Art Sex Music Read online

  Me and Gen became an inseparable couple, living together as one. He’d talk about his music and described to me the birth of the COUM Transmissions project – that he’d experienced a profound out-of-body ‘vision’ whilst on a trip with his parents in Shrewsbury. He spoke of it as if he’d been chosen by a higher power. In his vision he saw the COUM symbol and heard the name ‘COUM Transmissions’ spoken to him. Full of ideas largely influenced by his time with Transmedia, he returned to Hull in late October 1969, so by the time I met him at the beginning of November, COUM was beginning to take shape with occasional collaborators John (Moses) and the mathematician Tim Poston.

  Gen had met Tim at Hull University. Tim is what I can only describe as a genius and was like a mentor to Gen. He researched and co-wrote the book Catastrophe Theory and Its Applications (still in print), among many extraordinary projects and achievements, and is now Chief Scientist at Sankhya Sutra Labs in Bangalore. He cut a strange figure back in 1969: his look was more Greek Orthodox priest than academic hippy, with his long hair and beard, and his ankle-length black gown and tall black hat. He carried a beautiful wooden staff, the full length of which he’d carved by hand into a continuous interwoven spiral which converged at the top with the yin-yang sign, above which were small horns for his thumb to hold the staff firm.

  COUM was given its own logo, designed by Gen, of a post-coital, limp, sperm-dripping penis formed from the word ‘COUM’, which I took great delight in drawing, and embroidered as ‘penee patches’ for many people. COUM performed only a few improvised acoustic musical pieces in 1969 and 1970. Auspiciously, the first-listed COUM performance had been on the night me and Gen met for the first time – November 1969’s ‘Clockwork Hot Spoiled Acid Test’ at Hull University Union. The second, ‘Thee Fabulous Mutations’, involving COUM and other Hull musicians, soon followed at St Peter’s, Anlaby, and came about through my connection with Snips.

  Gen’s health had been problematic. He told me he’d had asthma since childhood, for which he used an inhaler, and that the steroids he’d been given as a child had left him with a defunct adrenal gland. As a consequence he needed to take a daily dose of the steroid prednisone, without which, he said, he’d been told he could die. But he also said that the only time his adrenal gland worked was when he was angry, and he couldn’t always control himself. I was confused as to how a defunct gland could function at selective times, but it made a kind of sense as I’d already experienced his short fuse via the arguments we’d had. His medical condition was to stand as an explanation for any untoward behaviours and in order for me to understand (and excuse) any outbursts – which I did, for instance, when he threw my shoe at me from across the room, narrowly missing my head. I’d ducked quickly, and as calmly as possible asked for the other shoe to keep them as a pair. I understood that the subtext of his information was that I should avoid upsetting him lest I trigger either an asthma attack or rage – in which case I would be to blame … as was the case when we had a disagreement in the kitchen one day while cooking our breakfast porridge. Within seconds he had hurled the saucepan of hot bubbling oats out of the open window. It came to a sudden thunking halt as it wedged, upright, in a narrow gap between the two brick walls. It was quite comical and made me smile. Gen wasn’t amused; he added some serious drama by taking his bottle of prednisone tablets out of his pocket, holding it up in front of my face for me to see, and then tossing his ‘lifeline’ out the window. That had the desired effect. As he expected of me (after all, he saw the episode as my fault), I apologised and rushed off to the doctor’s surgery to get replacement tablets for him.

  Cooking time in the kitchen usually brought a few visitors to the window by means of the small sloping roof of the extension below. The alley at the back of the Funhouse had quite a colony of feral cats, which the fruit merchants encouraged as they were useful in keeping rats and mice away. One tortoiseshell cat in particular became a regular and we’d feed it whenever it dropped by. Then one day we found out ‘it’ was a ‘she’. We heard a kind of muffled ‘miaow’ and there she was, looking at us with a tiny kitten hanging from her mouth by the scruff of its neck. She placed it on the rooftop, stepped back and stared at us. We took it that she was leaving her kitten in our care. I leaned out the window and carefully scooped it up before it could start wandering and fall off the roof, all the time watching the mother cat to see if it was OK. She looked me in the eyes, blinked, and left. She did the same thing the next day with another of her litter. We adopted the first kitten and called him Moonshine, and Baz took the other, naming her Izzy. Moonshine was a sickly cat with canker in his ears, and, being feral, was a hissing, spitting little thing. Over the next month I got him healthy and gently coaxed him round to being handled.

  *

  Gen and some of his friends would go on shopping trips together, returning with a holdall full of books and other items all ‘liberated’ from various sources. Some were kept and others sold for extra money to live on. I went shopping with Gen and a friend one day to the food hall in Hammonds, the ‘Harrods of Hull’. When we paid and went to leave, store detectives moved in on us and escorted us to a side room. I was confused but assumed it was because of the way we were dressed – we certainly weren’t their usual clientele. But no, they asked to search our bags. I hadn’t taken anything, so handed my bag over on request without a second thought. They emptied our bags to reveal stolen food – two items were withdrawn from my bag. I was gobsmacked. My attempts to explain that the items had been dropped in there, that I hadn’t known or done anything, fell on deaf ears – I was with the guys when they did it so was regarded as their accomplice and arrested for something I hadn’t done.

  We were all taken to the Central Police Station in Queens Gardens and charged with shoplifting, to appear in court the next day. We were asked our address but gave ‘no fixed abode’. If we’d given the Ho Ho Funhouse address, the police would have gone there to search the place and we knew what they’d find: drugs in some of the rooms. As we’d declared ourselves ‘homeless’ we were put in the cells for the night. I was escorted off to the women’s section and given a cell to myself. After about an hour I heard clanking and footsteps in the corridor, then my cell door opened and I was taken to the front desk. I saw Mum, so small and sad, her eyes red from crying. She rushed over to me and held me tight in her arms. I asked her how she knew I was there. The police had rung Dad and said, ‘We have your daughter here. She’s been sleeping rough with two young men.’

  No wonder she was upset, and no doubt Dad was appalled. She’d begged him to drive her to the police station, which he agreed to. He didn’t come inside; he sat in the car and waited for her. I assured her as best I could that I was fine, that I wasn’t sleeping rough or with two men. She left feeling relatively comforted. I went back to my cell and consoled myself by singing Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez songs at the top of my voice, and finally fell asleep.

  The next morning we were taken to court. I was put in a holding cell in the court basement with my fellow inmates, all very friendly prostitutes, and we had a good chat for the hour or so we were waiting for our court appearance. Me, Gen and John were stood in the dock and pronounced guilty, fined £10 each (despite pleading poverty), and set free. The air had never smelled so good.

  *

  Pet dogs had been a constant throughout my life and, even though I was struggling to look after myself, I was overjoyed when Gen took me to the RSPCA dogs’ home to adopt a stray as a Valentine’s present. My eyes fell on a tiny little dappled-grey puppy who was silent, terrified and trembling constantly. I asked what had happened. She’d been found in the street being kicked around by children. Without hesitation I said I would take her. I called her Tremble. I made her a beige leather collar and put a yellow satin tassel on it. She gradually settled down into a happy, mischievous pup, often escaping out the front door of the Funhouse and running me ragged trying to catch her.

  My unemployment benefit had finally come through and I receiv
ed £5 a week, which I budgeted conscientiously: £2.50 went on rent and 50p on a week’s food for Tremble and Moonshine (now called Moony). The rest was used for food and paraffin to heat my little room. We had a spartan diet, made up of a carrier bag of muesli from the health shop or cracked-wheat porridge (for breakfast); Ryvita crackers and cheese (for lunch); rice, pasta and vegetables from which we made our various hot evening meals.

  Just around the corner was Humber Street Fruit Market, a noisy, bustling distribution point where lorries collected their loads of pallets stacked with bags of fruit and vegetables – very redolent of the Covent Garden location for Hitchcock’s Frenzy. It became a helpful source of free food. We’d go round after the workers had shut up for the day and collect what fruit and veg lay on the floor from split bags; sometimes we’d cut bags ourselves that had been left out ready for the early-morning load-up.

  The trauma of the shoplifting arrest was eclipsed by something far worse just a few months later, when I discovered I was pregnant with Gen’s child.

  Gen hated and refused to wear condoms, and I foolishly went along with it. I was eighteen, with a meagre means of support, and I couldn’t go back home – pregnant or not. I’d known Gen for less than six months and neither of us expected me to get pregnant, or wanted a child yet. I was thrust into a whirlwind of emotions.

  After much talk and angst, the decision was made. I rang my friend Bridie, who by now was training to be a nurse. She came straight away to see me. She was concerned that I’d started bleeding off and on, and was worried I might lose the baby whether I went ahead with an abortion or not. She knew the procedure of applying for what she called a ‘termination’. Yes, I thought, ‘termination’ sounded far less brutal than ‘abortion’. I comforted myself and appeased my guilty conscience by using that word.

  Girls at the Funhouse had suggested various solutions to my problem – someone they knew could ‘do it’, with slippery elm or maybe quinine. I knew how risky those methods could be and decided to go to my (Catholic) family doctor, who referred me to the hospital. I was given rough, insensitive treatment during my consultations with the doctor and a psychiatrist to ‘qualify’ for a termination: ‘Why, at eighteen, do you think you couldn’t cope with raising a child? Are you backward? Why did you have sex before marriage?’ – implying I was a slut – and so on.

  Abortion had only just become legal and was frowned upon, and there was still a stigma attached to being a single mother. I remember lying there, my first ever vaginal examination, with my legs spreadeagled as the doctor probed about inside me, commenting nonchalantly, ‘Nice healthy colour.’ This all took place at the maternity hospital where I’d been born, and the route to the clinic I had to attend took me past a ward where I saw mothers with their newborns, some breastfeeding and some who were fighting to keep their unborn babies, having previously had miscarriages. I burst into tears and was about to run out of the door when the doctor said dismissively, ‘Oh, give her one, then.’

  31 March 1970

  Well I go in hospital tomorrow, I had to go and ring the hospital and see how long I’d be in. They said about 4 or 5 days because I’m …

  The sentence should have finished ‘16 weeks pregnant’. I had conceived within two months of meeting Gen.

  1 April 1970

  Was admitted into hospital today. The people are really nice, really truthfully kind. I go down for my operation tomorrow. I was shaved today, bullets and blood sample taken. Wasn’t at all bad. Gen came dead on time, then Les and Baz came to see me tonight.

  2 April 1970

  Can’t have nothing to eat or drink and I’ve been waiting since 9 to have my Pre-Med, anyway I got it about 12.43 and went down at 12.45. Got my anaesthetic in my hand (and a lovely bruise) and knew no more until 4 o’clock.

  After about four days I was discharged and I returned to the Funhouse with Gen. I felt fragile and weak. Gen did what he could to console and care for me but I wasn’t in a good state.

  John Krivine was so wonderful. He came to see me almost every day. He seemed to understand how I felt. Maybe it was because his girlfriend had a young child. One day he brought me a pristine white-and-lemon eiderdown to snuggle into. It seems such a small thing, but it comforted me so much. It made me feel clean when I felt dirty and empty.

  John didn’t actually live at the commune but he was always about, always smiling, driving around in an old black London cab with smile painted on the side in large white letters. He’d arranged with a farmer at Burton Pidsea for friends to do paid farm work. We all took turns, sharing the wealth, so to speak. Four at a time would go out there in shifts, staying rent-free in the old tied cottage, which John got for a peppercorn rent. He suggested me and Gen go there. Gen could work and it would be a change of scenery for me.

  Being in the countryside again was restorative. It was where I’d always felt at home as a child. While Gen worked in the fields I’d be with Tremble, sauntering down the country lanes to the local shop or just sitting in the fields, daydreaming and cooking meals for us. It was there at the farm that I had my first period after the termination.

  My body seemed back in sync but I was in a bereft emotional state for months. The reality of what I’d done came crashing down on me on one of our weekly visits to Mum for tea. We’d maintained our relationship despite Dad. She’d send me letters and we’d talk on the phone and visit – but only when he was at work. That particular visit we were sat in the living room, talking as usual, Gen eating his tube of Smarties that Mum always bought him. I picked up the Sunday newspaper. As I flicked through it I came across a double-page feature on abortion, with pictures of the foetus at various stages – sixteen weeks included. I was horrified to see little arms and legs; it was so well formed. A baby. I wanted to get out of there and the tears welled up, but I had to hold them back. As far as Mum knew, I’d had a miscarriage.

  *

  The Funhouse was quite a hive of activity, with some wonderful people visiting or staying for varying lengths of time. We all had alternative ways to generate much-needed extra income using our individual talents: tie-dyeing T-shirts; making hippy jewellery, accessories and clothing; and distributing countercultural ideas by selling hip magazines like International Times, Frendz and OZ. Some of our friends, like Sandy, ‘liberated’ items for resale.

  Sandy was a tall, strange, rather quiet girl who drifted slowly along in a daze, and was very distinctive with her waist-length brown hair and curious, benign smile that occasionally broke out into a gentle chuckle. She stole from the biggest stores in town, looking around the departments selectively, just picking up whatever she wanted and casually walking out with it – including large rugs rolled up under her arm. She successfully evaded arrest for so long she became convinced she was invisible – until she got caught. She lived in the same house as our friend Annie Ryan, who came from Liverpool. When we visited Annie one day, we saw Sandy with one side of her long hair scrunched up to her ear in a tangled mass of coagulated paint. She’d been decorating her room and fallen asleep, not noticing all the paint that had dripped on to her hair in the process of painting the ceiling. Everyone thought she would just cut it off, but no. It took her weeks, but she painstakingly picked at each strand of hair until it was completely free of paint.

  Annie was the opposite of Sandy; she was small, warm-hearted, bubbly and a true pleasure-seeker who electrified any room she entered. I loved it when she came to the Funhouse. She always wore long, flowing scarves and an amazing black velvet coat that was encrusted on the back with an explosion of hand-stitched sequins and rhinestones that looked like a galaxy of stars. She wore it as a souvenir inspired by one of her acid trips. Annie lived with her boyfriend, Mel, at that time. He was pretty-boy gorgeous in a Marc Bolan way, and also the first junkie I’d ever met. I remember him sitting in the armchair and me staring at him, fascinated by how his hair was moving – until I was told that the movement was ‘just’ all the head lice moving around. He was infested with them but
drug-addled-oblivious to the fact. One of the last times I saw Annie was when she came to the Funhouse one day looking shaken and dishevelled. She’d taken a lift with a guy on his motorbike and her long, flowing scarf had got caught up in the back wheel and nearly choked her as the bike went over, pulling her backwards. Someone came to her rescue, cutting off her scarf, and she escaped with just cuts and bruises. At least she survived, unlike Isadora Duncan, who met her fate in a similar way.

  A rather unwelcome and uninvited visitor to the Funhouse came along one evening when me, Gen and a friend were sitting together talking in the communal room, with Tremble sat contentedly at our feet. Suddenly Tremble’s hackles went up and she stood, turned to the doorway and started growling, low and slow. She had a fixed stare on something none of us could see, then charged at the doorway, barking furiously at her prey and chasing it down the stairs to the front door. Then we heard a loud bang as if the door had slammed shut. We were astounded and ran to the front window to see if there was anything outside. We saw a tall, unfamiliar figure dressed head to foot in black, walking slowly away from the house towards the pier. What the hell had just happened?

  *

  The Funhouse was peaceful and quiet. Nearly everyone had gone away to the Isle of Wight Festival except for me, Gen and a couple of others. We were enjoying having the building to ourselves when we suddenly heard the mighty roar of motorbikes, followed swiftly by a smashing sound as the Hells Angels broke in our front door and tore through the house, spray-painting the walls and ransacking the place. For some reason they didn’t make it as far as the top floor. When the noise subsided we guessed they’d calmed down and quietly made our way downstairs, to find they’d congregated in the communal room and were giving one of their ‘prospects’ a mouth-scrubbing with Ajax toilet cleaner.