The whole world knows that John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten was the singer with The Sex Pistols managed by Malcolm McLaren however less well known is that John Lydon’s brother Jimmy Lydon was the front man with another band called the 4’be2’s

Brighton Punk versus Skinhead football match Whitsun Bank holiday 1979

The manager of the 4’be2’s was a Scotsman called Jock MacDonald and on the Whitsun Bank Holiday 1979 he decided to organise a promotional event which he billed as a football match to be held on Brighton seafront between punks and skinheads doubtless with the intention that the event would descend into a mass brawl such as famously occurred between Mods and Rockers back in the 1960s.

I lived in Hove at the time and heard whispers that something was happening and so on the day I set off to the seafront with my camera.

I walked the length of the promenade when finally opposite The Hungry Years in Kemptown espied a straggling line of youths being chivied along by a copper.

From the other side of the main road I thought “how can i get a good photo?” then decided to shout “Oi” loudly so that they would look my way and I’d capture their faces.

This is the result, what a fluke! The kid at the front wearing a string vest has on a monkey mask and with his fingers makes an arcane anarchist symbol of the “O” with the left hand while waving with five fingers of the right hand. His head and arms pierce the horizon while all the kids heads are beneath it. Only the dome of the copper’s helmet appears above it.

Thirty years or more later street artist Banksy would employ an image of a British bobby and a chimpanzee as a recurring meme in some of his most famous images.

In 2004 Peter Doherty chose this photograph for the gatefold inside cover of his single “Delivery” published by Parlaphone.

The railings appear to represent the incremental markings of a ruler. Essentially and fortuitously an image of anarchy and misrule is created with a perfect balance.

Police cars (otherwise known as Jam sandwiches) raced up and down along the front obviously to make their presence felt on the lookout for more trouble makers

The coppers were herding youngsters into bunches and driving them like sheep up to the railway station, there to be forced aboard the London train.

I heard that the police weren’t too fussy about who lived where so consequently quite a few kids who lived in Brighton got a free train ride up to town.

I also heard much later that there was a fair bit of blood shed that day as members of Sussex Biker gangs patrolled the seafront in a Landrover armed with at least one shotgun looking for Mods to destroy. They finally cornered members of a harmless scooter club (wearing parkas no doubt) at the Hungry Years and in the entrance to the pub battered their skulls to bloody pulp with pint beer tankards (not nice, not nice at all).

That day I went with my camera looking for something to photograph and knew that there was going to be an event of some kind worth recording but I had no idea what it would be or indeed the purpose other than “art for art’s sake” I was not a professional photographer nor did I intend to become one. In a sense there was no purpose to my mission other than to record a cultural event – the new generational wave termed “Punk” was underway and I had been influenced by the previous generational wave that we know of as the hippy thing – the fruit of the 60’s generational flowering. I was younger than most people affected by “hippiedom” I was born in 1955 and therefor at the late stages of that movement but I was born before the mass of people who became the punk generation. According to Jolly McPhee of “Better Badges” I should consider myself a leader or influencer of the punk generation

If anyone has any more information about this infamous event please comment below or contact me so that the full story can be told.

Anyhow, after taking those five photographs something occurred with my camera that caused the next frames to become double exposed with the following results