Teenage Kicks

I was listening to the radio the other day and The Clash 'Rock the Kasbah' came on. It took me right back to when I was about 15, at school, and the world suddenly turned dayglo. So I thought I'd blog about my memories of being a punk rocker...well, kind of.



The Sex Pistols' 'God Save the Queen' was all over the place as was their album 'Never Mind the Bollocks...it's the Sex Pistols' with its dayglo cover. It was all very exciting and me, plus the gang I was in, wanted to be part of it. At the time I was going out with a boy called Geoff, you know, usual school romance, nowt special. BUT. Yes, big but. But, what neither of us realised was that we were about to become the Sid n Nancy of the school! The cool kids that everyone wanted to be like, wanted to know where you got your stuff, records, clothes, accessories.....oh little did they know that it was all totally fake. In fact, it was our very own 'Great Rock n Roll Swindle'. Shall I get on with it?



It started with that Sex Pistols album. Someone brought it into school and we used to take turns holding it, daring the teachers to tell us to put it away, they never did. We used to go to a local youth club 3 times a week and on Wednesdays they had a disco. Suddenly the music changed from Saturday Night Fever to this loud, fast stuff that everyone jumped around to. Jeans became tighter, t-shirts blacker, hair shorter until we eventually realised that Punk Rock had arrived and we wanted in. 'Cept we were a bit too young to be real ones so had to make the best of what our Mums would let us get away with.

Geoff was quite arty and used to make his own badges. We'd spend hours at the table in his house making these badges from teeny pictures cut from mags, placed carefully on top of old smiley badges or whatever and carefully covered with cling film. But they were expertly done and looked for all the world like shop-bought ones. We had loads, on our clothes, school bags etc. And, best of all, no-one else had the badges we had! So, it was a teenage version of colouring in whilst his Mum made us bacon butties.

On Saturdays Geoff and I would go to Liverpool to a shop called Probe. It was in Button Street, just off the main drag in the city centre and it was cool hangout for real punks. We'd go there in our jeans and baseball boots and just stand and flick through the racks of records taking in all the outfits, hairdos - everything. We were actually a bit scared of the real punks cos they were so much older than us and cos they had piercings and mohicans, like the punks you saw on telly. My favourite was a girl who worked there who only ever wore black and white. She had a number 1 haircut which was dyed in a black and white checkerboard design, she had a normal length fringe which was black and a normal length pony-tail, also black. The only colour on her was her pillar-box red lips. She looked amazing. She never spoke to me, smiled at me once or twice that's all. No-one spoke to us and vice-versa except 'Scuse me. Have you got Banana Splits by the Dickies on yellow vinyl please?' And 'thank you' after being served. Hardly Sid Snot!


One Saturday I was shopping with my Mum and Dad in Wigan. We didn't shop there often and didn't really know our way round but this turned out to be fortuitous. We stumbled upon this tatty shop off the beaten track, run by a scruffy old woman. She sold old tat. These days we'd call it 'vintage'. And amongst this old tat were shoes but not just any shoes. They were proper winkle-picking-heels-as-thin-as-pencils-pointy shoes. Proper relics from the 60's that would be great for the glam punk look. I bought some with my pocket money. I also bought some dayglo pink ankle socks.....a perfect punk outfit was being created in my head. I told no-one about it except Geoff. We agreed that we should make a grand extrance at the youth club disco that coming Wednesday as by then his Mum would have finished knitting him a black mohair jumper :))



Wednesday tea-time. I was sooo excited. I was getting ready and my heart was thumping just a bit faster than usual. The Look consisted of black eye-liner - think 60's, don't think Amy Winehouse - bright red lips and short, spikey hair. Outfit: tight black skirt, black t-shirt, studded belt, black tights, pink ankle socks (come on, I was 15!) and The Shoes. I was gonna look great!
All ready, I slipped The Shoes on, just like Cinderella....and catastrophe struck. I was 15. I hadn't yet learned how to teeter in heels!!!

I practised up and down the path - why had I left it till now? Mum and Dad were stood laughing their heads off.
Dad: Put your baseball boots on. Waahaahaa.
Me: Shut up!
Mum: That's a good idea! You could take those shoes in a carrier bag. Hahahaha
Me: Ugh! I am NOT walking along with a flippin' Asda carrier bag. You could give me a lift Dad.
Dad: Hey, I've been working all day and it's only along the road. Hop along yourself. Hahaha
Me: Pleeease
Dad: Nope. You wanted them shoes, you'll have to learn to walk in them. Hooohooohooo
So off I flounced, getting my heels-as-thin-as-pencils stuck in the tarmac, wobbling like Bambi and probably looking like Dick Emery in the 'ooo you are awful but I like you' sketch. Bloody hell, that was a long walk.

I arrived at the bus-stop just before the youth club were I had arranged to meet Geoff so that we could go in together. He was already there in his hand-knitted mohair jumper and black jeans tucked into a pair of Doc Marten's. 'You look great.' 'So do you.' And in we went.

I like your shoes. Where did you get them?
Where did you get your jumper?
Have you done that make-up yourself?
Where do you get your badges from?
Did you really go to Probe?
Is that Banana Splits by The Dickies on yellow vinyl?

We were cool. And this went on every week. I bought more shoes, Geoff wore the same jumper week in, week out, we kept our badge stock replenished. The staff at Probe welcomed us as part of their in-crowd (a small white one). Checkerboard Red Lips was my New Best Friend (a big black one)....etc etc etc....who needed Sid n Nancy when there was Paula n Geoff. BUT. That word again.

I'd heard a new song. There was a new vibe on the street and I wanted in. Jazz Funk. Baggy jeans, waspy belts, music that I could dance to. "One nation was under a groove, getting down just for the funk of it". Out went the punk garb, in came the funky clobber. 'Cept Geoff was a bit of a die-hard punk and suddenly we didn't look cool together anymore. It was like, the only thing we had in common were the personas. So, I got dumped for a girl with green teeth and blackheads. No, I wasn't bitter, no.

No really, I wasn't. I went shopping with my Mum in Liverpool, found a trendy little boutique called Bus Stop, bought some red trousers with blue piping and strolled (in netted pumps, very comfy) to the youth club that week.

I like those trousers. Where did you get them?
I like your pumps.
Will you go out with me?

And my new boyfriend, Ian, said this song reminded him of me.

"Are teenage dreams so hard to beat
every time she walks down the street
Another girl in the neighbourhood
wish she was mine, she looks so good
I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night
Allright"

Yes, it was fine by me.