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- Herausgeber: Randale Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Autobiographie of Beef guitarist of LAST RESORT. "The book tells stories from his formative years as a skinhead, his love of Chelsea FC and his life as a punk rock guitarist!" 272 pages and a lot of cool pictures...
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Seitenzahl: 551
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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In Loving Memory Of.
I would like to dedicate this book to three of my good friends who are no longer with us. They are: Rebecca Jane Parkhouse, who died of cancer in 2012 at the Royal Marsden hospital in London. Berky was only 40 years of age and was a very close friend.
Ramon Whittaker who died after a long battle against cancer. Ramon was my partner in crime, following our beloved Chelsea all over the country.
Tony Pelligrini, who took his own life. Tony played for our local pool team for years, he was a true gent and one of the best.
God bless them all. R.I.P. XXX
Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Kein Teil des Buches darf vervielfältigt, auf Datenträger gespeichert oder übertragen werden, weder als Fotokopie noch auf Band, in elektronischer, mechanischer oder jedweder anderer Form, ohne vorherige schriftliche Genehmigung des jeweiligen Rechteinhabers.
Copyright der englischsprachigen Ausgabe © 2013 Randale BooksAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
Design by: Nathan Eighty Pictures: Gemma Eggle and Muhamad FaaezchaosIntroduction!
I wrote this book about different stories in my life. It wasn’t meant to be like a biography, just about events that happened while I was growing up. I was born in Redruth in Cornwall, way down in the West Country. Don’t worry I didn’t live there long enough to pick up that accent “oooohhh aaarrrhhh!” Redruth is near Culdrose, where my father was based in the Royal Navy. My mother and father met in their teens in the Royal Navy, where my father was a Chief Petty Officer working as an engineer on helicopters. When he finally finished in the Navy, we moved to Broadstairs where my Dad became an engineer working on the Hovercrafts at Pegwell Bay, in Ramsgate, Kent. When the Hovercrafts came to an end at Ramsgate, he ended up being the engineering manager for another Hovercraft firm further down the coast in Dover, also in Kent.
My mother was in the Wrens when she left school and grew up in a place called Feltham in Middlesex. My mother would often tell me stories about houses in her street being bombed in the war and how they had to hide in air raid shelters to survive! (How scary is that?)
My father’s family came from a place called Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire, which apparently is one of the most haunted places in the UK. My dad’s brother Pete used to tell me all about the different ghost stories that happened in and around that area.
I am the baby of the family; I have a brother called Michael and a sister Catherine, who’s married to Alan. They have three daughters; Rachel, Zoe and Victoria who live in a village near Kings Lynn in Norfolk. Alan is a sergeant in the RAF and ironically, like my Mum and Dad, met my sister in the forces. Cathy was a dental nurse throughout her career in the forces, whereas my brother Michael is an electrician who works in and around Thanet, where we live. Michael has worked as an electrician since he left school and served an apprenticeship as a sparky. He also has a girlfriend who lives in South Dakota in the United States, whose name is Lori.
I suppose I would have to be the black sheep of our family, I never got any qualifications at school as I was always bunking off. In fact for the last two years of school I went and done work experience in a local garage instead.
I was always in and out of trouble in one way or another back in my youth. I suppose my misspent youth was down to who I’d hang around with all those years ago. Some of my mates at school were skinheads who were into the likes of football, punk and Oi music. I’d never have dreamed back then that I would’ve ended up playing guitar for punk bands like the Anti-Nowhere League and the Last Resort, bands that came along in the early eighties after I left school. I ended up playing all over the world with these two bands and still do today.
My other love back in the eighties was going to football to see my beloved Chelsea. I’d find myself travelling all over the country to away games with the Chelsea mob, who’d sometimes cause all sorts of havoc up and down the country. These were great days and sometimes days I just want to forget. Chelsea are flying high now and have just recently won the ‘double’, winning the League and FA Cup. I’d never have dreamed of Chelsea winning anything like that back in the eighties, I would sometimes wonder if we would ever get back into Division One, let alone win the League.
When I was a skinhead before the football days, my mates and I would often find ourselves involved in all sorts of trouble when the Bank Holidays came around. Even when we were innocently fishing we’d seem to get caught up in trouble down and around Margate. Some of my mates were punks, hippies, bikers and just other normal ones that weren’t into anything. Nowadays, I don’t know what the youth of today is all about, some like to make holes in their ears as big as a ten pence piece, but I suppose it’s no worse than getting a tattoo on ya head like some of the skinheads back in my day, eh?
Originally I was only gonna write a book about football events but felt there were loads of books about hooligans and I wasn’t really one anyway. There are also a couple of chapters about how I learnt to play the guitar and bands that I’ve played in. Not to mention a log of the Last Resort tours of Europe in 2009 and Asia in 2012. But first, were off to Margate!!
Chapter 1: Down to Maragate!
So I live in a town called Broadstairs, which is right next to the seaside town of Margate. Margate is famous for being a holiday resort, with its lovely beach and a fun park called Dreamland, which everyone would flock to on Bank holiday Mondays back in my youth.
Over the years Margate has seen all sorts of cultures visit the seaside town. There’d be Londoners on weekend beanos who were out on the piss looking for trouble, with the locals entertaining them once they were all tanked up as the day went on. You’d also get invasions from the likes of the Mods, Rockers, Teds, Punks and of course the best till last, the Skinheads, who to me out of all of them had to be the most feared. They really did look a nasty bunch of thugs with their shaved heads, boots and braces. Some of these Skinheads even had tattoos on their heads that would read something like ‘Made in England’. Marvellous, eh?
One fine, glorious Bank Holiday Monday back in the late seventies, I was down good old Margate (probably trying to scam some money from the fruit machines in the arcades) when I looked out to sea and saw that the Old Bill had a mob of Skinheads lined up on the beach, waiting for a Black Maria to take them away to the cells for the day. I think it was the August Bank Holiday. The seafront and beach was absolutely heaving with people who probably hadn’t anticipated this invasion of evil baldies. This was quite early in the morning so there was going to be a hell of a lot more Skinheads and Punks arriving throughout the day. This particular group of Skins obviously got impatient and started the aggro off early. I suppose with the Skinheads it was a case of ‘It didn’t matter’ whose brains got bashed in and it seemed to me that there wasn’t any particular rival for the Skinheads, unlike the Mods and Rockers whose history goes back to the sixties.
Years later in the present day I was talking to this chappie as I was at work taxi driving one night. I was taking him down to Walmer in Kent and told him that I was writing a book about football, bands and some of my experiences with the invasions of different gangs coming down to Margate back in my youth. He said that he remembered it well too and that he was a Sergeant at Margate police station all those years ago, back in the sixties. He said it was “Absolute chaos!” He went on to tell me about the Mods setting fire to deckchairs on the beach and then the Rockers would make an assault on the beach from the other end of the seafront, in an attempt to attack the Mods. He said it was quite hair raising stuff trying to keep law and order back then. I said “So, is that why you moved away from Margate and down to Walmer then?” and he just laughed. My first experience with the Skinheads was a bit like the Sergeants with the Mods and Rockers. I overheard someone saying that “The Skinheads had just battered a load of punks in the amusement arcade down on the seafront.” My mate Ashley and I went to check it out. While we walked through the arcades playing the odd machine and looking for signs of the action, we noticed a mark of blood on the wall behind this fruit machine in the corner of the building. It must have been from the trouble earlier. This blood stain was like someone had washed their hair in blood and then splattered their head against the wall behind the machine. My mate Ashley, who himself was a bit of a Skin just stood there looking at it in amazement but, to be honest, I was more interested in who their next victims were going to be, hopefully it wouldn’t be us!
Later that day we walked up to Dreamland, to the fun park area. Dreamland is like a great big empty car park nowadays, I hope the council eventfully gets the fun fair up and running again. No one comes to Margate anymore; it looks like it’s had the life sucked out of it. But back then as we got to Dreamland, there was another much bigger mob of Skinheads booting in the windows of a boozer called the Bar El Toro! Is that Spanish? Anyway, the windows caved in and all the Skinheads just fled as another Black Maria screeched to a halt at the scene. Weird! To this day I still don’t know who the Skinheads were after in that boozer but like I said previously, I didn’t think it mattered to the Skinheads who they done over, anyone would do. As everybody dispersed in different directions, there on the floor was a screaming Skinhead lying in a pool of blood, with a few loyal mates trying to help him out. He must have caught his leg on the glass as he’d obviously been one at the front, kicking the windows in. This bloke had a great big gash on the back of his leg. As soon as the Old Bill got close the loyal ones hit the high road. There was only one place the injured Skin was going and that was to hospital!
Later that day, I don’t know how but I think a load of brave locals that seemed like soul boys, had mobbed up along the seafront. There was easily a couple of hundred by now. We watched from near the train station as the soul boy mob chased a by now, depleted group of Skinheads (of which half had probably been nicked anyway) along the seafront. Then would you Adam and Eve it, the very last skinhead on his toes hobbling for his life was the same bloke who gashed his leg open earlier. But 10 out of 10 for bravery! Well, not quite because he was still trying to run away but fair play to him, at least he came back. He must’ve been on glue or some other drugs, or even more likely the anesthetic hadn’t worn off (drugs! Nah, give him a chance, eh?), to’ve come back with his injury. My mate and I were absolutely pissing ourselves laughing at the hobbling fool as he was trying to get away. Hopefully he survived the day to tell the tale, or maybe the angry soul boy mob was in stitches like us and didn’t have the heart to kick him in. We’ll never know. We hoped he might have even been Knighted or got some sort of award for bravery from the Queen but I doubt it, bless him.
After that day me and my other mate, Mickey Boy Meaker, (you guessed it!) went and got a couple grade 2’s at the local barbers and became Skinheads. After all, most of my mates were. I have to say I still remember that day, we came out of the barbers with our shaved heads and I felt such a buzz, like I could take on the world and couldn’t wait till the next Bank Holiday to join the Skins that would invade Margate. I did have other mates at school who were already Skins back in the day, they were already into Oi music, especially my mate Clive, he seemed to be into it right from the off. Clive also loved West Ham and the Cockney Rejects but his favorite band was the Angelic Upstarts. I discovered those bands a bit later on. My favorite bands back then were bands like the Ruts, UK Subs and, of course, the Sex Pistols. It was at this time when I first got into playing the guitar. Who’d have thought that years later I’d be playing guitar for the Anti-Nowhere League and the Last Resort, alongside all those famous Punk and Oi bands at different festivals around the world.
The next August Bank Holiday Monday came around and, armed with my with my new look of cropped hair, braces and oxblood Doc Martins, headed off to Margate. The only thing that was wrong was that a few of my older sister’s girl friends said “Isn’t he cute with his new haircut.” It did my head in a bit, I felt like I could hear the drone of spitfire engines like in the Battle of Britain when they come crashing to the ground, it’s called being shot down in flames… “Fantastic!” I thought to myself, I’m supposed to look hard, mean and menacing not cute. The other worrying thing that also played on my mind was the fact that my mate Mickey Boy Meaker conveniently couldn’t come to Margate that day. I think he must’ve told his mum where he was going and she wasn’t having any of it. Then just to add fuel to the fire, when we got off the train and headed for the seafront there wasn’t one bloody Skinhead in sight. ‘Outstanding!’ I thought to myself, this is when I discovered the word paranoia (without the drugs, I was a good boy then) and I felt like the whole of Margate was looking at me as if I was scum, granny’s ‘n’ all. To look back at it now donkeys years later and think, I’m not bloody surprised you thick idiot, the amount of chaos and damage the Skins had caused the last time they came down to Margate, it’s hardly surprising is it? What did you expect; a street party or bloody carnival as you got off the train?
We made our way to the seafront where we eventually found a small group of Skinheads, mostly younger ones but nothing like the mob who were down the Bank Holiday before. Bearing in mind the Skinheads could have gone to Brighton or even Southend or somewhere like that. We started chatting to a small crowd of Skinheads that were having a few cans of lager by the clock tower. They said that they heard that all the Skinheads were meeting in Ramsgate this time and that they were heading for the train station. So Ashley and I made our way to the train station to venture off to Ramsgate.
There was a lot more Skinheads already on the platform and I could sense that there was going to be trouble. Some of them were really pissed up and getting quite loud. The train pulled in and on we piled, about eighty Skinheads all in all. On the journey to Ramsgate seats, headrests, bog rolls, you name it, everything was going out of the window, because the window used to open right up and you could open the door while you were moving along on those old trains. I’m surprised the guard and ticket collector didn’t join the bits and pieces that were getting slung out of the train but at least no one set fire to the train like they did at football. And as for the guards and ticket collectors, I bet they were probably hiding somewhere anyway.
One day a teenager was leaning out of the window of the train, I specifically remember this because my mates and I were on the train coming back to Broadstairs. About a mile from Broadstairs station the train had stopped, someone had pulled the emergency chain that stops the train. This poor teenager had leant out the window and smashed his head on the tunnel entrance as the train went through. He didn’t survive his head injuries. What a waste. Nowadays the trains have completely changed and people can’t open the windows or doors anymore while the train’s moving.
We arrived at Ramsgate station and I was really surprised that the Old Bill weren’t there to greet us, obviously because of the damage the Skins had done on the train, I thought they’d be there for sure. Maybe because people didn’t have mobile phones back then and there was no way of letting the police know what was going on, well not on the train anyway. We got to Ramsgate seafront and made our way to the Pleasurama amusement arcade. The Pleasurama was a bit like a smaller version of Dreamland without the big rides. I always remember that smoke smell from the Bumper Cars and the Shooting Ducks. Shooting Ducks was fun but you only used to win a poxy teddy bear (I wanted a car). I think the smell on the Bumper Cars was from the sparks at the top of that pole on the back of the cars, or the smoke from the guns.
Things started to get a bit fiery as the afternoon wore on, there’d been other smaller groups of Skinheads down the seafront getting drunk, and suddenly a massive mob formed. Everyone was chanting “Skinheads Skinheads” and then everyone started running, which really threw me as I couldn’t see for the life of me why we were running. Then out of the blue everyone was singing, like the football chant “You’re gonna get your fuckin’ ‘eds kicked in” - you know the one. Again I was baffled; there was no one there, only a couple of blokes fishing, surely they weren’t going to do them. Luckily they didn’t.
The Old Bill had arrived in their droves by now and had obviously done their homework. They’d blocked either end of the seafront, so the only way to escape was in the sea. I don’t think anyone fancied that. A few of us started to leg it to the steps that went up the cliff. Obviously we knew the steps were there because we were locals and I’d nearly fallen off the cliffs round that area before when a few mates and I had climbed up them. Unfortunately, the police knew the area too; they were already at the top of the cliff with dogs and meat wagons to take us away. Marvelous! “You’re nicked!”
I don’t know how many of the other Skins escaped, I should imagine some did. If they’d split up and stayed around the arcades they probably wouldn’t have got nicked. We tried to leg it and did get nicked. Oh dear, how was I going to explain this one to my Dad?!
Down to Margate cop shop was the order of the day, down to Fort Hill Police station where the police were going to read us our rights and the riot act. Luckily this time it was just the riot act and then the usual scenario (according to the other Skinheads) was that we were going to be locked up for the rest of the day. Now you could imagine, the police had a bit of a problem because there was far too many of us to fit in the cells and there just wouldn’t be enough room. So they locked us in this big courtyard, like a one big happy family. We could hear shouting coming from the proper cells, these must have been the real naughty boys!!
Hours past and we eventually got let out, but not all at once. Looking back I was quite grateful we didn’t get taken to court. I think they thought we were just kids and they just wanted us off the street, because no one got hurt (only the train) at the end of the day.
Bank Holidays seemed to change after those Skinhead days. The next pair of invaders to invade our Margate was the revival of the Mods and Rockers, just like in Quadrophenia. I wonder if anyone ever shot those targets on their backs??!!
Chapter 2: Night Fishing
Night fishing! Right before you start to think “Oh for fucks sake, I hope he isn’t gonna start going on about fishing, it’s boring!” or, “I can’t go night fishing anyway my wife won’t let me!”, or, “he’s gonna start cracking on about what’s the best bait for cod!” No me ol’ sausage, I’m not…. Well maybe a bit.
This is a story about two rival gangs; the Mods and Rockers. Hang on a minute! Look, come to think of it there are some people out there who would like to hear about fishing. Do you remember that programme many moons ago called ‘Out of Town?’ Yeah, the old geezer with the pipe? Smashing fella! It was about country life, in the way of horses, blacksmiths, fishing, farriers…. farriers?? I know what ya’ thinking! What the dickens is a Farrier? Well let me explain. A Farrier is the geezer who goes round changing horse’s shoes. Now you thought it was the blacksmith, didn’t ya’? You see, there’s a lot more to me than just a guitarist/ex-football lout/taxi driver, eh! I used to watch this programme every week as a kid and I really did love fishing, but if those credits went up after I’d waited all week to watch it and there hadn’t been a bit about fishing, I’d get the right hump.
This particular Bank Holiday Weekend me and the lads (about eight of us) decided to go all night fishing for eels off a place called Kingsgate, right next to Broadstairs. We’d actually fish off the top of the cliffs. This was a bit dangerous, especially at night because it was quite a drop from the cliff top; around about eighty feet. But it was a good spot. The only bad thing was a lot of the eels used to get off the hook before they reached the cliff top. If the eel did stay on, by the time you reeled it out the water, up the cliff to the top, the dead weight of it felt like you had caught a whale.
Kingsgate is a lovely little posh area, you’ve got nice big Kingsgate castle, North Foreland golf course and a boozer called The Captain Digby. There was a pathway that ran from the road, past the boozer and all the way round the cliff top. There was also a fence to stop you going over to the cliffs edge, so we would climb over the fence onto a plateau, were we’d fish.
We never bothered to go in the boozer as we didn’t need to drink, we were too busy fishing. LIAR!! LIAR!! Alright we had our own mini pub with us, a right cocktail of piss, anything from Watneys Party Seven to Babycham (SICK). The problem with the Party Seven was that once it was open you had to drink the lot, otherwise it’d go flat. It’s called Party Seven because….. You got it in one; it had seven pints in it. Funny that! You don’t have to be Einstein to figure that out, do ya? I bet drink drivers would try and pull the wool over the coppers eyes when they were being pulled over for drunk driving and say something like “Honestly officer, I’ve only had the ONE CAN so I can’t be over the limit.” It was a popular choice and value for money (for all you reduced item shoppers or bargain hunters out there). Scotsmac! I wonder who invented that? I think it could have actually caused long term damage to ones brain if over indulged. We also had cans of Double Diamond and last but not least, a personal favorite of mine, Olde English Cider - marvelous, classic.
Once upon a time when I was at a party, I drank a whole bottle of that piss water cider Olde English. This was also a milestone for me ‘cos it was the very first time I got drunk. All I can remember was waking up with my head in a bowl of puke. Bloody marvelous! The bowl was nearly full of brown liquid that really stank and, just to top it off, there were loads of peanuts bobbing about in the froth. Ever since that day, just the slightest whiff of that cider would make me wanna chuck. It should have been banned, or kept for those tractor drivers, way down in the West Country. Did you know that up in the real world we have Auto Trader, and down in the West Country they have Tractor Trader? How funny’s that? We saw a copy of it in a shop in Bodmin Moor when I was working down there in the summertime not so long ago. So here’s a little footie tune for all you scrumpy drinking tractor drivers of the West Country!! OOoh!!AAArrhhh!!!
To the tune of “supa cala frajerlistic”
I can’t read and I can’t write
But I can drive a tractor
I’m a Bristol City fan and
I’m a fuckin’ wanker!!!!
Come on farmer Giles, it’s only a bit of banter!!! I’ll have to thank the Millwall boys for that one. I never went to either of the Bristol clubs back in my football days.
Back to the fishing, hooray!! Right, so we don’t need a boozer ‘cos we’ve got our own. I had a motorbike back then but I wasn’t a so called Biker or Rocker, I just had a bike. It was a Suzuki GT185 and for a relatively small bike it went like shit off a shovel. We’d been fishing for a few hours when Bog Rat and Woz (two of my mates) decided they needed to go to the shop (to get some puff, wink! wink!) and the only way to get it was on my bike. ‘Cos there was no way I was going; I was too busy concentrating on my fishing and that was that. So good ol’ me let them use my bike. After all it was the only bike, all the others had bikes but left them at home so they could be dropped off with the tents, sleeping bags, stoves, alcohol, wood for the fire and all the other camping goodies we needed.
To me, there was always a strange feeling of anxiety whenever you lent someone your motorbike. Thoughts and questions would run through my head like… ‘I bet they’ve come off?’, or ‘Am I imagining it or have they been ages?’, or ‘They’ve been pulled by the pigs and ain’t got no insurance?’, or ‘I bet they thrash the bollocks out of it once they’re out of sight!’. On this occasion, they really had been ages and I was really getting paranoid. It really seemed like hours, then phew! Sigh of relief and all that. I saw a headlight coming down the hill towards the pub and then I could hear the engine. Yeah! That’s my bike! The only problem was it wasn’t slowing down to turn off to where we were fishing. Terrific! Closely following behind was another headlight, followed by another headlight, then more headlights, then a hundred headlights and then seemed like THOUSANDS OF BLEEDIN HEADLIGHTS! It was the Mods! And they looked like they only had two goals in mind; my mates and my bike! The good news was the quick thinking of Bog Rat, to which we were all extremely grateful, was not to drive to where we were fishing but to carry on out of sight - what a very cunning move. They would’ve kicked the shit out of all of us, fishing or not. Bog Rat must have known that there was no way in a million years those poxy Lambretta’s or Vespa’s would catch my Suzuki rocket, so happy days!
About half an hour had past and there hadn’t been any sight or sound from them, or my bike. My ‘Bothered Ohmeter’ was going crazy. The Mods were still buzzing around up and down the road, although not as many now. We’d turned our fishing lights off by now too, and put out the fire and just sat there waiting in anticipation. Suddenly, two figures came running out from the mist and light from the road like Batman and Robin. It was Bog Rat and Woz! Their exact words were, and please excuse my French, “YOU CUNT, your bloody bike ran out of petrol.” Now I’m quite good at making up excuses and I was gonna hit them with “Well if I’d known you were doing time trials for the 24 hour Le Mans, I would ‘av put some more in it” but I really couldn’t believe that it had run out, I totally forgot! In all fairness to them, and let’s face it, at least we didn’t get a kicking, and yes, Le Mans is a car race.
We’d heard that there was going to be an invasion of Mods this Bank Holiday weekend and, I’ll give credit where credit’s due, there was about 800 of them which made our Skinhead firm look pathetic. We never had any intention of going looking for them down Margate.
Now where the hell’s my bike? They said that they’d abandoned it about a mile up the road, in some bushes, just round a corner by the golf course. Well my imagination was running riot as to what, by now, my bike was gonna look like. I had visions of it being stamped on, jumped on, set fire to and then dumped off the cliff! We had to play a waiting game. Well I did it was my bike, they all had lifts home in the morning.
This wasn’t the only unfortunate bit of bad luck to happen to me that night either. While we were fishing my line had got snagged on the edge of a rock shelf in the sea. I really had a strong line on my fishing reel so it must have been the weight that was stuck, ‘cos the hook would have straightened out under the pressure of the rod. Anyway my mate Geoff said “Give it ‘ere, let me ‘av a go”, so I let him. He gave it an almighty great yank and my rod shattered into about ten pieces - bloody marvelous. I shouted out rather sarcastically “Is there anything else anybody needs to break, nick or smash-up of mine, you can have the keys to the house! Go on, get in there and do some damage.” It was plain to see, I WAS NONE TOO PLEASED!
In the morning I took the walk of doom to try and find my bike. God knows where it was! I walked slowly, fearing the worst. It really was a bad night, we were lucky not to get a right hammering from the Mods. My mates had really pushed it with them, calling them all the names under the sun knowing full well that they were gonna get away and escape on my bike. I could just imagine my bike looking like one of those cars at the breakers yard that had been crushed into a little square block. I kept walking nearer to the so called location where my bike had been left. Left to be fed to the lions more like. As I got closer to the bushes, I could see a part of an exhaust pipe sticking out of the undergrowth. I composed myself and took a deep breath. I noticed it was still in the shape of a bike as I drew nearer, there was some hope. I picked it up and put it on its stand. Everything seemed intact. No new dents, no pipes pulled off, the tyres were still pumped up, the only thing missing was the keys. Result!
But now I had to push it home and it really was a long way to my house, and even if I’d put petrol in it I still didn’t have the keys.
That long walk home was a scary one; I was thinking it would be just my luck if that enormous great gang of Mods came along the road as I was pushing my bike and kick ten bells of shit out of me.
About a hundred yards to go ‘till the finishing line, my house and I could hear the noise of engines, you can’t mistake that hairdryer sound. It was a couple of Mods and, just like Bog Rat and Woz, it sounded like they weren’t stopping for nothing. Then low and behold, following behind them was a big group of Greasy Bikers. What happened after that only they’ll know. I really hoped that little group of Mods didn’t get it, ‘cos I felt I’d got away with it with them. I would’ve taken the walk home over the smashed up bike any day. Cheers Mods!!
LONG LIVE THE WHO!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 3: Close Encouters!
This little Close Encounter of the Greebo kind is a story about Bikers, Hells Angels, Rockers or Greebo’s, whatever you wanna call ‘em. This was also a Bank Holiday weekend when the Mods and Rockers invaded our beloved Margate.
Thistimewewerefishing…Fishing? You were fishing in the last chapter! I know! You see even fishing is a dangerous sport on Bank Holidays. All sorts of people ride bikes for whatever reason they do, it could be for work, hobby, touring or just a way of life. But to me there was always something sinister about the Hells Angels. There are all sorts of Hells Angels groups or gangs and these were called Chapters. The Hells Angels all have their colours and logos on their backs to show what Chapter they’re from, like a football team has its different shirt colours, otherwise it would get confusing. When I used to play guitar for the Anti-Nowhere League, Animal, the singer, had previously been in a gang of Hells Angels called The Chosen Few and apparently, they were a much respected Chapter, in other words you didn’t wanna fuck with them! I actually played a few shows with the Anti-Nowhere League at some of these biker bashes where there was a vast number of Hells Angel present. Thank god we were their guests, eh? Phew! There used to be stories many moons ago about gangs of Hells Angels having serious tear ups down in the New Forest. I remember people being shot dead on this one occasion; it was on the news, this was way back when I was a kid. This close encounter with the Hells Angels happened when we were fishing, only this time we were in Ramsgate. Ramsgate is the next main town to Broadstairs, obviously the opposite way from Margate. I thought Ramsgate was a right dump back then, a bit like what Margate is now. Nowadays Ramsgate seems to have turned around, though there aren’t so many scum bags wanting to punch ya head in anymore, the trend seems to have moved to Margate seafront. I used to hate drinking in Ramsgate back in my younger days because of that reason. I felt like I was always looking over my shoulder. You can safely sit outside a lovely little bar and stare at the marvelous harbour. It’s a bit like being on holiday down in the French Riviera now! Well, not quite! We were fishing off the West Pier at Ramsgate Harbour on this particular occasion. It was quite a still night and we hadn’t caught anything; in fact the fishing was shit. Afew of the lads were quite content just getting stoned. I never really got into smoking that gear, maybe it’s because I had a bad experience with it when I was back at school. I was actually on day release from school at the Thanet Technical College. Anyway a couple of these so called quieter ones back then were like a couple of hippy geezers, with fairly short hair, probably because they were at school and their parents wouldn’t let ‘em ‘av long hair. One had an afghan sheepskin coat thingy that stank of that hippie Patchouli oil. The other one was a bit of a rocker/metaller; he had a cut down denim jacket with loads of metal band patches on it, you know, like Black Sabbath, Genesis, and other hippy rock bands like them. When I was in a Mechanical Engineering class one day I sneaked out the back door of the class just for the hell of it, for no particular reason. While I was outside, these two hippie geezers were having a blast on a spliff, joint, reefer, call it what you want. Obviously because I was a bit new to this behavior I ignorantly said “Paw mate! What the fuck is that stink?” They replied “Its oil man.” Ok! But that didn’t mean anything to me. I’d heard of puff, weed and grass but never oil. It may be called something else now. Even to this day I’ve only come across oil a couple of times since. Anyway with this oil, you spread it across the rizla paper (unlike puff that you burn, then crumble into the tobacco), sprinkle in the tobacco, roll it up and there you have an oil spliff. So I stood there and chatted to them, and he offered me the joint. I thought, fuck it! I’ll have a go! I was game! Hmm, BIG MISTAKE! I proceeded back to the engineering workshop where I’d been working. As soon as I got back in there I had this sickening, strange feeling like my brains had been sucked out. I was totally off my trolley. Obviously this was a new experience for me; I’d never smoked that shit before. PURPLE FUCKIN’ HAZE MAN! I was out of my god damn nut! I walked carefully over to my lathe and for the life of me didn’t know what I was doing. I stood in front of my lathe and tried to compose myself, looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was looking. I was paranoid (Ahhh, bless) I turned the lathe on and got a great big smack in the ribs. I’d forgotten to take the chuck key out of the chuck. I was dazed. Oh well, I was anyway! The teacher came rushing over to see if I was alright. “I’m fine sir” I said and carried on working on my tap wrench. It was lucky it didn’t hit me in the face or worse, hit someone ELSE! Anyway I carried on, feeling really spaced out from the joint, and tried to laugh about my lucky escape from a serious injury. I carried on working. As I was turning the handle on my lathe I looked over and noticed something rather odd. This hadn’t got anything to do with the drugs. I noticed that the bloke in front of me wasn’t turning his handle at all; in fact it was running on like an automatic setting. Flash Git! ‘Turning’ is also known as cutting the steel rod to the right diameter in engineering, that’s what we were doing. I said “Err mate, how do you get your machine to run like that on automatic?” He wisely stopped his machine and came over to where I was working. Wicked, he’s going to show me. He showed me how to set it up and went back to his work. This is great, it’s doing it on its own, so I turned round and started talking to the bloke behind me (a load of bollocks probably). Then…. I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT MY MACHINE! Ooopppsss! I was that stoned. There was a great big clanking sound. The tool that cuts the metal rod had cut past my work and was clanking into the chuck. Fuck! The teacher was there in a flash to hit the emergency stop button. He was none too pleased and told me to leave the class. Wanker! I thought! But he was right, it was me who was the wanker. I should’ve gone home after the joint ‘cos it blew me away. My nightmare still wasn’t over. As I was leaving the class, I showed some defiance by throwing a metal scriber, which is like a metal pencil that has a sharp point on it to mark the steel you’re working on. I threw it at the work bench but to my horror it didn’t stick in, it bounced off the bench and hit my classmate Mick in the face. He screamed like something out of a horror movie! It went something like this…... AAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHH! Then fell down and rolled around the floor holding his face by his eye. By now the stoned feeling was starting to wear off. I was really in for it. As the teacher and the whole bloody class crowded round to help him on the floor, he pulled his hands away from his face and was laughing hysterically. I didn’t know whether to kiss him or punch his head in, I really thought I’d had his eye out. Can you imagine the guilt I would have carried with me for the rest of my life? He done me up like a right kipper but I was so glad he was alright. What a relief! But that wasn’t the end of it, the teacher kicked him out too because he never saw me throw the scriber. All of these three incidents happened in the space of about ten minutes. The lecturer didn’t see the funny side of it at all; I mean I could hardly say “Sorry sir, but I’ve just had a go on a spliff outside”, could I? That nightmare day must have put me off puff for life. I’ve never really smoked it since and don’t really want to, if I have to be honest. Back to the fishing…. We’d been fishing for a few hours and nothing much was happening. It was quite a boring nights fishing to be totally honest. It must’ve been about 11.30, just before midnight. As I looked inland from the end of the pier, right in the distance coming down the hill was a never ending procession of motorbike headlights. We’d already seen a group of Hells Angels earlier in Broadstairs. We were standing in the High Street just minding our own business when the big group of Hells Angels flew past us looking like something out of Mad Max (even though that film wasn’t out then). You get my drift, they were horrible. As they passed us my mate Bob bellowed out “GOT THE TIME MATE?” They all stopped about fifty yards away and one of the Greebo’s turned around and was heading back towards us. Bob was one of those blokes who had a really big gob, it was really embarrassing sometimes; he was just a bit too loud. We all looked at him with a “YOU DICKHEAD!” expression on our faces. Why the hell did he do that? Our day was just getting better and better, they all turned round and were heading back towards us. Hooray! Terrific! Looks like the undertakers are going to ‘av their hands full for the next couple of hours. The first Greebo pulled to a halt, got off his bike, walked over to us, rolled up his sleeve, said in a posh English accent “It’s 5 and 20 past 3 old chap”, got back on his bike and drove off, with all of them following. We all looked at each other totally bewildered; we thought we were gonna die. But that afternoon was still nothing as scary as down on the pier at Ramsgate. We could see the lights coming down the hill. We could see and hear that they were bikes, it was pretty obvious. Because they were miles away and we were on the end of the long pier, we started shouting abuse at them, knowing full well they could never hear us or probably even see us, for that matter, they were riding their bikes and miles away. One after the other they poured down the hill to the roundabout, where we expected them (hoped) to go straight over… They didn’t. “Oh well, they’re going back the way they came” I said (we hoped) “up the hill.” They didn’t. They were riding along the Marina to the Western under Cliff, toward Pegwell Bay. That’s where the Hoverport is. This road also joins the road that runs up along the long pier. But there’s no way they would be coming up the pier (we prayed). The headlights of the bikes disappeared as they went out of sight (because of a long building at the foot of the pier). Had they carried on or were they coming up the pier? This wait was like the earth had stood still. All the time I was trying to kid myself with positive thoughts like; ‘They couldn’t have heard us!’, or ‘They couldn’t have seen us!’. Then someone remarked “I bet they think we’re the Mods.” That comment made me feel a million times better (not). As if by magic, they appeared again, HOORAY! And guess where they were heading? You got it in one, along the Pier towards us. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! No one was laughing. Luckily for us we did have a few options; 1) Swim, 2) Swim or 3) Swim. Now I hated that freezing cold sea water but it was better than dying and we’d still probably get thrown in the drink anyway. It’s quite a long pier and they were going really slow. I’d say that there was about eighty of the stinking Greebo’s. “They’ll stop in a minute” someone said… Nah! They didn’t. I looked down at the water over the edge of the Pier, then back at them. They were at about the half way stage of the Pier when my mate blurted out “Pretend you’ve got a bite or something”. I still laugh about that comment now (only because I lived to tell the tale), he was nearly in tears bless him. But I didn’t laugh back then. What was he thinking? That maybe they wanted to see if we had caught anything? Or perhaps there might have been some keen fisherman amongst them and they might generously let us catch our last fish before they killed us? The only fishing they’d know was probably harpooning salmon or trout through the shallow rivers so they didn’t have to get off their bikes. These Hells Angel guys have been known to kill each other in the past, so they’re not gonna bat an eyelid at the thought of killing us. They STOPPED! about fifty yards away and turned off their engines. I couldn’t even hear them talking. There was a deathly silence, it was really spooky. They started walking towards us and as they got into the light of the next lamppost we could see them a lot more clearly. Some of them were taking their crash helmets off, others looked like they were tooled up (FUCK); we just held our fishing rods and prayed. I could almost feel the heat from them as they got closer and closer. Now I could hear them talking, they were right by us about twenty yards away. I had yet another look down at the drink, if this was to be my last I wasn’t gonna leave the plunge of doom any longer! I had one final look at them and to my amazement, THEY STOPPED! They were just standing there about ten feet away. I looked back at them again and one of them looked like a bloody rat! Or even Bugs Bunny. I didn’t laugh for obvious reasons. He had the biggest BUCK teeth I’d ever seen. If I had my confidence up or was in a helicopter, I would have shouted out something like “NAHHH... WHATS UP DOC” or “WHO THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, ROLAND BLOODY RAT” but they were too close for that and way too close for comfort. They must’ve thought we were Mods or something! They turned round and were heading back to their bikes. They started putting their crash helmets back on and started their engines, revving them into oblivion. Then they rode off into the night. We were safe. Phewee, that was a close one. I really thought we were gonna have to swim for it! The funny thing was that the very next day we were walking through Ramsgate and saw a small group of bikers coming down the high street towards us. They were pretty loaded up with either a passenger or camping gear. As they drove past us we noticed that one of them was the Rat from the Pier, with his massive buck teeth hanging over the handlebars of his chopper. They were on their way, heading out of town. It’s funny that nowadays you don’t seem to get the gang invasions coming to Margate on Bank Holiday Mondays anymore. I think there are a few die hard groups of Bikers and Scooter Boys but nothing like back then. What I really mean is they’re not bashing the living daylights out of each other anymore!
Chapter 4: Bon voyage
Right! It was time a well deserved break was in order. Me and my trusty companion, Mickey Boy Meaker, were off to sail the seven seas but decided just to catch the ferry and the train to the South of France instead. After all, Southampton docks said that the Mary Rose had sunk ages ago. Getting across the water was a piece of cake for us because we only had to make our way to Ramsgate to get the Sally Line cross channel ferry to Dunkirk. This would be the first leg of our epic journey across the globe, who knows what perils lie and wait in store for us. The funny thing was we had tried this trip before and actually only ended up in Dunkirk. But this time there was no way we were coming back after two days, we were there for at least a week. We would be living on a diet of ham rolls and chips because they were the only two things we understood for food in French, perhaps some kind of phrase book might be the best option for the next time, I’ll have to bear that in mind. Armed with two bags and a tent we boarded the vessel HMS Sally. It was plain sailing now! The first leg of our journey and we were on our way. We were only an hour and a half away from mainland France. People were honking up their breakfasts on the short trip. We had our sea legs with us and there was no way we were gonna puke. We landed in Dunkirk and had to kill some time before we headed off to the train station. We bumped into these lads from Crystal Palace who had come over for the day on a bit of a beano. We got chatting to them about football and stuff like that, and then went our separate ways. Mickey Boy and I decided have a customary little look around the shops. Football fashion back then had really started to take off, with designer labels like Armani, Sergio Tachinni, Fila and Lacoste. We scoured the shops to see if we could find any clobber. I really used to like the Lacoste stuff, especially that little green crocodile they had as their emblem. We found a little sports shop and went in to have a look round. This shop had loads of Lacoste polo-shirts, so Mickey Boy decided he was going to try and steal one. He cunningly picked up two at the same time so the shop attendant only thought he had the one but, being English, I think they were suspicious about us right from the moment we went in. We couldn’t speak a word of French and they couldn’t speak a word of English. He was in the changing room for ages and the shop attendant was on him. The shop attendant kept saying things in French to Mickey Boy, trying to hurry him up I think and he’d reply “Fuck Off!” While all of this was going on I found myself standing there on my own, there wasn’t any eyes watching me at all. So I pushed my bag under the T-shirt rack and pretended to look through the T-shirts. I un-hooked one of the polo-shirts and lets it slip into my bag on the floor, glancing at the shop attendant to see if he’d noticed…. He hadn’t. I dragged my bag out from underneath the T-shirt rack and zipped it back up, Bobs your uncle! Mickey Boy came out of the changing room and handed the two shirts back to the shop attendant. Then we made our way out the shop. I asked to Mickey Boy as we were walking along the road “Did you get anything Mick?” and he replied “Nah I couldn’t, the bloke was on me all of the time”. I told him that I’d got one, then took it out of the bag and showed him. Not to be outdone (because he really wanted one) we went to the nearest department store in the town and went to the sports section that was on the second floor. This was a totally different scenario and there were shop attendants everywhere. But Mickey Boy just had to have one. I had said to him how I’d un-hooked the polo-shirt and let it drop into my bag on the floor, back in the other shop. So he tried the same tactic, only this time when he unhooked the polo-shirt and let it drop, it fell over the banister onto the escalator below. The next thing we knew one of the shop attendants came round the corner with this Lacoste polo shirt with a dirty, great, grease mark down it from where it’d got wedged at the top of the escalator. All of the shop attendants started to gather around us so we decided to make a run for it down the stairs. The alarm bells were going off and one of the women shop attendants started screaming and spraying CS gas at us as we pegged it down the stairs. We got to the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves in this warehouse. Coming towards us was a security guard, so I knocked him over with my bag, and then we ran off out of an exit and escaped! Mickey Boy never did get his shirt that day. On another occasion this new football fashion trend had found me and three of my buddy’s traipsing around the streets of London looking for some quality clobber. In our little posse for the day was Mickey Boy, Matt, Pete and me of course. We all worked at the radiator factory and Matt’s Dad worked with my Dad on the Hovercrafts. Matt lives with his wife Natasha in Florida now and Pete is a psychiatric nurse round our way in Thanet (I think). Matt is a West Ham fan and Pete was Arsenal.... Oh yeah, and Mick was Leeds. This football fashion was all the rage back then. I did have a few mates who already had the smart casual clothes, especially my mate, Russ Miller. He had a £150 Armani jumper and all the other posh names that were around at the time. In fact, Russ was the first person I’d seen wearing a Stone Island jumper. They’re two a penny nowadays but not back then. You can buy all sorts of crap snide clothes on Ebay nowadays and no one seems to give a toss if it’s real or not, but it wasn’t like that in the eighties. So my three buddies and I were out trying to find ourselves a new garment to bring back home to show off to everyone. I really thought I was the bollocks whenever I got something new that cost a bit of dough and you could guarantee, nine times out of ten, there wasn’t gonna be a geezer in the pub with the same bit of clobber as you, unlike if you shopped at Burtons or somewhere like that.
