Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division Read Online Free PDF Page A

go and work at Butlin’s.
    The whole lot of us applied. They used to hold open interviews at the Midland Hotel in Manchester; you’d just phone up, go along and smile.
    ‘Have you got a criminal record?’ they asked.
    ‘No,’ I said, nose growing.
    ‘Right, okay. What do you want to do at Butlin’s? Do you want to be a Redcoat?’
    I didn’t want to be a Redcoat. I’m quite shy, believe it or not, so I opted to work in the kitchens. Next they asked which Butlin’s I wanted to work at. Beforehand we’d all decided to say Pwllheli, and if not that then Blackpool.
    As it turned out I didn’t get either of those. None of us did. We got Clacton-on-Sea.
    But it didn’t matter. And, even though none of us knew where it was, and never thought to look, we were so excited about getting the job and pleased that all five of us were together that we thought, ‘Great!’; we quit our jobs, didn’t tell our parents till the Sunday before, and then Monday were on the coach to Clacton.
    Where it was nothing like
That’ll Be the Day
. Where it was a nightmare from start to finish.
    For a start it was scruffy and run-down – the bit where the staff lived was, at least – and there were only two chalets between the fiveof us, so one of us had to sleep on the floor. Then there were the other staff, who were the biggest bunch of bastards I’ve ever come across. We soon realized they were all in gangs. There was a Cockney gang and a Geordie gang, who of course hated each other’s guts and were always fighting. At night it was like the Wild West. Then you’d wake up in the morning and there’d be not only trails of blood everywhere but also all these guys kicking out last night’s conquests, these poor young girls they’d managed to lure back to their chalets; daughters of the punters – sometimes the wives.
    In the kitchen I was with the biggest bunch of tossers you can imagine. I turned up to find I was working for this Scottish guy who stank of booze all the time. First thing he had me doing was scrubbing a set of steps that were caked in filth. The next thing he said was to get on the food line and dole out celery hearts for the punters’ lunch.
    ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll just go and wash my hands . . .’
    He spat. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid. Don’t answer me back and get on the fucking line.’
    Meanwhile the Cockney bastards who worked there came up with a couple of great games. For instance, if you left your light on, they’d put a dustbin through your chalet window. (They couldn’t rob you if the light was on, you see: didn’t know if you were in or not.) They’d pour hot fat on the floor in front of the huge rotating ovens, too; then they’d make me take out the roasted chickens, hundreds of them, and place bets on me going arse over tit. Also, when we were working the food line, they’d take turns throwing tomatoes at the back of our heads. All the time I’d be thinking, ‘What the fuck has gone wrong here?’ This was supposed to be my escape from the nine-to-five, my
That’ll Be the Day
life. I was missing Mr Wilson. The drudge was better than this.
Anything
was better than this.
    On our third night in the camp, Thursday, we were getting ourselves dressed up to go out in the hope of copping off like David fucking Essex, when a guy from a chalet nearby said to me, ‘Is that a leather jacket, mate? Fucking hell, you’re not going to have that for two minutes. Someone’ll chin you and take it off you. Hide it now!’
    Off it came and we slunk away to the Western bar. All five of us were having the same miserable experience so we sat swapping horror stories about the work and generally bemoaning our lot when this
huge
fight broke out. It was the kitchen Cockneys against the Geordies. Godknows what started it but it completely went off, this huge punch-up in the middle of the bar, punters running for cover, everyone screaming and finally these Cockney guys picking up one of the Geordies and