Medway Punk...Eat me... Nigel P

Extract from....The Loners ... a book about a band...

For a week in August, I was forced to spend several wretched days in a caravan on Dartmoor in Devon; rain, thunder and even sleet at one point, forcing my family to spend most of the time cooped up together playing Monopoly; gradually succumbing to cabin fever which resulted in us returning home two days early, much to everyone's relief. I spent most of the time freezing in a tiny bunk bed, reading Stephen King'' s The Shining, which sort of said it all, really. The tribal drums of rumour had been pounding their rhythms since the gig and Penny took much delight in adding to my ignominy by telling me about yet another friend of a friend who'd been there and witnessed the debacle; finding it hilarious to see a teacher manically storming onto the stage shouting "You can all stop this at once,"" whilst we vainly carried on playing until he eventually managed to pull the plug, leading to a thundering silence, during which the only thing which could be heard was Mr Bosworth's near hysterical "You, lad! Get the hell out of my school!" which he was shrieking back stage at Bass, who simply stared back at him, hazy and numbed by alcohol. In a split second of rage, Bosworth lashed out at the boy's head, slapping him firmly across the cheek. "How bloody dare you?" Bosworth spits, before descending from the stage into the school hall and attempting to resume his composure in front of Help the Aged's Smith and Melley, who had watched the evening's unfoldings with a mixture of disbelief and horror. Bass is dazed and out of it but, surprisingly, offers no attempt to retaliate to Bosworth's blow, and instead, picks up his bass and slowly makes his way towards the back exit, just another boy with a bass guitar. Len and Lesley are already frantically packing away the drum kit in order to make their own hasty departure from the scene of the crime; Sebastian has sloped off and I'm left standing alone on stage, staring at what remains of the audience, who are looking back at me like drivers passing the scene of a particularly savage car crash. A nervous and discernibly uncomfortable Bernie Beat then attempts to save the day. "Let's hear it for The Loners," he says lamely before bunging on another ELO record. "This one's called "Turn to Stone."" How fucking apposite. As we prepared to return to school, for what many of us hoped would be our final year, I once again returned to the idea of leaving on my birthday in December but by now, a little common sense had begun to sink in. Whilst The Loners had the potential to be a great band, in my opinion, reality had taught me that we were highly unlikely to make a living out of being musicians. I needed to stay on at school to do my O Levels because there really weren't many other options out there. I certainly couldn't see myself labouring down at the dockyard or working in some crappy office somewhere. It was even said that the mighty Woods had been spotted working in a baker's in Rochester High Street and his notorious pal Webley had been seen pouring drinks behind a bar in Gillingham. Rotten was right, in Britain in 1978 there certainly was "no future" for the likes of us. So we all returned to a Bass-free school in September and I paid my dues with the series of detentions meted out to me in the few days which followed the disco. It was hard rejoining 5B, to be honest. Goodman and Furio were really supportive, however. "Loved the gig, even if the bastards did cut you short," Furio tells me at lunchtime on the first day. "Yeah. Never let them grind you down. It was WRONG what they did to Bass, man. Real wrong," Goodman adds.

Nigel P. The Loners (Kindle Locations 4224-4273). mardibooks.