Drewson

Sorry Mike, I think I jumped on a word in a conversation I hadn't been listening to... I can see where I went wrong now! But having said that, the point I made stands up. I can see how DG would be mortified at causing offence. And I can see how some in the early 70s would take it offensively - only time would tell us that the pill culture was a whole lot better than what followed. Always like the fact that Connell, one of the people ringing the alarm bell about amphetamine abuse before 1964, was not concerned about the teenage weekend users of the pills. His idea of abuse was over-prescribing and the amounts taken by those on prescription. Again, sorry for jumping in without looking!

All the lads in Borstal were very happy to be called pillheads - so was I. We didn't need people in denial of reality (of "our" language) on "our" scene. That might not have been your scene, you might have been on some politically correct one sifting through the run in groove to records for evidence of it being "not real" to have noticed... Meanwhile, I look through all the records I had in Borstal and see Riker, SK&F and "pillheads" scrawled all over them. FFS, we served enough time to earn our badge of honour, we don't - I can safely speak for many of my dead friends - you to play word games with "our" identity. The mistake you make is to treat the term pillhead as an equivalent to smackhead, crackhead, junky. They are stigmatising terms, no one claims them as an identity. Many of the pillheads I knew that died did so after starting to use opioids, but I would never have called any of them smackheads etc. The term pillhead lost its shine when powder and cranking took off. That's where you get a clearer idea of the importance of the distinction. Pillhead meant you didn't crank. Now can you see something of the virtue in the term? We never ever called people who cranked "junkies" but if you were a Pillhead you certainly didn't encourage it... for some, it was just the logical of powder. Hope you can excuse my rant, I get thoroughly peed off about people denying the pill culture of the scene - that includes DJs that I've sold/supplied pills to (two who deny ever taking them). Only one known death on the scene prior to the changes in amphetamine storage, and how many after that? And how many in later years from Hepatitis caught sharing needles? There is a lot to be said in favour of the pill culture of the scene.... don't try to turn it into a term of abuse. I had a lot of time for Dave Godin, I hung on every word in the B&S (in and out of Borstal) but he was not right about everything.

No pillheads in 1971? Really? I was in Borstal with a few of them. Pillheads have been hand in glove with the scene since 1963.

Rick, one of us has a false memory - given the state of my head in 1973 the odds are not looking good for me. I was sure that you did a slot at Wigan before Richard. It goes without saying that I enjoyed both of your sets at Va Va but I was surprised that Richard hadn't been roped in by Russ - he was playing some great tracks. I knew you well enough not to make a mistake, but unless you had a doppelgänger called Ian Fishwick (I think I remember him - with a shrug of my shoulders) or I was having flashbacks to the night before at the Va Va... Anyway, it was good to read your post - hope you're keeping well.