GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

I had been 13 years old for barely four weeks when this song was released. A troubled kid on a bad working class estate.

My best friend had committed suicide September 1976 age 12 yrs. Threw himself off a tower block.

My so-called father was the worst alcoholic reprobate in Newcastle and brutal to myself and my mother when at home.

School was hell due to poisonous masculinity and homophobia and the fact that I knew I was trans and was attracted to boys I knew and some male teachers and especially David Bowie.

This was the UK for many of my generation.
Hell even before thatcher.

I was attacked on several occasions once with an iron bar by local yobs. The only reason I wasn’t killed being that the local street gangs leader was fond of me and gave his protection. Another boy was thrown off the local bridge by those same thugs.

When I was 15 I visited Consett steel works for a work experience but by the time I left school a few months later the works had been not only closed but been bulldozed into the ground despite it’s accounts being well into profit and it’s order book full for several years.

In 1977 we were all gathered in our school hall and given a blue pouch with a coin for the jubilee. The majority of these ended the day in the till of the local sweet shop.

We were told we had the next day off school but MUST go to central Newcastle to cheer for the queens visit.

I was belted with the strap/tawse that dinner time for saying Fuck the Queen.

I was strapped two days later for NOT going and saying that the old cow was lucky I didn’t attend since if I did I would have thrown a petrol Bomb. At her.

So The Sex Pistols
God Save The Queen

Really meant something to me and many of my generation.

I got strapped many times more for singing the lyrics around our school yard and bringing my tape recorder from home with a home recorded tape.

You see, I was lucky. I had the single which was virtually impossible to get hold of in my area.

I was the cool kid at school for a while taking kids tapes and bootlegging it for them.

Let’s get it straight whatever John and the band meant to do with that song

For us working class kids from some of the hardest estates on Tyneside it meant a huge 2 fingers to all we hated, the royals & toffs & government and older generations especially wartimers and it’s no future lyrics came true for us very soon after in thatchers britain. The call for No Future for her and her brood was ignored nor even heard by many even working class including kids and a moment was lost.

When there's no future
How can there be sin
We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in your human machine
We're the future you're future

P.s 1 boy from my class died of aids, 3 were shot dead by police 2 did prison time