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first gig was cancelled, supposedly because of lead singer Johnny Rotten's laryngitis. It was rearranged for the following week. Rotten's first words to the audience were, 'Disappointed the other night? They told you I had a sore throat, didn't they? They were lying. There was fuck all wrong with my voice. I just couldn't be bothered playing to a load of wankers like you.' Then the band crashed into an extremely anarchic version of 'Anarchy in the UK' and the club went wild.
        Afterwards, a friend called Roy and I saw Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious swaying at the bar, pint glass in hand. Although totally wankered out of his mind, Sid continued slurping down lager, half of which spilt down his front.
        Roy said matily, 'All right, Sid!'
        Sid looked at him contemptuously without saying anything.
        Roy said, 'Can I have your autograph, mate?'
        Sid remained silent, then took a huge slurp of lager and spat it into Roy's face, adding, 'Fuck off, tosser.'
        Roy just stood there, dripping, with his mouth open. I started laughing and couldn't stop. Sid glared at Roy for a few seconds more, as if looking at a piece of shit he'd just trodden on, then shook his head and downed the rest of his pint before turning back to the bar to order another beer. To avoid another drenching, Roy walked off swiftly before it arrived. I followed, still laughing.
        I started touring the country with a punk band formed by ex-pupils of my school. I travelled in their van and acted as doorman at their gigs in pubs and clubs. Politically, punk could have gone either way. It wasn't instinctively left-wing, although the reds later co-opted it, signing it up for 'Rock Against Racism' and the like. The original punk impulse was very individualistic and anti-social. Many of the early punks wore swastikas to shock. The Sex Pistols themselves released a song called 'Belsen was a Gas' about the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, where thousands of mostly Jewish inmates were murdered. A mate of mine called Pete O'Shea formed a punk band with far-right leanings called Stench. They had one single out called 'Raspberry Cripple', which looked inhumanely at the disabled, and another called 'Nonces', which advocated the torture and murder of sex offenders.
        By the age of 18, I'd had 13 separate court appearances in which I'd been convicted of more than 20 offences. I'd received almost every one of the legal system's alternatives to incarceration. By the end of 1978, I remained under a supervision order for street robbery, I was carrying out 240 hours' community service for going equipped for theft and I was on bail for assault, theft, threatening behaviour and possessing an offensive weapon.
        I should have left it at that, really. But I became part of a criminal conspiracy to steal a blue velvet jacket with huge lapels like those worn by one of my pre-punk pop idols Marc Bolan, lead singer of the group T-Rex. Marc had died two weeks before his 30th birthday in September 1977 when his Mini left the road and smashed into a tree. I was saddened by his death and didn't approve of the tasteless joke that soon did the rounds (Q: What was Marc Bolan's last hit? A: A tree). I think I intended wearing the blue velvet jacket in tribute to my fallen hero. Bad taste isn't a criminal offence. Theft is. Store detectives caught me with the shoplifted jacket in my hand. A prison sentence now seemed inevitable - unless I could think of a dodge.
        And that's how I ended up in the army. I've written about this period in detail in my book Soldier of the Queen (2000). I signed up at a recruitment office in Wolverhampton town centre, although I had no intention of ever joining the ranks. My plan had been to wave my recruitment papers at the fearsome stipendiary magistrate who'd already said he intended imposing a custodial sentence. I hoped he'd let me off with a suspended sentence. Then I'd 'resign' from the army. At my