Guildford Civic & The Sweet Hate of Lager.

British Rail.Hersham to Guildford stopping at Walton,Weybridge and “Paul’s” Woking.The Undertones and the Civic Hall.Skins,Mods,Futurists,New Romantics hanging near the bar.It all seems friendly enough.Punk relics the last days of Johnsons.Desert boots glued to a sticky floor.Wheezing in a haze of B&H and ‘Rotho’s’.

A chord,a second,My Perfect Cousin,jumping to Jimmy Jimmy bottles,spit raw bass.And it kicks off.Running from skinheads to the station.The big white ugly one with the fried breakfast face takes the board with the station stops;hurling it towards us.Things can get ugly in 70’s Britain.Quickly and with little,or no reason at all;holding a glance for to long.

‘Did you stare at my bird’.

‘Why are you wearing a sheepskin’.

Long before ‘Tribes and Scribes’;you had to know how to run.Snap,bone click-blood pouring onto the parka.The police station chipped cream and grey walls,interview room greetings,cynicism,statements.Watneys six pack smile in an overture of leyland blue.Ash trays full of hate.

The assailant in the room next door.We never loved you.Hersham Boys.