Book launch: The Punk Kings of Dyslexia by Stephen Micalef

By Jane Palm-Gold on 15th December 2016

I am delighted to tell you about Stephen Micalef’s new book The Punk Kings of Dyslexia to be launched at Rough Trade West on Friday 16th December, from 5.30 – 6.30pm. The event is free.  Stephen went under the moniker ‘Steve Mick’ when he wrote for Mark P’s legendary Punk fanzine, Sniffin’ Glue for ten months, up until May ’77. He was there practically at the inception of Punk and we glimpse through his writings, the times, the bands, the scene. It is a unique insight. As a historian I found the book fascinating, the language evocative of the spirit of Punk.                                                                                                                                                                         The poems are written in his handwriting alongside a transcript of each and the book is a limited edition of 500, each copy being hand-numbered.                ’40 years ago I was stapling our mag Sniffin’ Glue at the back of a new shop just opened by Geoff Travis in Kensington Park Road. In a wet walled curtained grotto behind the Rough Trade record shop counter I was collating the photocopied sheets when a bloke from The Times Education Supplement, Juri Gabriel, who’d just been to see The Damned, popped his head round the curtain & asked Mark Perry & me for an interview. We went to cafe round the corner & I wrote a few words for him about what Punk meant to me : “you’ve gotta hate the past to create something new.” He suggested I try for Oxford, so I did. Punk utterly changed my life and these poems are a testament to my 10 months at the heart of Punk Rock, from August 1976 – May 1977.’  Stephen Micalef AKA Steve Mick For further information, go to www.roughtrade.com/events/steve-micalef-aka-steve-mick-poetry-reading-signing  

New Talk: Industry & Idleness in the St Giles Rookery – Camden Archives

By Jane Palm-Gold on 14th September 2016

I’m presenting my new talk on Industry & Idleness in the St Giles Rookery at Camden Archives on Tuesday, 27th September at 7.15pm. Admission free! I look forward to seeing you all there! ‘The St. Giles Rookery has been described as a 19th century bastion of crime and criminality, yet this location enjoyed a dismal existence within the previous century too, enduring the feverous heights of the Gin Craze. The early 19th century saw this locality known as the St. Giles Rookery, a densely populous area – but who lived there and what work did they do? Can we cast a little light into their daily working lives despite the slum of their surroundings? Jane Palm-Gold spent six years in deep research to create and curate the publicly acclaimed exhibition ‘London’s Underworld Unearthed: The Secret Life of the Rookery’, with Museum of London Archaeology in 2011. Yet much was left unsaid… In this talk, she revisits her personal archive on the Rookery to present her findings on the kind of people that lived there and their daily working lives. As the 18th c gave way to the 19th, what changes affected their world of work – for not all were members of the criminal underclass. So how did people’s daily working lives differ? The talk will give examples of 18th century pre-Rookery dwellers engaged in their daily cadging ramble or in gin production, the industrious and honest poor of the 19th c where we visit an elderly flower maker living in his garret and the living conditions of the many costermongers dwelling amongst their sprats and oranges in the dense and filthy confines of rookery dwellings. We take a trip up Dyot Street to discover a certain Mrs. Farrell, an 18th c property tycoon and the ways the many made a living through property sub-letting in the locality. A kind of 18th century Airbnb…’