Book In The Gutter Val Hennessey

In The Gutter was published in May 1978 by Quartet and is arguably the earliest Punk book to claim some sort of educational classification. It’s described as a ‘Sociology’ title though reading it it’s hard to determine how serious that’s intended.
The book itself contrasts London street & club photos of various punks with photos of tribal people from an image library and stock punk band photos and claims that while looking at tribal pictures the publishers were struck with the similarity with the punk look.


Val Hennessey was asked to supply the text based on her experiences filming a programme for ATV called Punk & Acne Go Together in Birmingham studios which the publishers had seen. To date, this ‘programme’ has never been mentioned anywhere on the internet or in Val’s wiki entry. Why does this matter? Because some of her accompanying statements about punk are backed up by the people she talked to for the programme which was a punk couple Ziggy and Vick Vomit, Eddie Zipps and Rick Raw of the band Bleeding Pyles who seem so cartoon punk as to strain credulity.
The text also comprises the author’s explanation of punk which starts with the satirical magazine Private Eye’s imaginary proto-punk band The Turds from 1964 and goes through rock n roll and various rebellious teenagers. Interspersed with this are quotes from Don Letts, Mark P and Danny Baker who were also filmed to give additional authority but it all comes across as unconvincing.
Mark P I have a very vague memory of me and Danny plus a girl, I can’t remember the name of, being given train tickets to Birmingham to be interviewed by Val for a local TV thing. It might have been taken from that. The TV people wanted to film the interview in an abandoned/derelict house but we refused. We ended up doing it in a rose garden at a local park. Can’t remember what was said or when that was. Punk77 Email, January 2024
So apart from some stock photos of the Sex Pistols, Bromley Contingent and inevitably Soo Catwoman and the tribal pictures sourced from some picture library, the bulk come from an obvious visit down the King’s Road and into punk shops like Boy. Hence you get Subie out of Muvvers Pride and Boy worker on the cover and featured a few times in the book along with other BOY workers and punks on the street and in clubs like Charlie Green. Also thrown in are some random American punk photos that look too staged and fashion-based in contrast to the gritty British ones.
The tribal juxtaposition pictures are frankly tasteless and honestly unbelievable. For example. On one page we have a picture of a man at a Hindu ceremony and on the other Cherry Vanilla in a leotard pubes showing thrusting to the camera! And the point is?

Val perhaps sums it up with her closing quote.
So there you have it – I’m pogoing onto the ephemeral punk band waggon and capitalising on its energy spark, its vitality and its wit. The pictures speak for themselves…
The book was reviewed in The Spectator by Auberon Waugh who said
In the Gutter (Quartet Books L1.95), describes their [Punks] behaviour and .attitudes very well. It is written by a handsome if elderly (by punk standards) and inescapably middle-class journalist called Val Hennessy…At times in Mrs Hennessy’s admirable book one sees touches of a genuine philosophical nihilism, as when the magazine Sniffing Glue urges its readers to stop reading it — ‘no, I’m not mucking about, I’m being honest and it hurts’. At others, one sees nothing more than cretinous On’ `Sex? We ain’t against it but we don’t know what all the fuss is about, you’ve done it all between the ages of twelve and twenty. 29.4.1978


The book was reviewed in Record Mirror 20.5.78 by Bev Briggs who commented on the brevity and quality of the writing but found the tribal images worked.

That wasn’t the end of Val and punk. Her daughter was a fan and Val wasn’t but she wanted to go to a gig. Unfortunately, she chose Sham 69 at the Rainbow and her experience was published in The Guardian on the 21st September 1979
Flamboyant posters, punk slogans and other intimations of adolescence erupt suddenly, like acne, across my daughter’s bedroom walls; Sid Vicious with scabs on his arms and a virulently pimpled chin supersedes Snoopy. As I crawl about the floor rounding up soiled undergarments, unsmiling groups like the Boomtown Rats, the Stranglers and the Clash gaze down at me and, frankly, they get on my nerves. Those effervescent happenings which in my day were called “concerts” are now called “gigs” and from these my daughter occasionally returns flob-smothered and ecstatic.
Perhaps it was an unforgivable intrusion into her world but, being curious to obtain a wimp’s-eye view of gig-going, I chose SHAM 69’s farewell concert for my initiation….
Jimmy Pursey leaps through swirls of dry ice and, in a voice like a pneumatic drill, howls about dead-end jobs and being united, until the fillings in your teeth rattle. A faction of BM toughs (exclusively male) form a procession, chanting, thumping and shouting Sieg Heil. By Sham’s fifth song they had clambered on stage and halted the show. In the ensuing imbroglio beer cans were hurled and bottles flung. A girl got a cigarette end in her eye, another had her glasses smashed. After 20 minutes the thugs caused Sham’s Last Stand to end and I felt sad for Jimmy Pursey, who attempted, in vain, to calm things down.
In the balcony kids clambered across seats and punched each other. I have not experienced such panic since being in a throng of CND protesters trapped beneath the hooves of mounted police in Grosvenor Square. Beatles’ concerts were never like that. I once advocated letting everything hang out. Now I have told my daughter, “No more gigs.”
TalkPunk
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