All my yesterdays: King’s Road pub The Roebuck and key Barney Bubbles designs recreated on our doorstep
//Outside my local “The Roebuck” in London SE1 yesterday//
//Barney Bubbles’ 1966 designs for Woodpecker and Strongbow ciders feature on the bus being used in filming//
This is freaky. Our local has been transformed into the King’s Road pub The Roebuck for the filming of Danny Boyle’s forthcoming FX series Pistol, based on guitarist Steve Jones’s memoir Lonely Boy.
The thing is I knew the Roebuck very well; it is in fact the place where I first met Malcolm McLaren, at the age of 15 in 1975. By happenstance I was drinking in the pub with an older brother the night McLaren recruited John Lydon to the Sex Pistols.
//The Roebuck in the late 70s. Photo by Barry Beattie/ANL/Shutterstock (5823647a)//
At The Roebuck I came across such individuals as the gangster John Bindon and his well-born paramour Vicki Hodge and the male model David “Piggy” Worth. One night we spotted the infamous art dealer Robert “Groovy Bob” Fraser with some ne’er-do-wells. It was that sort of place.
//The Roebuck was a couple of minutes’ walk east of 430 King’s Road where the Mini driven by Vivienne Westwood, Steve Jones and others could often be seen. This recreation even includes balls of mohair wall in the back//
I returned there over the following years, particularly after I moved to neighbouring Kensington in 1977 – it was a 15-minute walk away. By that time Punk was shifting overground and the upstairs snooker room was the scene of much nefarious activity.
A wild twist is that pioneering 60s designs by the late graphic genius Barney Bubbles have been recreated as period adverts on a bus which is being used for filming.
The conjunction of two of the subjects of my books with a fondly remembered venue 20 yards from where I live is kind of wild.