If there's one thing that everyone - even if they've never listened to a rock 'n' roll record in their life - knows about The Sex Pistols, it's that we appeared on the Bill Grundy show, we swore and some bloke got so annoyed by us he kicked in his TV set.
It was December 1 and we were rehearsing for the 'Anarchy' tour in the usual kind of dump you use to rehearse in. This particular dump was in Harlesden, right around the corner from where I grew up.
It used to be a cinema. I went there to see an X movie - I Am Curious, Yellow - the very first day I was old enough to see one legitimately. I'd seen them before, of course, but that's not the same thing. That's the thrill of sneaking in. When you're old enough that's the thrill of being grown up.
I tried to pay but the bloke on the door said you're underage, I'm not letting you in. I had to go home and fetch my birth certificate and come back. By the time I'd waited for two buses and got back to the cinema he'd gone home for the day and I'd missed half the film. I felt a right twerp.
We were using this cinema for full stage rehearsals. It was a package tour - us, The Clash, The Heartbreakers and The Damned - and we had to practice equipment changeovers and time each band's set.
It was all a bit confusing. Apart from us, by far the best-known band of the other three were the Damned. But the consensus was that they shouldn't be second on the bill - which is how they were advertised - but bottom.
Rat Scabies will always say that the main reason they were on the tour was nothing to do with punk solidarity or any ideas of the Larry Parnes-style package tour. He says they were on it because Malcolm had realised that they'd already played loads of shows around the country and had proved to be good crowd pullers.
So Malcolm got them on the tour, despite the fact that he couldn't stand their manager, Jake Riviera. They meant more bums on seats, nothing more. Well maybe also the fact that they paid their own way - i.e. we didn't have to pick up the tab for their traveling expenses.
We turned up at Harlesden about halfway through The Heartbreakers' set. This was the band formed by Malcolm's old mates from New York, Johnny Thunders - who was in the The New York Dolls - and Richard Hell, who I've already mentioned. Hell had since departed and it was now down to a four-piece featuring Thunders, Walter Lure, Jerry Nolan - also from The Dolls - on drums and Billy Rath on bass. They sounded really good and, like most American bands, could really play. We'd seen all these new English punk bands who sounded so weak. But The Heartbreakers were really cocksure and confident, most likely because of all the gigs they'd done between them.
I got talking to Mick Jones. There's a really weird rumour going round, he said. Walter Lure - The heartbreakers' other singer and guitarist and a perfect foil to Johnny Thunders - has a brain tumour and only has weeks to live. So we were all pleasant to Walter.
None of it was true. He just looked a bit pale. Never seeing daylight, you would. And those glasses always made him look a bit spazzy. These days he works on Wall Street and makes a fortune - or so Thunders would have it.
Although Malcolm used to manage The Dolls we'd never met any of them. When they'd finished playing we went over and introduced ourselves.
Jerry Nolan, the drummer, sat down next to me. I really enjoyed the band, I said, I really liked that one called 'Chinese Rocks'. Oh yeah, he said, I really like that one myself - pleased he was, but cocky like he is. What's it about then, that one? I asked. He looked right at me as if I had the brain of a tablecloth and said in that big, booming American voice of his, he-ro-in, boy.
Nice, I said, lovely. But I still didn't think any more about it. I was very innocent about hard drugs in those days.
We were just sitting around waiting to go on for our set run through. Nils came over and said, there's a big, black limousine outside, waiting for you, a Daimler. It's to take you to do some TV show.
We're not going, we all said. We've got rehearsing to do, and we don't like that car. Nils got on the phone to Malcolm, then came back and told us what Malcolm had said: do it boys, or you won't get your wages this week. £25 a week is no one's fortune but it's certainly better than trying to survive on nothing.
There was some more to-ing and fro-ing on the phone, Malcolm telling us this, us demanding that. But finally and inevitably we all climbed into this big, black - and very comfortable - Daimler. We drove off into the North London winter damp, with no idea of where we were going. All we knew was that we were doing a TV show. Malcolm hadn't bothered to tell us which one.
EMI were putting the push in for us. 'Anarchy' had just come out, the 'Anarchy' tour started in two days' time and the EMI corporate machinery had begun to roll, like some lugubrious steamroller. At this time EMI was still a power in the land, coasting on its Beatles years. With their clout they'd been able to get us on Today - a pretty good stroke for a new band with their first record only just out. A live show, Today ran straight after the national news.
When we bowled up to the studio - at Thames TV, beneath Euston Tower in Marylebone Road - Malcolm was there to meet us. In the lobby everyone gave us funny looks but we just thought, fuck 'em.
We were ushered straight into the green room as if they wanted to hide us away as fast as they could. An attendant in a liveried jacket asked us, would you like a drink, young fellers? We all thought we'd just get something stronger but all he offered us was soft drinks or beer. We made do with half a can of warm lager apiece.
Then the attendant left the room and we went straight for the drinks cupboard and got stuck in. We had a lot more than we were supposed to but it was still only a few cans of beer. Nobody was drunk. But we were all a bit loosened up.
We wandered through into the studio and standing there were the Bromley Contingent. Siouxsie's tits were more or less hanging out - again. I thought, oh no, we want to do our stuff as a group and there's these bleeding herberts again.
Malcolm was still going on with his idea to make it look like some big Movement, with a capital M. We'd already done Young Nationwide with the Bromley Contingent. Once was OK. But I had got a bit fed up with them hanging about all the time.
As it was a live programme we had to wait around in the studio while they did the first bit of the show. It's always boring waiting. We all started chatting. I might have been fed up that Siouxsie was there but it was nothing personal, I still talked to her. Someone passed a drink around. There was a bit of a free-for-all, pushing and shoving and joshing.
Next thing the cameras were on us and Bill Grundy seemed like he'd got some kind of cob on. The rest is history really.
He started asking us questions in turn, starting with me. He waved a pile of papers around, looked into the camera and said, I'm told that group have received £40,000 from a record company. Doesn't that seem to be slightly opposed to their anti-materialistic view of life?
It was a stupid question, presumably meant in a lightweight and inconsequential way. So I gave him a lightweight and inconsequential answer. No, I said, the more the merrier.
There were a few more like that. Silly questions and silly answers with us treating it as a laugh. He started talking about Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. Why, I don't know. But I just joked back. They're all heroes of ours, ain't they, I said.
There was a bit more banter then John said shit, very quietly and by mistake. He covered up really well. But Grundy kept pressing him, asking him what he'd said. What was the rude word? So John said it aloud. Shit.
Was it really? said Grundy. Good heavens, you frighten me to death. Then he turned to the girls - Siouxsie and the others - and tried to drag them into the conversation.
When he asked Siouxsie if she'd meet him afterwards, Steve went into Warp Factor Five and weighed right into him. You dirty old sod, you dirty old man.
Grundy just wound him up. Keep going chief, you've got another five seconds. Say something outrageous. So Steve told him he was a dirty fucker, a fucking rotter. (Rotter? that one cracked me up). Grundy turned to the camera. Well that's it for tonight. I'll be seeing you soon. I hope I'm not seeing you again. (That was to us). From me though, goodnight. And that was it.
All the time I could see Malcolm behind the cameras. He had his head in his hands. I couldn't hear him but he looked like he was laughing. Not because he thought it was funny but out of nerves. He was shitting himself.
His attitude was, oh no, you've gone and done it now, what the hell are we going to do? A long way from the idea that a lot of people had that it was all his scheme. There was no little Malcolm the machiavellian telling us to go and swear our heads off on TV so we could scoop all the publicity.
The oddest thing at the time though was none of us could work out what Grundy was up to. Why did he keep pushing John and Steve to swear?
Years later I got an answer of kinds. I met a journalist in my local. He'd known Grundy through work - or the Fleet Street grapevine. His version of that evening was that Grundy hadn't wanted to interview us. It wasn't because he thought the show shouldn't do anything on punk but that he didn't know enough about it himself and felt someone else should do the interview. Or perhaps he just didn't think we were worth giving the time of day to. After all, he was the very first man to interview The Beatles on TV, for Granada in the early Sixties. He must have considered us well beneath him.
It turned into a control room power struggle. He felt that if he didn't want to do something he shouldn't have to do it. His idea was that he should have last call on what was on the show.
His producer saw it differently. He laid it down to Grundy the way it was. Which was: do it or get out, I call the shots in here. There was a face-off in the control room and Grundy lost.
By the time he went on air he'd already had enough of it. So he vented his frustration on us. Frankly, he couldn't give a damn about anything at that point. Plus he'd obviously had a few.
Funnily enough I did see him one more time. It was about six months after I left the Pistols. I had a 1956 Sunbeam Talbot then, a big, beaten up, battle-bus of a motor. I was getting The Rich Kids together then and Steve New and Rusty Egan were with me in the car. We happened to drive past the Thames TV studios. And Bill Grundy came out of the building. It was the middle of the day but to me it looked like he'd just cleared his desk out, ready to leave for good. He had a briefcase in each hand and bundles of papers under each arm.
The car stopped at the lights and we gave him a right ribbing. Oi, Bill, remember me? He stared at me and obviously did. By the way he looked at Steve and Rusty he must have thought they were the Pistols too. And probably, as far as he was concerned. The Pistols were the people who had sent his whole career down the poop chute.
He stood there on the kerb eyeballing us. Then he carefully put down his briefcases and papers and looked to the left, looked to the right and looked behind him. Then he just went, wallop, giving us two fingers with each hand. At last he'd been able to tell The Pistols to fuck off. And he was having a great time doing it, really enjoying himself.
The lights changed and I drove off. That was the last I saw of Bill Grundy. In fact, it was probably the last anyone saw of Bill Grundy.
Straight after the show, we walked out through the studio still having a bit of a laugh about it all. I wanted to get back in the green room for another drink.
But Malcolm was having none of it. He literally dragged me out of the building and shoved me into the motor with the rest of them. We glided away up Euston Road.
As we did a black Maria turned up - just as well I didn't stop for another drink - and half a dozen coppers piled out and into Thames TV, obviously looking for us and some action. We gave them the finger out of the back window.