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1976

When I started at Salisbury Tech College in September ’76 on an O’level retake course, there was already an art college punk scene featuring Richard and Nancy, green hair, Oxfam clothes, plastic sandals, and Gareth who looked like Alex Harvey. But at this stage they were known as freaks rather than punks. Richard knew the Buzzcocks and they saw the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club punk festival; Richard and Gareth were photographed at the front of the queue and duly brought the word back to Salisbury. There was a poster up the stairs to the common room between the tech and art college advertising a trip to see the Pistols, possibly at the 100 Club or the banned Bournemouth Village gig on the ‘Anarchy’ tour? In ’76/77 the jukeboxes in the common room and the Star featured Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Freebird’/‘Sweet Home Alabama’, Genesis’ ‘Ripples’, Supertramp, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but the common room jukebox also had the Ramones’ ‘Blitzkreig Bop’, Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Count Bishops EP. The ? pub up the road from the Star had ‘Silver Machine’ by Lemmy’s Hawkwind. To be honest, at this stage I was more of a football hooligan than a punk rocker, with glam, prog and soul records, mostly Bowie. I got into punk going to college on the train from Gillingham to Salisbury with Pat Sheridan and Chris and Deb the punk hairdressers.

1977

6 March - Salisbury Tech XI v Celeb XI featuring Dave Dee, Bill Oddie, the drummer of Kenny and Rick Wakeman? This was at the time of Rick Wakeman threatening to quit A&M Records, which caused them to drop the Sex Pistols. I hacked down Andy Walton the drummer of Kenny - of ‘The Bump’ notoriety. By then ‘Sheena is a Punk Rocker’ was on the common room jukebox. Not much continued to happen in Salisbury throughout the punk period. The ’76/77 scene consisted of hanging out in the common room playing cards or going to the Star mostly, pub crawls from the college to the station, and Katz punk/vintage shop run by Nick ?, the west country Malcolm McLaren. I left college to work in Gillingham for a year. There was also a pre-Vague Salisbury art college fanzine called Unite/Ignite? being sold outside the Clash gig at Bournemouth Winter Gardens.

1978

Legs & Co opened Safeways supermarket. In September ’78 I went back to tech college to do a building studies course and started Vague fanzine with the cartoonist and local reporter Perry Harris, the Dutch poser Iggy Zevenbergen, Sharon Clarkson and Chris Johnson from the art college, Chris Nugent and Jane Austin from Mere. Iggy and Sharon lived on Nelson Road by the roundabout which was the hub of the Salisbury punk scene. In ’80 the Vague office became their next place, a house called Dunoon on Campbell Road. There was also Spanish Alf, Bournemouth Christine, the catering punks Martin Butler and Tim Aylet, the black post- punk artist Dave Somerville, Mike Muscampf - who went on to the goth group Dormannu, Simon Loveridge, and our hippy correspondent Frank Stocker. Our local was the Star and later the Cathedral, the record shops were Derek’s in the George Mall and Wilmer’s.

The scene largely consisted of going to punk gigs mostly at the Bournemouth Village Bowl, also in Bath, Bristol, Southampton and London. Inspired by Tim Aylet’s Channel 4 fanzine, post- punk and reggae – Adam and the Ants, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, the Pop Group, PIL, Slits, Rough Trade groups – in ’78/79 we continued the Salisbury fanzine tradition, launching Vague on the world. On the back cover of Vague 1, Iggy, Alf and Dave Somerville are pictured outside the common room between the tech and art colleges on Southampton Road. The first issue was designed and printed by Mark Cross? from the art college, who went on to design album sleeves. The second issue featuring ‘Salisbury Calling’ by Mike Dyer and was photocopied down Fisherton Street. Perry’s ‘Lovable Spikey Tops’ cartoons best documented the evolution of Vague and the Salisbury scene; attempting to put on gigs, avoiding bikers, teds, rockabillies, squaddies, smoothies, young farmers, etc. A truce was arranged with the Salisbury rockabillies in the Star after their American car - a Cadillac? - pulled up behind my Mini on Churchill Way and we invited them for a drink.

1979

In Vague 2 Mike Dyer wrote in his ‘Salisbury Calling’ local scene and bands round up: Salisbury is a small cathedral city 80 miles south west of London set in the heart of Wiltshire. It’s only claims to fame are the cathedral and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Entertainment in Salisbury lately must be at an all time low. Throughout the early 70s it saw gigs by the likes of David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Groundhogs, Alex Harvey, Tangerine Dream, Genesis, Budgie, to name but a few. Over the last 2 years only Adam and the Ants, XTC and the Pirates have graced us with their presence. At the moment all we have is discos and lots of pubs, which is all very well but what we want is an alternative scene, a place where bands can play regularly, a club perhaps, regular college or City Hall gigs, anything. The fact is Salisbury has its own bands, good ones at that, but nowhere for them to play. Apart from a small hall at the Rising Sun, Castle Street, and this is not really enough. There are also many bands from the Southampton, Bournemouth and Bath areas who I’m sure would ‘love’ to play Salisbury, such as Purity 16 - formerly Stalag 44 from Warminster, Sterile Androids, Program, Catch 22, etc. The area is full of music lovers of every description; people into old and new wave who would love a regular venue, if only just for a meeting place. Trouble is the local council have not had the push to cater for a younger age group nightclub. Sure there is the Gordon’s Club, Grange, Playhouse, but what about the rock’n’roll lover? Nothing. Someone in nearby Fordingbridge is trying to start a rock appreciation society. This will include rock orientated discos, films/videos plus of course a regular live act.

1980

I left college for good in July and briefly moved the Vague office to Bournemouth, as I sold issue 7, the programme on the Adam and the Ants’ ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier’ tour and started writing for Zigzag magazine. Point of View, the post Vague, more traditional punk Salisbury fanzine started in late ’80 by Kev, Luke Brignel, Simon Poffley and Chris, featured the local punk bands Kinetic NRG, Low Profile, the Strain, the Sluts and Climatized.

2007

Of the original Salisbury Vagrants, Perry and Iggy ended up in Bath, Sharon and me in Ladbroke Grove. Perry’s still doing cartoons, Iggy got into antiques and married a French aristocrat. Vague continues in the 21st century as a series of pop psychogeography books and websites.