This evening I spent a nice time with an old friend called Kev Stables. He was one of the first punks I saw in Carlisle. I was leaving school walking home via Caldewgate bridges and he was in front of me wearing a leather jacket with a beautiful piece of artwork of The Clash painted on the back of it. I was into The Clash at the time and I could not help notice it. I later met him and I found out that he had done the artwork himself. He had also painted jackets for other people, one that turned up at the Christmas on Earth Festival in Leeds…they got around.
Talking to Kev made me realize that people got into punk for different reasons, for me it was being in bands and writing music… it inspired me to do it, but for other is was the music itself and going to see bands, or it was the clothes, people got into punk with different perspectives too.

Kev had seen the UK Subs in 1979 at Wigton! A lot of punks had descended on the small town and when the plain clothes policeman (undercover) arrested someone for having a pig’s head, the punks all marched down on mass, to the police station to get him out! On this occasion the Wigton boys stayed away.
His first single was by the Boomtown Rats, and he was into The Ruts in a big way, with “Society” being his favourite track. As long as I have known Kev he has always been a big Clash fan, he has a collection of their records, CDs, books, etc. collected from all over the world, you mention it he has probably got it.
We got chatting about the gigs, and although he was at most of them (local as well as visiting bands) he was never in any of the photos.
A serious lover of music, he taught himself the guitar recently and has become good at it…played in his first band last year and it shows it is never too late to start, I hope he does not stop. In a way this feeling of “do it for yourself” has been latent in him until recently…not he is playing music as he always wanted too. Good luck to him.

Another friend called “Ste” lent me a lot of photos tonight too. They were of The Red Aligatorz, The Afterbirths, Dole Cheques and some friends such as PH, Kate, Ellie, all who had been in bands. I hope to scan some of them and include them in the pages. Many thanks to Kev and Ste.