My memories of The Worst are a little vague these days…. I can’t recall ever seeing The Worst, although I know they made it to London for a handful of gigs – I never went to any punk shows in Manchester… I saw a lot of Manchester bands in London from Buzzcocks, Magazine, Slaughter & The Dogs down through The Drones, V2, Passage, Fall, Joy Division, Manicured Noise etc. but if I saw The Worst it could only have been as a support act but I don’t know…. Probably I didn’t see them and they didn’t make records…

Raymond, as you no doubt know, I love power pop and think mod clobber is so much better than punk threads… And life was just as confusing for me as a teenager, a schizo split between seeing punk bands live but liking old soul records and having a load of those with me at school really into the northern scene. They’d go to Wigan and would try to get me to go with them, but I didn’t understand why they’d go all that way to hear records, so I blew my chance to go the Casino and regret that now….

The England’s Glory confusion, its like when I went looking for those hippies Bulldog Breed who sang about Austin Spare and kept finding some skinhead band.

The Bernie Rhodes incident sounds about right, and certainly true to form… but I have absolutely no memory of it happening at all. Your account also explains why I knew who’d be playing – hadn’t realised the answer was so simple. Still remember the muttering about a Sex Pistols secret gig though, but whether that is as dubious as my other recollections… who knows? I certainly wouldn’t have been at all keen on seeing The Clash, as I was finding them pretty dull fare by that point. Think the Rainbow gig had already taken place by that time, and I’d hated that.

And while I’m travelling down my (unreliably sign-posted) memory lane, do you remember The Prefects and The Worst? Two apparently long forgotten support acts I loved.

Geldof was always a creep. I remember a visit by the London Constabulary to a well-known Notting Hill punk record shop as the result, we were told, of fearless radical Bob contacting them to complain about the selling of a few copies his bloody awful debut album in advance of its release date. He should have been arrested himself for foisting that pile of ordure on the general public.

Best gig, the “Cognoscenti Orchestra”, also around the same time in 1977, perhaps earlier?. People turned up in their droves hoping it was a secret gig by the Sex Pistols. Turned out to be The Subway Sect, supported by The Slits. I was far happier with that outcome, having known the line-up in advance. The Sect played with a stage set up to feature a sofa and a standard lamp, like a suburban living room. Brilliant performance, Vic Godard was on fine form, and the guitarist (Robert Simmons?) was one of the best I’ve ever heard.