SANDY CLARKE

NO FEAR. NO BOLLOCKS.
A Punk Survivor: From Care Homes to Cancer Scares (1980 to Now)
“15 to 60 in the blink of an eye”
By Tommy Kennedy IV

Content Warning: Strong language, violence, racism, abuse, drug use, classism, police brutality, state neglect, institutionalisation, rebellion. Reader discretion advised.

She Didn’t Need the 100 Club
Sandra Clarke didn’t get on the guest list at the 100 Club in ’76.
She didn’t queue outside The Roxy with a safety pin in her lip, worship Johnny Rotten, or scrawl Clash lyrics on her schoolbag.

At eleven, she looked like a flick-knife mix race—sharp, dangerous.
She’d landed in a stinking South London care home. Since birth—no mummy’s kisses, no daddy’s smiles.
Boiled mince, Dettol and bleach formed the holy trinity of institutional neglect.

Then Thatcher’s Britain came. In 1980, unemployment, cuts and freezing nights in unheated flats stalked the land.
The National Front plastered hate all around. Punk spat at the establishment.

Sandra stayed behind council walls while punks puked cider in Soho.

By fifteen, she didn’t wear punk. She was punk—fury in a school skirt, defiance with scraped knees.
While other girls got perms and passes, she walked away with busted lips and a brain full of music.

Grammar-School Girls in Bin-Liner Chic
Friday night on Oxford Street.
Girls from the suburbs—Beckenham, Bromley, Finchley—kicked off rebellion like a Topshop coat.
Their dads dropped them off in Datsuns, ten pounds in their purses, Biba scent behind their ears.
They wore ripped fishnets from that morning’s shop. Charity-shop jumpers cut to look careless.
They devoured Jackie, Smash Hits, and felt like Debbie Harry after half a Babycham.

They posed outside the Marquee Club, pretending to know Siouxsie, and screamed if a glue-sniffer coughed near them.
They called danger a bloke in tartan bondage asking for ten pence.

By half ten, they’d legged it home—back to cocoa and Wogan.

Sandra saw them.
Chains swung at her waist. Boots duct-taped at the toes. Knuckles red. A lighter in one pocket, a fag in the other.

They flirted with punk.
She was the gig, the gob, and the riot rolled into one.

4 a.m. on Charing Cross Road
The West End stank of chip fat, lager and Thatcherite despair.
Neon flickered. Sex-shop signs pulsed like wounded soldiers. Soho wheezed like an old dog.

Sandra crouched outside a shuttered Wimpy. Her head pounded. She felt wired as hell.

She wore a Vivienne Westwood Seditionaries tee—the infamous “Cowboys” print: two naked cowboys, hard-on, bollocks out.
She’d nicked it from a Camden Lock market stall. Faded cotton, threadbare.

Porn, politics and punk screamed together in that single piece of cloth.
Vivienne and Malcolm made it to shock the squares.
Sandra wore it to shout: fuck you.

Her fingers stuck with Evo-Stik. Her lungs burned. Her boots wore out soles.

A woman in pearls sniffed. “Filthy little tramp.”
Sandra flicked smoke at her. “Jog on, Grandma.”

Riot with Blue Lights
Then the sirens arrived.

Two coppers showed up—one twitchy, the other built like a fridge freezer on legs.

“That shirt’s obscene,” said the twitchy one, eyeing the cowboy cock like it might bite.

Sandra smirked. “So’s your missus.”

“Move along,” he said.

“Make me.”

They backed off.

She grabbed a half-brick and launched it through the WHSmith window.
Glass exploded. Sirens blared. Alarms screamed. Police boots thundered like war drums.

It was 1980. Britain simmered, ready to boil. This time, it was just her.

Six of them descended. Slammed her face-first onto the concrete. Blood filled her mouth.

And she laughed—metallic and wild.

No fear. No bollocks.

She wriggled like hell. Caught one by surprise and twisted hard—crack—sprained his wrist.
Another got too close; she booted him in the shin.
They swarmed. It took about five, maybe seven of them to finally pin her down and stuff her in the back of the van.

Kicking. Spitting. Laughing.

She headbutted the inside wall. The van jerked. Side mirror—gone.
Cracked clean off.

They called her unmanageable.

She called it Wednesday.

Cumberlow Lodge—Thatcher’s Discipline Dungeon
Social workers branded her: “unmanageable”, “high risk”, a girl who “needed structure”.
So they struck a deal with the police. Three weeks at Cumberlow Lodge—meant to teach her a lesson.
An old country manor turned punishment pit for broken girls.

No hugs. Just bleached foam mattresses and staff with smiles like stab wounds.
Toilets stank of piss and pink disinfectant. Walls peeled like scabs.
Breakfast dished out porridge. Dinner served rules.

Sandra walked in like she owned it.
They stripped her to grey state-issue kit. Barred music. Banned books.
They dished out punishment and prayer.

She clocked the rules in an instant:
Don’t talk. Don’t flinch. Don’t cry. Don’t dare lose.

Day two. One girl got cocky.
Sandra dropped her with a Glasgow kiss.
Nobody tested her again.

Last Night. Last Warning.
Word spread: Sandra was leaving.

Tina, skin like stone, jealousy chewing her scabs, didn’t like it.

“You think you’re better than us?” she spat.

Sandra stared. “No. Just lucky enough to get out.”

Tina swung.
Sandra didn’t flinch.
One punch. Blood hit the wall like graffiti.
Tina slipped. Slammed to the floor.

Staff dragged Sandra off. Slammed her into isolation.
They didn’t touch her. They knew.

The Courtroom Farce
Next day, they marched her into a wood-panelled courtroom. Brass plaques glinted.
A judge in powdered wig and cigar-stench suit stared down.

“Miss Clarke,” he said. “Have you learned your lesson?”

Sandra grinned. “Yeah. Butlin’s, with a lock on the minibar. Can I go back for a few more weeks?”

The court muttered. Social worker squirmed.

The judge scowled. “Do you find this funny?”

Sandra shrugged. “Not my best joke. Bit like yours.”

2025—Still Loud. Still Standing.
Forty-five years later, Sandra Clarke stands tall at fifty-nine, about to hit sixty.

She’s throwing the only kind of party she ever could.

Steve Dior, ex-frontman of the London Cowboys, plays The Stewart Arms, Notting Hill, 28 June 2025—five minutes from Shepherd’s Bush tube.

She’s called in the old crew. The old punks. Wired hearts. Busted knees.

No red ropes. No VIP. Just spit, beer, noise—and pure defiance.

She’s a cancer survivor. An artist. A mother.
Still loud. Still standing. Still giving no flying bollock.

She raised a son, Jacob, who chose books over fists.
She broke the chain. Built something better.

Cancer tried to head her off.
She dragged it round the back and shattered it.

Now her art spits from alleyways to galleries. Spray paint. Plaster. Blood red on concrete.
Her work fills spaces across the city.

She lives in a soulful block in Wandsworth.
Vinyl lines her walls—The Slits, The Adverts, X-Ray Spex, Killing Joke.
Westwood prints hang like war flags.

She lights a fag. Drags it slow.
Her battered stereo blasts: “OH BONDAGE! UP YOURS!”

She grins.
“If it’s too loud, you’re too soft.”

Don’t like it?
Then piss off.

She never asked for permission.
Never begged.
Never broke.

She’s still here.
Still loud.
Still punk as fuck.

Based on a true story, stitched together with scars, spit and a warehouseful of rage. The writer used artistic licence.
© Tommy Kennedy IV