chapter 1.

needles & safety pins.

I should start my story by saying how I got into tattoos after my old seafairing Uncle came back from some exotic, erotic, bubonic shores with a hula girl girating on his bicep. Or how I tattooed my friends in art class at school with india ink & a compass when the 'art' teacher wasn't lookin' or hittng me round the side of the head with his ruler.. I could & it would fit the old tattoo cliche better, but it would also be a lie, 'cos my first contact with tattoos that I can remember wasn't a magical life altering moment at all but more a "eeeeeurgh, look at his arms" moment. It happened when I saw a man with full sleeves minding his own business in a woolworths store, his arms were the classic 'green' look that I can appreciate now but through my pre-teen eyes it just looked like an explosion in a fruit 'n' veg store. It didn't make me wanna rush out & get covered in sea-weed that's for sure, well I was only about 11, but the bloke did scare/intrigue enough for me & my shop-lifting pals to cautiously follow him round the store at a safe distance & he obviously left an impression so who knows? It could even have been my future boss I was staring at, but no convert to the cause yet, Even after I stumbled up the cheap cider & free girls alleyways 'round my town lookin' for teenage kicks I never ventured into the tattoo parlour, even when my mad mate John the local ruffian got some tattoos in the local shop of horrors it didn't give me the needle envy, he was only 16 & it was the classic mum/dad flash, rose, scroll, banner, left bicep. A nicely done tribute to his Ma & Pa which was kept hidden from his nice Ma & Pa for the next couple of years. But every one else in town was sure to see it wether they wanted to or not, Ma & Pa should have guessed what was going on by the pile of scissored t-shirt sleeves stuffing up the dustbin. I even went to the shop a few times with my mates, just for a laugh while they got poked & I checked the out all the wierd & wonderful designs & decided which one I'd get if I was going to get one, but I'm not, Right? Still not convinced by the union jack flags & little red devils & love/hate knuckles & why do I need my own name on my own arm? Duh!? They won't get me. My conversion to the cause came later when a friend got 'inked' as he liked to call it, at Bugs' shop in Camden. It actually looked like what it was meant to be, a skull with a quiff. A variation of a design that all rock 'n' roll types seemed to have in varying degrees of artistic competence on their scrawny arms, but this one looked good...black 'n' grey pencil sketch style, fine lines too, & I'm a rock 'n' roll type, I liked it & the attention it drew, soon I had a sheet of likely skully candidates scribbled for my bald right arm. I took it down to the Bugsy's studio & scanned all the photos on the wall for ages. They looked cool & I wanted one. I left a deposit & went off to spend a nervous week before my appointment listening to people telling me not to do it, telling me I'd be going home in an ambuance, telling me 'You'll regret that when you're sixty'! All of 'em without a single tattoo themselves of course, amazing how they knew all of this without ever setting an untattooed foot in a tattoo studio. Do they not realize I've thought long & hard about this? That I'm always gonna be a rocker? That when I'm sixty I'll be more worried about pissin' myself on the bus without knowing it 'til I'm stinkin' of urine & no-one wants to sit next to me? So saturday came & I went, off to Bugs', Deptford Palace to Camden High street, a can of cider in hand for the ol' Dutch courage. I sat in the chair with a cup of tea courtesy of Bugs & said goodbye to that 'clean' bit of skin forever. I never liked it anyway! Half hour later, it was done. It didn't hurt like they said it would & I took the bus home, not an ambulance, peelin' the bandage as I went. I felt different, but good. Like I did when I got my first leather jacket. I'm a rebel & I'll never never be any good. No-one sat next to me on the bus but I didn't stink of piss..... Mum liked it, Dad said, "you'll regret that son" & never mentioned it again apart from to enquire as to why it didn't have a bottom jaw. Bloody old people. The rest of the day was spent scribbling ideas for my next one & catching glimpses of my new posession in shop windows & makin' sure everyone on the tube on the way to the gig that night could see I was a tattooed wrong'un!

So now the ball was rollin' & all the loonies I was existing with in the punk rock 'n' roll asylum we called the 'Gosterwood Palace' (for t'was on Gosterwood street, Deptford. South London) were trying to out-do each other with bigger, better, bolder & more ink aquisitions....& guess who got the job of designing the new ever bigger & madder skin sketches? yep, me. I didn't mind I was always painting the leathers & drawing up gig flyers & doing the t-shirt designs for all the 'billy's, It kept me in booze. So another string to me bow. Money was always an issue though 'cos we were all self-unemployed & work shy but never lazy..... Buskin, painting leathers & stealin dole cheques from the neighbours was good business, but tattoos are expensive & "Was'da stooory Adam? you're good at art so why don't you be a tattooist? EERRR, Well I was always pushin' a pencil in my masses of spare time & I did have a few biker mags & I was always chuffed when I saw one of my designs staggerin' around the Intrepid Fox on the arm of one of my free livin' cronies, so yeah, I got the qualifications......

I decided I'd do this thing properly & for about five whole minutes I'd like to think I meant it, so armed with a few drawings, a head full of youthful naivety & a patient girlfriend who had a car, we trecked round a few studios in the south of london, It was nerve-wracking enough just goin into these dark dens of vice, you could never see through the bloody window & ya didn't know if you'd ever come out unscathed once ya crossed the door of doom but when I finally got the guts to venture forth into the first one....I don't know what the fuck I expected the proprietor of this seedy little hovel to do, maybe I reckoned he'd see the talent in my etchings & hire me on the spot, I nervously eyed around for a clue and I spied the answer, It was a sign that basically said "I'm a tattooist, not a fuckin' teacher, so if you come to ask me for a job, FUCK OFF" short sweet & effective, but not what I was there to find.............. I pretended to look at the flash & tried to hide the fact that I wanted the ground to open up & get me the fuck outta there. The tattooist wiped down his punter & came out to help, I made some vague inquiery about getting a bulldog or something equally unfitting & was glad to find out that it couldn't be done that day...which saved me from havin' to do a runner, 'cos nervous as I was, I ain't leavin' this place with a bulldog that looked like it'd been whacked with a frying' pan!! lucky escape, the sign was mis-spelt anyway. Next was a 'famous' tattooist in central london, famous for some work he hadn't even done, I found out later.....I couldn't help thinking that I could do a better job of drawing than the home grown flash in the shop...He told me to get a copy of tattoo international magazine & look for 'artists wanted' adverts. I took his advice, searched it & threw it in the bin. I'd tried it the proper way, I'd spent literally minutes going round shops only to be thwarted, I'll show 'em. Blind faith told me I could do it on my own, just like I did everything else that way...but blind faith ain't faith, it's just blind & hindsight is reality & if I knew then what I know now........I'd probably still just jump in at the deep end & fuck the consequences 'cos that's what I am, an impatient fool who wants it all & wants it now......& anyway my uncle Jim had tattoos & a small boat & a love of the sea, it's meant to be.