The Retarded
An unhealthy attraction to 'A Clockwork Orange',
a 'V' for ?????, Debs with a floppy hat.
The Manor Ballroom - Punk Rock, Ipswich style.
1979/80
The Retarded story begins in late 1978, at 14 years of age. Bored with school, looking for a band, Christianity on the wane, I was friendly with some of the more interesting girls in our now co-ed school. Jackie Packwood was one such, and she thought it would be a good idea if I went to see local punk band The Adicts at Felixstowe Youth Club.
The Adicts (previously The Pinz) were the hub of the Ipswich punk scene, all of which based itself at Murrayside Youth Club, on the ever-so-slightly dangerous Nacton Estate in south-east Ipswich. Jackie's father Paul Packwood ran the youth club with a then forward-thinking liberal attitude, and did a great job of channelling youth away from violence and crime and into pool, woodwork and music. Murrayside was initially a startling place for me, coming from the middle-class safety of Constable Road - a mere Chopper's ride from the beauty of Christchurch Park, via the safe, bland uniformity of the 'Crofts' area .
I had never seen so much rampant, untamed enjoyment all in one place. Here all races and colours lived, worked, drank and played side-by-side. Reggae band Jah Warrior were the other key musical players operating out of the club; the predominantly black reggae scene and the mostly white punk scene did more than coexist, there was serious and genuine cross-over and respect between the two camps, which as it turned out was repeated all over the country.
I had never exchanged more than two words with a black man before, and when I did so at Murrayside, I learned that they didn't all look the same, they were not about to rape my sister and they couldn't all dance well (which was a particular relief to this gangly-limbed eejit). My inherent British white xenophobia melted away within a matter of weeks as I actually met and hung out with those that were previously bête-noires. Reflecting on it now, I wonder if all adolescents should be sent to places such as Murrayside, to give them the opportunity to truly grow up.
So anyway, I agreed to the Felixstowe trip, and counted the days until I needed to travel into the town centre to catch the ever-present coach-to-the-gig (well, they were ever-present in those days, anyway). When the night in question came, in a desperate attempt to fit in, I had taken white electrical tape and 'written' the name of the band on the back of my old black school blazer in it, ready to be accepted into the fold. As the bus pulled away from outside my house up in the Crofts, I realised with horror that on leaving I had grabbed the wrong jacket!!!! The one I had was (confusingly) very very dark blue, did not have 'The Adicts' on the back and worse still DID have a school badge on the breast pocket. Shit. Only one thing for it...I ripped the badge off, flung it out of the window of the trundling green thing and cursed my luck.
Four hours later, bathed in sweat amidst a writhing tangle of similarly slippery and joyous limbs, I realised that the jacket didn't matter and that I had just had an epiphany of tremendous proportions. Nothing would ever be the same again. 100-odd kids had paid their 25p to see 4 lads on stage who were exactly like them! I could do what The Adicts did, I'd watched Pete Adict's hands as he played and I knew those chords! I could do that.
Sometime soon, maybe even that night, I met Nigel Budinger (Budgie). He lived about half a mile from me and was looking for people to start a band with.
We soon set about the song-writing, me taking other punk bands' songs and playing them backwards, him just ripping them off and not even bothering to turn them round. We set about recruiting the rest of the band, ready to unleash these punk plagiarisms, rough diamonds every one.
From the top:- Spencer,
JP, Budgie.
The obvious choice for singer was Spencer Callaghan. Charismatic, full-on and occasionally in trouble with the law, what Spencer lacked in singing ability he more than made up for with volume, front and a menacing sneer. He had a nice line in self-made tee-shirts (as did we all in those days), and was uniformly respected and in places feared locally. We were lucky to get him. His down-to-earth approach balanced out mine and Budgie's middle class geekiness.
Also from the right side of the tracks were bassist Nigel (Nig) Rivers and drummer Tim Lewis. Tim's background was even posher than mine - an ivy-covered house in Woolverstone, close to the famous school where I believe his Dad was a teacher. Nig was from Claydon, wore a suit by day, and at a height of what seemed at the time to be about 6' 6", also carried off a quite alarming stage presence.
We became a semi-permanent support band for The Adicts, they encouraged us and let us use their equipment as we clung on to their coat tails around the youth clubs and pubs of East Anglia. It was great fun, and I felt very privileged to be hanging out with these older, cooler guys who even seemed to value me too! I was 15 and everyone else was 17 - 20, which was a world of difference.
Slowly we noticed that there was something wrong with the band. Occasionally, Budgie's enthusiasm would overcome him and his (incredibly short) guitar lead would extract itself from the solid state nightmare that was his amplifier. He never seemed to notice, but the rest of us soon realised that it sounded better without him. Oh dear.
As the other founder member, I was duly elected to tell him that he was to be chucked out of his own band! It's all a bit hazy now, but I think I prevaricated for days on end until he eventually got wind of it and left of his own accord. Sad times indeed.
There was no small consternation from some of the people that used to come and see us when Budgie was no longer there - after all, it wasn't supposed to be about musical ability and all that, it was about mates and having a laugh wasn't it? We got away with it and carried on to the point where we starting to challenge The Adicts for the local punk crown. They had gone on to make their first EP, 'Lunch with The Adicts', which was a blast of fresh air to the British punk scene, by now floundering and stagnant and in need of the injection of fun that The Adicts brought. Locally however, the making of a record was seen as a disgraceful sell-out by some and The Retarded were seen as the natural successors to the Real Punk mantle.
Unfortunately, we'd stopped writing new songs and changed our name to 'Dogs of War' in a vain attempt to be taken more seriously, before falling apart due to boredom, mostly on the parts of Tim and Nig. We breathed our last in Lowestoft on January 16th 1981, supporting Knox (ex-Vibrators) and The Adicts (of course). I was crestfallen at the time, but with a knee that spent about 24 hours a day swelled up like a misshapen football and a major operation on the horizon, it was probably for the best.
(L to R) JP, Nig, Spencer, Tim.
Notable Lyrics -
"Missionary" - Budgie, c.1979
I wanna be a missionary
I wanna go to a foreign country
I don't want to work for the BBC
Cos I wanna be a missionary
Music Index Bloody Fingers Cyclo-Hexane The Retarded Panorama In Black Bane As Is mk. 1 The Adicts