were the flotsam and jetsam that fell into the generation gap. Squatters united many different ways of life, because squatting was essential at that time. The government were doing fuck all in terms of housing. You couldn’t get a flat anywhere, and what was available was overpriced and just not worth it. There were enormous amounts of unoccupied old housing; flats with nobody in them, nothing happening. So you weren’t depriving anyone of a place to live, you weren’t pushing out a family. They were just unoccupied and semi-derelict. There’d be the signs up front: ‘Derelict building – do not enter.’ Great, I’ll live there. In we go. That was the promotional flag!
I was on the dole for a very short time, for about two weeks. I didn’t want to be lining up in the dole office. I hated that place, didn’t want nothing to do with it. I didn’t feel I belonged there. The two times I turned up, I bitterly resented it and I swore I’d never go back there. I really didn’t like the whole format of it, or the institutionalization it entailed, or the way they make you feel somehow guilty about it all. That’s your right – you’ve worked, or your parents have worked. If the state can’t provide jobs, then what the fuck are you supposed to do? In many ways I completely understand people taking to illegal activities, because frankly there’s no other way to make any kind of money at all, or get yourself out of the dumps. For me, personally, I could never get involved with theft, I can’t do it. What’s not mine, I don’t want – that’s what Mum and Dad taught me.
Job-wise, I’d do anything, whatever I could get. One was in a shoe factory – I loved that, boxing shoes. Another was at Heal’s, the furniture store-cum-department store on Tottenham Court Road. At the top was a state-of-the-art vegetarian restaurant, and me and Sid were the cleaners.
The thing to do was to experiment with what vegetarian food was, because there’d be leftovers, you see. That was my first taste of a nut cutlet. In them days vegetarianism was a very new thing, a trendy fad for very wealthy people. And utterly tasteless. It was about colours and shapes, really, rather than any flavourful content. Very amusing. Not much to clean up, actually. A few chopped peanuts on the floor and that would be about it, but we’d make that last two hours every night, because that’s what you were paid for.
Then over the summer holidays, John Gray got me a job in a daycare centre in North London. I’d be looking after kids of seven, eight, nine, ten. I could play with the younger ones, that wasn’t a problem at all. The problem was the institution that ran these places: they didn’t like the idea of someone like me near little kids. In a world of Jimmy Savile! That’s the bitter irony of it, because I�
�d be the last person to bugger about with children, yet you’re so readily and easily labelled, and so wrongly too. People can’t see through to a man’s heart and soul, their character.
We’d make balsa-wood aeroplanes – biplanes or triple-wings. Everybody wanted to be the Red Baron, so that was the favourite one to make. I had woodworking skills, from technical drawing and woodwork at school, and also from working on the building sites. I’d double up there with the site’s carpenter, and he taught me lots.
So, instead of saws and hammers, the tools were tiny little Stanley blades and balsa wood. But the principles are the same, and kids love being involved. It’s what I loved, so that’s all you do. You want to quieten them down, you want violence to stop? Get them interested. All kids love to create, and feel like they’ve come up with something on their own, and achieved it through their own means. For instance, when any child asks you a question, do not shy off from giving them that answer, because they’ll resent you forever for not telling them. At least this one did, and will.
I realized my teachers had forced me into a caricature of myself that actually wasn’t me at all. They made me uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable anyway, just trying to deal with life, but they made me feel unwanted and resented for being there, and I of course responded to that. I don’t think any child is born like Mr Nasty or Mrs Badmouth. That comes from what you’re taught by example. And I think I’ve turned all those aspects into positives. I’m not a self-pitying, nasty piece of shit, I’m not criminally minded. Thank God, they gave me the tools: how not to be.
