Goths of yore

There has been a Goth scene in one form or another for many years, only the people that take up a Gothic lifestyle, and the lengths to which they are prepared to go in the dress department change. A sweeping statement I know but I can back it up, at least as far back as the sixties anyway. From a very early age I devoured horror stories, the more gruesome they were the better I liked them. This in itself is no proof of course but it does give you some idea of the type of thing that impressed my young mind.

There was a kind of comfort in wet cobbled streets lit only by gas light, and as the better part of Manchester had not yet succumbed to the modern estate, the Victorian slum type of environment is where I grew up. It can be said that although the crumbling, mice, and cockroach infested back to back houses that I spent my formative years in were a scourge to the working class family. They held a charm for me that could not be replaced by inside toilets, or hot, and cold running water. There is something friendly about the way distemper peels of the wall with age, and creates landscapes, and portrait's that change with the passing years.

And every street had at least one gas lamp that everybody gathered round at night to talk, and swap stories, it was usually foggy even in the summer, and this made it all the more mysterious. In the sixties I formed a band with some pals of mine, we were called the Minute Men later Strife our mode of dress was strange for the time.

When everybody else was wearing bright happy clothes, we were clad in black, and augmented our dress with anything that was out of the ordinary as long as it was unusual, we had to be careful though at the time people were not as tolerant as they are now. Sometimes we would turn up for a gig, and be told that we couldn't go on stage dressed as we were. One M.C. said very abruptly that people have come here to be entertained, not to watch four undertakers ponce about on stage. We changed our name to the undertakers for a while but had to revert back to the Minute men because there was another group called the undertakers who did quite well I believe.

One of the group members Pete Hall and I started a club in the sixties, it was situated over a cafe on Hyde road in Gorton, and we had the whole of the first floor. We painted every wall black, or dark purple and furnished it with regency type furniture that was cadged from a night club across the road that had undergone a refit after being taken over by new
Management. At the time I was working during the day at Bell Vue amusement park selling tickets at Madam Tussauds waxworks, and as I was without a home then also sleeping at the waxworks at night.

Several of my friends asked to spend the night there, but they nearly always left before morning unnerved by the lifelike figures. Had they seen them in the cold light of day they would not have been so frightened, it had been many years since the dummies were made, and they were in a sad state of repair, still skillful lighting gave them a threatening air.
I had access to many props from Bell Vue, and they all found there way to the club, and gave it the atmosphere that we craved.

We spent many happy times there, none of the shops on either side of the cafe was lived in so we could make as much noise as we wished the music was always loud, and sometimes the group played. The thing that sticks in my mind from this time is that we were all terribly polite to each Other for some reason, as I said the club lasted for two years, and then the rot set in.

For some time after the club had started I had been helping a friend of mine (who just happened to be a lady of the night) out with one or two things that had been troubling her. Suffice it to say that she was eternally grateful for all I had done for her, and wished to repay me (no not that way. Her chance to help me came when the powers that be, namely the rates officer from Manchester town hall came knocking at the cafe door demanding to know why the premises licensed only for food and beverage, was now being used for entertainment.

Of course we were shut down the end of an era, or so I thought, in fact it was the beginning of a new era, an introduction to the darker, darker side of life. My lady friend stepped in with an offer, the club across the street from the cafe where we had acquired some of the furniture, and fittings for our own club had recently shut down. The manager who was the reason my lady friend actually moved to Manchester, wanted me to run my club from his club two nights a week. The only string was that I was to allow certain friends of his, who were a lot like us (his words not mine) to become members.

Now at the time there were only about forty or fifty Gothic type people that I knew of apart from the odd one that had heard about us from word of mouth, and came to the club on the weekends from out of town. So to be told that there were quite a few like minded people waiting in the wings as it were who wanted to join our little band was quite a shock. It was however nothing to the shock I was to receive when our friends turned up. About the second week of opening, I say opening but in fact it was a closed doors club for members only, and only I, the manager of the premises, and later the police were to know who frequented this den of iniquity.

The night's entertainment usually began about nine-o clock and went on into the early hours. Sometimes I would find myself staggering home at seven in the morning, and sleeping all day, we confined our little gatherings to the small dance floor, and bar this kept things cosy, and meant that we didn't have to have too many lights on, there was the law to consider.
Our out of town friends arrived a couple of weeks after we opened, they had booked a coach, and the first thing that they asked for was somewhere to get changed, a not unreasonable request as I have said people who were into the Goth thing were considered a little strange at that time, and they were not about to travel across town dressed like Nosferatu.

I would give anything now to have a photograph of the expression on my face when our guests filed into the dance area dressed in little more than black patent leather, belts and chains. They were all practitioners of B.D.S.M. Nobody would give them a second look nowadays but in the sixties just to dress that way was immoral. Nobody said a word it was as if this kind of thing happened all the time to us. As I have said earlier we were a very polite group, and we just carried on dancing and drinking but it was obvious that this had unnerved everyone.
At one point I was stood at the bar talking to a man dressed in a PVC belt, and a black leather hood that covered most of his face. He was well spoken and he thanked me and my little band of pals for allowing them to attend, "places where we can go for a drink and relax are few and far between" he said, "really" I replied with a hint of wonder in my voice.

To be fair they were not a bad bunch at all and over the next couple of months we were to get to know them quite well, never did I see any impropriety. They seemed content just to dress as they wished, have a few drinks, and dance the night away, it is funny though to see someone dressed like an executioner dancing with a lady attired in fishnet tights, tight black plastic skirt, and spiked heels. Having said that it more or less sums up the way a lot of Goths dress today.

Our good times were not to last though as is always the case when people enjoy themselves, there is usually some miserable little bugger who cant stand the thought of people who are a little different from them having fun, and in due course the club was raided, 80 or so of our happy band were arrested, and taken to Whitworth St police station, were we were held for a couple of hours and then allowed to go home. None of us were charged, or questioned apart from the very well spoken gent with the hood I mentioned before, he must have had some clout with the police, though I can't begin to imagine why. There was some mention of it in the Manchester evening news, but it referred to after hours drinking by revellers celebrating Halloween...in July?