Remembering Punk and My First Spam

I was 15 in 1976 when my rural North West town started to hear about Punk Rock. In fact I don't remember it as Punk Rock, but New Wave (was that later?). The first record that seemed different as I remember it was "Do Anything You Wanna Do" by Eddie and the Hot Rods. It had energy anyway. The first nw record I bought was a double A-side by the Stranglers called "London Lady / Get a Grip on Yourself". The stuff I listened to was The Jam, The Ramones, The Clash, Elvis Costello and The Damned. I wasn't really an angry punk, more a fun punk, but I thought The Clash were great - they talked about making their own clothes and they had a reggae track on their album. I listened to a lot of this stuff on John Peel's show some time around midnight, in bed with a transistor radio next to my ear so my brother in the top bunk wouldn't hear. Peel played that kind of music mixed with Ivor Cutler's stories called "Scenes From a Scottish Living Room". I remember one about a bird called Fremsley (if you've never heard Ivor Cutler, give the linked site above a go, it's worth a listen). The Peel Show was a strange and wonderful mixture.

It was sometime around then that I picked up a Disco 45. I'd not looked at one for a long time since I used to get them when I was around 10 (I wrote about that here. Disco 45 was an awful magazine, consisting of the lyrics of top 40 hits. I bought it every week). I'm not usually good at remembering dates, but I remember I did a project at school which consisted of copying the lyrics of songs from Disco 45. I don't know what the project was supposed to be - poetry? I was shocked when Mr. Brown thought my efforts were not that great! I did concede to myself that the the T-Rex hit "Deborah" was perhaps not the right choice - it went something like:

Dug and redug redug, dug and redug redug
naah naah naah naah naah naah naah
Deborah, you look like a Zeborah
naah naah naah naah naah naah naah
Dug and redug redug, dug and redug redug

...and so on. I wrote down the whole thing concientiously and Mr Brown must have wondered if I was on drugs (he wasn't very hip man). Perhaps I could have chosen a better example by Marc Bolan (he and Micky Finn, who played the bongoes, were T-Rex), but anyway, that was when I loved Disco 45. The time I'm talking about now was about 5 years later, so I think I would have been slightly embarassed by it - it was very uncool. I don't know how I came across it but I was interested in the competition inside. Disco 45 was probably one of the opposites of Punk (there were several opposites of Punk and pappy Top 40 pop songs as a bunch were one). The editor said he wanted people to write in on a postcard what they thought about Punk and the winner would get an album (see how things have changed? I was excited at the prospect of winning an album!) I sent a letter and a few weeks later he phoned our house and asked to talk to me. He said I'd won and would it be OK for him to put my address in the magazine so that people could write to me (heh, see how things have changed? Put my address in a magazine?!)

So I started getting letters from girls who found my address in the next Disco 45. I never wondered why I didn't get any letters from boys, but then I did get one from a boy / man / bloke, I never worked out his age, but his letter certainly stood out and I've still got it. It was my first spam, before email was invented. I can't scan it because it's faded now, and I don't want to write it all down (as you'll see). Difficult to know what to leave out here, but all the square brackets and *** are mine (as if my skinhead penpal would use square brackets). Anyway, knock yourselves out:

TO THE F***** IDIOTIC C***, [my name] WHAT A SHIT NAME.
NOW LISTEN ERE MOUSH I
REALLY HATE PUNK ROCK
WE GO PUNK BASHING UP LONDON EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT AND IF
YOU COME DOWN TO THE ROXY AT COVENT GARDEN WHICH IS A
SPUNK POCKERS CLUB I'LL
[offers to modify my looks] LIKE WE
DONE LAST FRIDAY TO A
C*** WITH GREEN HAIR. WE
WEST HAM SKINHEADS AND
WE'RE F***** RULE EVERYONE
MATE ESPICIALLY PUNK
ROCKERS WHO WE REALLY
HATE. YOU ARE DIRTY, SMELLY
F****** C**** AND IT'S A
WELL KNOWN FACK THAT ALL
PUNK ROCKERS ARE QUEERS
AND YOU MUST BE WITH A
NAME LIKE THAT YOU F*****
SNOB C***. I'M GONNA DRIVE
UP TO [my home town] ONE DAY
AND WAIT FOR YOU AND
[various graphic details] THEN
WHEN YOUR DEAD I'LL PISS
ON YOU AND KICK SHIT
OUT OF YOU AND ANY OTHER
PUNK THAT WE SEE
SKINS RULE AND DON'T
YOU FORGET IT C***
I'LL DO 10 PUNKS TOMMOROW
REALLY BAD AND
I'LL BE THING OF YOU. BY THE
WAY ALL PUNK GIRLS ARE
F***** OLD SLAGS AS WELL.
6 OF US [you don't want to read this bit]
COS SHE WAS A PUNK SLUT
ANYWAY ONE DAY I'M
COMING UP YOUR PLACE
WITH THE BOYS. SO START
SHITTING YOURSELF MATE,
AND REMEMBER
SKINHEADS RULE OK
AND KILL ALL PUNKS
PAKIS AND TEDS
WEST HAM
YOU CAN'T HELP IT
IF YOU YOU SMELL