Krish was a skinhead. He had a number 1 crop, a checked, button down Ben Sherman, red braces, skinny 501's, 8-hole Doc Martens and a red Harrington. He used to 'do' security at a squat bar in West Hampstead, circa 1982, and always carried a sawn-off snooker cue wrapped in gaffer tape ("so it don't splinter when I 'it people wiv it") while on duty. Some Saturday nights Krish would bring his best mate Alf along to help out. Alf wore a tonic suit, white shirt, skinny black wool tie and monkey boots. Sometimes she'd wear a trilby hat, but after it got stamped flat at a Meteors gig where she and Krish were supposed to be minding our PA stack, she'd taken to only wearing it when off duty.
Krish was from a wealthy Cypriot family who were desperate to get him back home from the squat he shared with Alf and three women who wanted to set up an anarchist brothel, in Brixton. Can't think why, but Krish's parents kept trying to get him certified insane, so he told us. They'd offered him money, a holiday, a new car, anything if he'd give up Alf and return home and settle down to a life as an accountant. At least, that was how he explained the wads of cash he'd sometimes turn up with and hand out as if £10 notes were Bensons.
Krish loved it at the squat bar in NW6. The music we played was a mixture of proper old soul, pure punk, post-punk, funk and reggae, all of which he said he loved, and would spend most of the night dancing to as he swigged Tennents Super, speeding off his head on blues (which we'd trade, 2 for a beer). Most nights, in order to get it together Krish would toke on a joint as it made its way round the 'staff', usually some time after 2am.
When the pubs closed the bar—which was once a Turkish restaurant—would fill up with the local and not so local punks, musicians, jokers and tokers (though hippies were thoroughly discouraged) from Kilburn, Camden, Willesden and all points North and West. If the booze ran out (always sold at cost or swapped for similar substances) before everyone left, it would be topped up with a trip to Willesden Lane and the all-night corner store opposite the aptly named Bliss chemist.
Local dealers kept everything else topped up. It was a cool place throughout the winter of '82 and into late summer '83, open very Friday and Saturday night, entrance free. Sometimes a band would play, more often cassettes made up for the night would play through a small band PA.
Then Geronimo and the spider web gang found out about the place and turned up one sunny Summer evening. It was early, about 9, so no-one was in except Krish, Alf, Speedy Steve, Mick the mechanic and a couple of us squatters. The skinhead gang all had spider webs tattooed on their faces, necks or heads, all of which were done using biro, in borstal. You had to get a spider web tattoo if you wanted to be in the gang. Geronimo their leader also had 'cut here' and a dotted line around his neck, 'hate' tattooed on the chuckles of both hands and a little bird on his left cheek. His head and right cheek was covered in the web.
The spiders all lived in grotty ex-council flat squats on the Abbey Road estate and either mugged or 'begged' money on Mill Lane in West Hampstead and the passageway that ran from beside the Moonlight Club to Finchley Road. Most of them were scrawny kids and usually too out of it on glue or Tennents Super to be any real trouble. Geronimo was a different matter, though. Just out of Borstal, bristling with anger and psychotically deranged by glue, he banged through the plate glass door of the bar and dropped straight into a press-up stance. Shouting 'one-two' he pressed using one arm for twenty and then switched to the other arm. His gang stood outside, watching through the windows, open-mouthed and tetchy in Crombie coats, Harringtons and the odd MA1 jacket: it was still hot outside.
After finishing his press ups, Geronimo shot upright, flexed his muscles and turned to the door, which had swung shut behind him. As if affronted by the door having acted against his wishes, he stepped up to it and head butted the plate glass. Which shattered. Then he picked up a chair and threw it at the window, which didn't break. That was the signal for the gang to spring into life. They ran in and started to rearrange the furniture, such as it was. Krish, who looked just like them minus the spider web, shifted himself quietly among them as they raged among our skip-found chairs and crooked tables. Positioning himself behind Geronimo, Krish heaved back with the snooker cue and whacked the spider web on the side of the big skin's face, following it up with a swift kick between Geronimo's legs.
Everything stopped, chairs were held in mid-air, everyone gaped at the big skin as he stood, shoulders hunched, unmoving for a second that stretched into what seemed like a minute.
"Hunh."
Geronimo turned slowly to face Krish who backed off two steps with his cue raised at shoulder height.
"Shit."
"Hrrrrhnnnn!" Geronimo lurched at Krish who ducked and ran out the door, sending a kick at the nearest spider web before scuttling under the nearest stationery vehicle, and old, rusting ambulance. Geronimo and his gang tried the kick Krish out from under the van, but ended up smashing the windows, headlamps and mirrors in frustration as he stated put. After a few minutes, with our windows smashed, the furniture ready for the fire and the old van standing firm, Geronimo led his faithful clan off up the Finchley Road in search of more mayhem.
Krish and Alf drifted away soon after that, and we also moved on, squatting an old cinema up the road where we put on gigs, events and blues nights (sound systems only). At Christmas 1983 we heard that Krish's parents had hired a couple of guys to kidnap their son, and he was sectioned, sitting in a south London psychiatric ward, nodding out as his hair grew. Alf had a plan to get him out though, which meant she had to dress like a girl (he was willing just that once) but which worked, and briefly in mid-1984 the pair of them returned to the scene, looking smart and dancing as only they could, helping us with pro-Miner's gigs, benefits and protests. They were married, Alf said, so his parents couldn't section him without her say-so.
Krish committed suicide in 1985.
Is that true?
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