Great days of early punk

I’ve been away from Shields for 30 years now and my mother always keeps the Gazettes for me so I can catch up with the times.

I was reading an article on The Angelic Upstarts, who I’ve followed from the beginning.

Anyway, I’m going back nearly 40 years when The Upstarts first kicked off.

They used to rehearse at the Percy Hudson Youth Club.

It was great to be around in the early days of the punk scene.

I was recently clearing junk out at my mother’s, as she is moving out, when I came across a poster of the Upstarts with the original line up.

This must be the earliest poster of the band before Mond and Decca joined.

I got to know the band and Mensi gave me the poster at the Percy.

The original line up was Mensi, Ski, Bri Smith, Hodge and Hal. Also Skin Brown and Oscar are on the poster, who knocked around with the band at the time and are well known characters of the town.

They went on to play Jarrow Civic Hall, which was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, the atmosphere was amazing.

I think the original band split after they played Jarrow.

They are a great band and I’ve seen them on many occasions up here and down south, but that first gig was up there with the best.

The poster brought back some great memories. Those were the days.

Mick

London