The Mirror Crack'd
You wouldn't think it of me to look at me now, would you? I used
to spit, snarl, smoke and snag my tights on purpose. My eyes were
black, my lips and cheeks were black, my fishnet tights ripped in
strategic places, were, of course, black. And all this for the
sake of a night out.
Because each new era of music and fashion
come later to the North East of England than they do in London and
the South-East, I can't claim to be one of the original punks, but
I was there, I was that punk. My friends and I aimed as hard as we
could for the Shock! Horror! Fright Night! look and we usually
scored high on the "Oh My God, will you just look at them" scale.
The thing is people were frightened by punk. They saw it as a
disease affecting their young, something that was evil and would
ultimately take their children to an early and particularly nasty
end. We, of course, loved it. We loved the music, we loved the
clothes, we loved the fact that everyone over 25 hated it. This
was ours.
My poor mother spent a most unhappy 18 months or so wondering
where her 17 year old daughter had gone to. Was that really her
hiding away under the make up, the clothes, the blackness of it
all? Curtains would twitch in my mum's neighbours houses when I'd
walk past on my way to the bus stop to meet my friends in town.
Small children would run away, dogs would whimper. There'd be a
group of us who'd meet regularly in the town centre and we'd each
have a handbag about the size of a shopping trolley - well how else
were we expected to carry around the implements to ensure we
didn't suffer that most tragic of events - floppy hair? Complete
with crimping irons, hairspray, styling mouse, styling gel, and
more hairspray we'd lug our bags around from pub to pub. Your hair
had to be the sharpest, spikiest, most frightening thing around or
you just weren't with it.
I stayed as a punk for almost 2 years before a few of us grew tired,
moved onto the New Romantic dandy
look and waited for something else to come along. I guess I'm
still waiting. I really am an old punk at heart. My record
collection will always have more Killing Joke and Cult albums than
Morrissey CD's and I still want to have "The Jean Genie" played at
my wedding.
Why am I getting so sentimental about my youth you may
ask? Well. When you're not 21 any more and music, fashion, trends
and crazes come along, you can't really identify with them. In
fact, you don't even want to. You turn on Top of the Pops and you
don't recognise anybody. You don't know who Take That are, and you
don't even care. I look at the teenagers these days and see the
things they are into, Kate Moss aspirees, drug takers, fast food
junkies, ravers. I don't understand it. I'm worried for the
safety of our nation's young. Now where have I heard that before?
Glenda Young is also the writer of the
weekly Coronation
Street Update on the net, and can be contacted at:
glenda@londonmall.co.uk
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