1978

The squatted quarter

My mother looked me in the eye, and in her finest broad Geordie street tones said “Yer livin’ in a street full o buggers”.

Jackie Leven, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere, December 2008

Bristol Gardens, Formosa Street, Clifton Villas: crumbling ochre houses with Moorish arched windows, home, by Leven’s own account, to Scottish gangs, prostitutes, heroin addicts, Western Sufis and several desperate rock bands. When his parents came to visit they turned out to be hard drinkers, and his mother made friends with the landlady of the George.

Discography · 1979 Gypsy Blood Doll by Doll