In the late ’70s and early 80’s, Barney St George was a young skinhead from the outer West London suburb of North Hillingdon. Travelling regularly into central London with friends, he became part of the scene around Carnaby Street. Here are some of his private photos and recollections of the skinhead scene, most of them taken in 1981. These pictures were never published before.
“I was more of a bootboy in 1977–78. I was also lucky as my mum worked in Brunel University in Uxbridge, West London and they had a thriving gig scene there. I had a ticket for the Sex Pistols but never went.
But in 1979 I saw The Specials, and one thing led to another. There was a small amount of trouble that night. We had our laces taken by security but had spares. There was a contingent of people at the back giving nazi salutes. The band gave it back, as they were a multi-cultural band, but those at the back still kept on. Me and my friends were up front on the left-hand side by the speaker stack.
The band members and crew jumped off the stage and got involved. Being only 12 or 13 I kept out of it. It didn’t last long and they were ejected from the sports hall. Heard there was trouble after outside but I managed to get backstage with the band, mostly because of the girl I was with at the time blagging her way in. I got a signed poster that night and a few tins of Red Stripe from the rider stack provided for the bands.
Then, from 1980 onwards, I was more of an Oi skin. Me and my mate Steve Perry used to travel up to London most weekends. Kings Road also, but mostly Leicester Square and Carnaby Street, and the Last Resort on a Sunday.
I have lots of memories of the skinhead days, both good and bad – and yes, there was a very dark side to it as well.
By ’83 or ’84, I was a scooter skin, and it’s been scooters for me ever since. I’m also into indie, britpop, baggy, rave – I like what I like, no real reason. I like dub and some rap as well.
Southall ’81
Southall ’81 was a local gig to me and I had been looking forward to it for weeks. The few Indians at my school had been having banter with me saying “can’t wait to see you there” and even “we are making baseball bats in woodwork”. Little did I know how bad it would get.
Before the gig a few of the local ‘big boys’ had abused the local chip shop owner and several small scuffles had happened. The police had kept us in the pub once the gig started and had tried to put a cordon over the Uxbridge Road.
The pub had windows overlooking the canal behind it and these went through (during the 4-Skins, I would like to say as they were playing ‘Chaos’ but my memory may be playing tricks). We armed up with anything to hand and came out the front to sheer havoc, burning cars and coaches, the police trying their best to keep us apart. A lot joined the police line to hold the Asians back, most were pushed back towards Hayes.
I was bitten by a police dog. The handler used a truncheon to get it off me. I and a few friends managed to split off from the main group being pushed back to Hayes train station to carry on down Uxbridge Road and home.
All hell broke loose when I got home as my parents had seen me on the news and thought I was at Greenford Hall for a disco.
The West End
The scene I got into was via my mate from school Steve Perry. He was a year below me and when he moved up to senior school we were both short-haired herberts, and he said go down Carnaby on a Saturday and The Last Resort. I also had friends two to five years older than me that went to gigs and sometimes got dragged along.
When I first started going on a Saturday daytime I got to know many people quickly, not all good. There was an undercurrent of street kids on drugs and glue, and the street kids being abused, but as a whole most were only on daytrips there and around my age, mini mods and a few older, but most were 18 or under.
The Leicester Square mob were more the street kids and a mixture of punks and skins. These were more the drugs end of people and congregated round Centre Point on Shaftesbury Avenue, where there was a doss house for runaways and the information point in Piccadilly Station.
The one person who stands out in my memories is Tuinal Sally, along with Barry (Flowers in Your Dustbin), Taffy, a much older skin who I didn’t get on with, Nicky Crane, who was a bike courier and well known, and Bonner, who was ok unless out of it.
Also, the dealers would be on certain corners at set times, so they would meet up then. There was also an underground toilet called the ‘meat rack’, which some used to mug punters at night. Plenty of seedy goings-on. There was also a begging spot near the fire station on the edge of Soho. There was a badge shop just off Piccadilly that used to sell glue-sniffing kits. That made the Sunday papers, along with the kind of right-wing badges he sold. It was run by a Jewish man, if I remember correctly.
One bloke, Eli, was murdered on the way home from the Anti Nowehere League gig at the Lyceum, but he was a nasty bloke. That gig was the beginning uf UK 82/Skunx type gigs, trying to get a bit of unity. We got quizzed about the serial killer Dennis Nilsen as he was about at the time. Once I saw saw a bunch of Chinese chase down a man and chop him in the middle of the road…
Carnaby Street
The flea market in Carnaby, where the skins were, was Marlborough Court, which is 36 Carnaby Street now. It was redeveloped and all gone now. I was a frequent visitor most Saturdays in ’80–’84. I’d also go to mod club The Beat Route in nearby 17 Greek Street. I was one of the only skins in there, at the under-18s events on Saturdays at dinner time.
This is the record stall at the top of the yellow stairs in the indoor market in Marlborough Court, off Carnaby Street. It’s where the skins hung out. We always just called it the flea market.
It had several entrances and side stairs off Carnaby Street, so you didn’t have to use the yellow stairs if you wanted to dodge the skins. The back entrance was in Foubert’s Place.
Most of the trouble came from street runaways, taxing everyone they could get away with – anyone younger or smaller.
The bloke was in a stop smoking advert that was on telly around that time. I remember the film crew in Carnaby.
By 1981 I was getting on with the mods as well, meeting up in one of several cafes, not Chubbies as too much hassle, but there were several back streets or one of the two at the other end of Carnaby Street or just off. This came about as I knew a few from the 2 Tone times.
These two pics were shot at the cafe downstairs from the flea market, half way down in what’s a shoe shop now. Cross road off Ganton Street, opposite Sherry’s Shoes when it was on the corner, Underground market.
Even then there was a divide between traditional skins and Oi boys, but I somehow managed to straddle both. I was going to see The Last Resort and getting gig details from the shop. On the mod side, I was doing Ilford all-dayers and The Beat Route, as well as gigs at the Notre Dame Hall just off Leicester Square. Notre Dame was in the basement of a Catholic church and held gigs and discos from the late 60s onward, including the Sex Pistols in 1976. They also held some northern soul dos which I attended, and there was always trouble afterwards.
One Saturday, a load of scooters turned up at the top of Carnaby Street. Their riders were from up north and dressed like skinheads, but were ‘scooter boys’. This really confused the skins who used to hang around and led to the biggest ruck I witnessed down there. Imagine 30-plus running riot through the flea market, the main drag, and the back streets.
Gigs at the Walmer Castle
I went to Oi gigs at the Walmer Castle in South London about six times, always The Last Resort and The Elite, sometimes Combat 84. But the best Oi band for me was The Business, so much so I done one of my scooters after their song ‘Suburban Rebels’.
We used to meet up at Carnaby and get the number 12 bus from town [Oxford Circus] to just outside the Walmer Castle on Peckham Road.
This is The Elite playing at the Walmer Castle. The Last Resort also played that night, and I also saw the first ever Combat 84 gig there, when they opened for The Last Resort and The Elite at the 1981 ‘Skinhead Christmas’. I’m not sure if what you see in the photos was from that night, though. The three bands played together several times – I used to have flyers for different nights.
I was there to see The Last Resort mostly and was very impressed by Combat 84. The Elite were also good, with a strong line-up of songs which got the crowd going. The stand-out thing about the band was the Indian guitarist, though I’m sure he never had any trouble when playing.
[The Pagan Altar stencil on the refers to the Brockley, South London-based NWOBM/doom metal act of the same name, who would supplement their income by renting out their equipment – Editor]
It is so long ago that I can’t remember any of the songs, but it’s a real shame none, to my knowledge, were ever released, save on a five-song demo that is impossible to find. I remember hearing it played on Sundays down the Resort, so I know it’s out there somewhere. [Please get in touch with us if you have it – Editor] But if, as is said, some went on to play in Skrewdriver, it’s probably in the RAC archives, if any were kept. I never saw any for sale back in the day.
Speaking of Skrewdriver, I went to the ‘Back with a Bang’ gig at the 100 Club and walked out halfway through to go and see The Business at Hammersmith the same night instead. Too much politics, not enough singing. In fact, they were only about three songs in when they started recruiting for a march…
Here’s more pics of kids at the Walmer Castle, all taken the same night.
Years later I found out the pub was run by a boxing family that was local to me, the Finnigans.
In the photo below in the centre, that’s my local mate from school, Steve Perry. I’m not sure about the other two.
This was a time when I would know about one third of the people in there, but I always had to leave 20 minutes before the end so I could catch the train at Elephant and Castle and get last Baker Street train home. Never had any trouble but sometimes heard that the locals in the estate opposite ‘came over’.
Below is a mod at the Walmer Castle gig. His brother was a skin. I think they were from Paddington/Kilburn way.
Walmer Castle gigs I went to were always fairly packed, about 150, in the back room of the pub and accessed via a separate door on the side of the pub. Costs were minimal, about £1.50 I think, with two or three bands on. Most of the people knew each other and were mostly from South London. They were a mix of people but often right-wing leaning, or apolitical, or just didn’t care, as you could tell by the T-shirts some wore. There was a small crew that went there, some of whom I knew from the Resort. They were SHOC, Skinheads of Camberwell. Some of them had ‘South London KKK’ T-shirts, and one of them was a mixed-race skin called Martin, who had a large ghost tattoo on his chest. I believe most of them squatted together around New Cross at one time.
As far as I know, the KKK thing was just a T-shirt. I dimly remember talking to them about having an American link to the KKK, and a charter from America to use it, with membership cards and everything, but that may just have been bullshit. Who knows, I didn’t want in anyway.
Next up is Bonner before he had the face tattoos done and Inch, who was Grogger’s missus.
Football, Combat 84 and scooters
Combat 84 were a good few years older than me and moved in different circles, mostly football with Chris. Chubby lived in Chelsea, may have stayed that way too. I didn’t hang around with them, just met them a few times, John more than Chris. My local mates were Chelsea, so I knew of Headhunters early on. But they were the ‘big boys’, three to five years older than me – plus I wasn’t really into football.
I would say Combat 84 were kind of rocking the scooter skin look: combat boots and MA-1 or sheepskin. Chris and John both had scooters, I think. The scooterboy look was similar to theirs, but also had influences from mod, Dexys, punk, psychobilly all mixed up. A cult that couldn’t be pinned down to any particular look.
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I only done one football match, Chelsea v Brighton in a coach from our local pub organised by a friend called JP. They robbed an offie on the way down, smashed a pub up just outside Brighton, had at least five arrested at the game and done the same offie on the way home. The whole coach was arrested, including the driver and his wife, and we spent a good few hours in the nick before we were all let go in the early hours.
By 1982 I was still going down Carnaby Street, but the scene was changing. A lot of mods had progressed to scooters and I had managed to acquire an SX200 Lambretta, still not legal, but doing it up for when I turned 17 (only for the L plate laws to change). I was doing the Sheperd’s Bush Hotel mod nights and pushing their smart dress policy to the limit. There was a lot of crossover with the scooters and northern soul scene, like the 100 Club all-nighters.
Angelic Upstarts
These are all pics from an Angelic Upstarts gig at the Feltham Football Club. It was later than most of the others. Could be the one at Feltham on 4 March 1983. Probably was, it was definitely after ’82, as I had already left school.
I don’t remember that much from the gig, it’s so far back in my memories. I went on my own and I recall bumping into some old friends from Carnaby Street and the Resort that I hadn’t seen for a long time. It was a highly charged night.
By 1983/1984 I had drifted away from Carnaby Street and into the scooter scene. I would pop down every now and again but missed all the B & H years, but it was going that way for some time.
A few of the old guard were still going then, but I would just say hello and not really know them anymore as I got older and wiser and tried to keep distance.
All photos and text (except intro): Barney St George
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Creases Like Knives 