Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society Newsletter)
'Tunbridge Wells is Tunbridge Wells, and there is nothing really like it upon our planet.' [1]
I.
Tunbridge Wells - or, as it likes to style itself Royal Tunbridge Wells - is a town in Kent, about 30 miles southeast of London, with a reputation for being a bastion of conservative middle class values and disgust with any ideas which might possibly conflict with these values.
II.
Sid Vicious was assigned the role of bass player for the Sex Pistols after Glen Matlock was pushed out of the band in February 1977. He couldn't play, but he looked good and had the right attitude and his tragic death two years later, aged 21, established him as a punk icon.
III.
In 2017, Chris Jones, editor of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society Newsletter, decided to offer readers his personal view on the question of whether Sid Vicious should be commemorated with a red plaque, due to the fact that he had lived for several years as a child in Tunbridge Wells (1965-71), before moving with his mother to Stoke Newington.
In a nutshell: he wasn't happy about the idea, describing Sid as an exhibitionist thug - which is not entirely unfair or wildly mistaken - and challenging the idea that he should be celebrated as a symbol of youthful rebellion:
"He was rebelling certainly, but mainly against the preceding generation of popular culture
the 'peace and love' generation, which, as you might gather, was 'my generation'. We were idealistic, campaigning for a fairer world, civil rights, equal pay, and fighting against apartheid and the Vietnam War. To Sid Vicious, though, we were pretentious,and perhaps some of our beliefs, or the expressions of those beliefs can seem a little twee ..." [2]
In a piece that becomes increasingly laughable as the moral and political rhetoric is ramped up, Jones continues:
"Sid, though, was driven by darker thoughts and motivations. He would not have liked today's Tunbridge Wells: open-minded, international, tolerant, proud to have been the only part of Kent
to vote 'Remain'. He would have thought us politically-correct, though he may have used rather stronger language." [3]
IV.
This, obviously, is an old story.
I'm sharing it, however, partly because I'd not heard it until a few days ago and partly because it amazes me that, forty years after the event, punk - and the memory of the Sex Pistols in particular - can still get members of civic society hot under the collar; that the ghost of Sid Vicious can still frighten and appall old hippies like Jones.
Needless to say, Sid didn't get his plaque: it was decided that his connection to the town was too slight to merit recognition (but that no moral or musical judgement was being passed on the deceased Sex Pistol).
Notes
[1] H. G. Wells, Christina Alberta's Father (Jonathan Cape, 1925).
[2] Chris Jones, writing in an editorial for the Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society Newsletter (Autumn 2017): click here.
[3] Ibid.
