Touching from a Distance Read online

  Ian was a performer from a very early age and seemed to be forever taking his fantasies to the extreme. Once, when he had decided to be a stunt man, he persuaded Tony to help him rig up a wooden sledge as a landing pad. After drumming up local children to watch, he donned an old crash-helmet and jumped from the roof of a one-storey garage. The sledge shattered in all directions and the showman walked away from his first stunt.

  Ian never did anything by halves; any interest became a vocation. Speedway rider Ivan Majors was Ian’s hero and he drew parallels between himself and the dashing world champion, dubbing his friend Tony as a new Chris Pusey – a less glamorous, stubbly chinned rider , who was renowned for crashing. When they were in their early teens the boys saved £10 and bought an old BSA Bantam motorcycle. They knew nothing about engines and after pushing the bike five miles home, congratulated themselves on using second gear in the fields. Ian was not mechanically minded, not really relishing getting his hands dirty. He always had a fascination for fame and the glamorous side of life, but the practical considerations that go with it escaped him. When he was older he would speak of owning a prestigious car, yet he shied away from learning to drive.

  Ian took his hobbies very seriously. Rather than just kick a ball around the field with a few friends he organized a football team called the Spartans – his childhood admiration for the Ancient Greeks helped him to choose the name. He arranged fixtures by advertising in a magazine. His approach was always to decide how best to get something done; failure was not an option. Ian appeared to get what he wanted and Tony Nuttall could never decide if Ian was spoilt or whether he was able to make things happen through sheer determination. Either way, he was always able to find the initiative when he wanted something badly.

  The first band Ian formed was with Tony Nuttall, Peter Johnson and Brian McFaddian. Peter wore his spectacles on the end of his nose and was considered respectable and studious. He played the piano in a radical way by plucking the strings with a pencil. Later he went to the King’s School with Ian, where he became interested in classical music. Brian was a guitarist whom Ian and Tony had met while caddying for pocket money at Prestbury golf club. Ian chose to play bass and Tony bought himself a drum kit. Very young and obviously ahead of their time, Ian’s first band died an apparently painless death shortly thereafter.

  In the late 1960s, the large community of back-to-back terraced houses behind Macclesfield railway station was demolished to make way for a new complex of council flats. Each block was indistinguishable from the next. With their long, shared balconies and lonely stairways, they were destined to become more insalubrious than the housing they replaced. Unaware of their impending fate, the Curtis family were pleased to be allocated a flat overlooking the football field. With a pleasant view and in close proximity to Macclesfield town centre the new flat seemed ideal. They left their comfortable house with a garden and friendly neighbours, and moved nearer to the town centre.

  *

  Ian began a new phase in his life when he passed his eleven-plus examination and was admitted to the King’s School in Macclesfield. It was and still is a school with a good reputation, although intelligence is no longer the only entry requirement, and the cost today would be prohibitive to a typical working-class family.

  Ian was understandably apprehensive about the type of people who would attend such a school. Socially it was a long way from his home in Victoria Park. Nevertheless, he soon made a very mixed bunch of friends. The first was Kelvin Briggs, whom he recognized from one of his football fixtures against a team from Adlington. A few of his new friends were to some extent rather plummy, but Ian remained unpretentious and did not try to blend in with them. He grew his hair longer than the others so that it was difficult to see his face. This may have been the intention as at this time his face was still chubby and his jowled appearance had earned him the nickname of ‘Hammy’. He was also quite tall and his ubiquitous limbs were awkward, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Yet when he channelled his energy in the right direction, he was a competitive rugby player and enjoyed sprint training. Of course, this didn’t prevent him skiving off lessons for the all-essential cigarette.

  Most people felt either drawn to Ian or rejected by him, depending on how they interpreted his demeanour. He is described by Mike Kelly, a childhood acquaintance who lived nearby, as a person one would cross the road to avoid merely because his eyes said: ‘Stay away.’

  Oliver Cleaver found Ian intriguing, partly because of his background and image, but also because they shared the same view on the educational system at King’s. They kicked against the rigidity of the school timetable, feeling that it discouraged individuality in its pupils. Part of Oliver’s rebelliousness involved friendship with Ian. The two of them challenged the ritualistic life of the school whenever possible. Both Oliver’s parents were teachers and Oliver’s sister was at university reading Russian. The prospect of knowing Ian Curtis must have seemed like an ideal opportunity for Oliver to break away from his ordered and relatively safe life. However, Ian was always very well behaved when introduced to anyone’s parents and came across as a quiet, serious young man. His recalcitrance could be well hidden when necessary.

  Ian’s main love in life was music and many lunchtimes were spent at the Victoria Park flat listening to the MC5, Roxy Music and the Velvet Underground. His fanaticism for David Bowie, and in particular his version of Jacques Brel’s song ‘My Death’, was taken at the time to be a fashionable fascination and merely Ian’s recognition of Bowie’s mime, choreographed by Lindsay Kemp. The fact that most of Ian’s heroes were dead, close to death or obsessed with death was not unusual and is a common teenage fad. Ian seemed to take growing up more seriously than the others, as if kicking against it could prolong his youth. He bought a red jacket to match the one James Dean wore in Rebel Without a Cause. He wanted to be that rebel but, like his hero, he didn’t have a cause either. Mostly his rebellion took the form of verbal objection to anyone else’s way of life and, if he thought it appropriate, a sullen or disinterested expression. Because he was different, people wanted to be included in his circle of friends. He could draw in a person with his enigmatic charisma, which even then was obvious.

  It was impossible for Ian to afford the albums he wanted as well as cigarettes and drink, so it wasn’t long before he resorted to going to the indoor market in Macclesfield wearing a great coat. Records stolen beneath the coat one week would be resold to the same stall a week later. Ian and his school friends would often visit an off-licence, stuffing small bottles of spirits up their jumpers before the little old lady came out to sell them a Mars bar. Ian’s actions were always more considered, he never took any real risks, while Oliver always felt that if he got into serious trouble his family would be there to fall back on. Ian was less blasé, possibly because his father was a policeman, but he enjoyed flirting with authority. He relished choosing outrageous clothes, perhaps wearing something in heinous taste and with eye make-up to draw attention to himself. He and Tony Nuttall would go for an under-age drink at the Bate Hall in Macclesfield because the local CID drank there. Sometimes during school lunch hours, Ian would visit The Bull in Victoria Park flats with his King’s School friends. They would take off their school ties and chat up the girls, thinking they were men of the world with their half pints of lager. Kelvin remembers being caught in a pub leading to a one-week suspension from school, but fortunately he was able to intercept the letter that the school wrote to his parents.

  Ian and his contemporaries were able to smoke dope, sniff solvents and still leave time for studies. Although it was obvious to his friends that Ian was clever, he never seemed to do any work. His studies may have suffered, but he still managed to gain seven O levels in English Language, English Literature, Religious Knowledge, History, Latin, French and Mathematics. He was even awarded prizes in his favourite subjects – History and Divinity. Ironically, despite his admiration of the pomp and power of Germany, he failed O level Germ
an. He never spoke about furthering his education or which university he would like to attend. Although it was seldom discussed, the other boys had realistic career plans, but Ian always talked of a career in the music business. He and Oliver would bicker about who would be the singer in the band, but Oliver never took the conversations seriously. It was clear to Oliver that groups such as the Beatles became famous in the music business by practising laboriously. No one ever saw Ian learning to play the guitar and he never stood up and sang. His posing antics in the bedroom were taken as part of the fun, not a serious commitment to stardom.

  ‘It was a big leap for me to think beyond being a fan of the music and wanting to emulate the lifestyle of the performers. The kind of musicians we liked were on the fringes of normal life.’

  Oliver Cleaver

  When Mott the Hoople’s ‘All the Young Dudes’ hit the charts, Ian began to use the lyrics as his creed. He would choose certain songs and lyrics such as ‘Speed child, don’t wanna stay alive when you’re twenty-five’, or David Bowie’s ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’, and be carried away with the romantic magic of an early death. He idolized people like Jim Morrison who died at their peak. This was the first indication anyone had that he was becoming fascinated with the idea of not living beyond his early twenties, and the start of the glitter and glamour period in his life.

  By 1972, taking easily available household drugs became a pastime taken for granted by Ian. Tony Nuttall was often included in these escapades, but was unable to take to some of Ian’s new chums. Despite being friends for so long, they began to drift apart. This was exacerbated by the fact that Tony had failed his eleven-plus and attended a secondary modern school on the other side of town.

  It was customary at the King’s School for certain boys to do ‘social services’ on Wednesday afternoons. This involved either going to play bingo with the elderly people in their retirement homes, or visiting the more agile in their own homes or the alms houses where some of them lived. While playing bingo, Ian and his friends would sniff at their handkerchiefs which previously had been soaked in drycleaning fluid in an effort to make the afternoon more enjoyable. The old people found the boys very entertaining as they were so lively and laughed a great deal.

  Visiting the homes of pensioners living alone was much more lucrative. One boy would keep the old person talking and the other would pretend to use the bathroom in order to steal any drugs left in the bathroom cabinet. On one particular occasion, Ian and Oliver managed to obtain some chlorpromazine hydrochloride (brand name Largactil) which was considerably more dangerous than what they had stolen previously. Unbeknown to them it is prescribed for schizophrenia and related psychoses, and the emergency control of behavioural disturbance. Its side effects include drowsiness, apathy, depression, agitation and blurred vision. The following Thursday, unable to face the prospect of double History, they each took three tablets.

  This was a normal dose for the tablets they usually took, but the Largactil was stronger and something that they had not tried before. The teacher woke them up and they went off to separate lessons. Oliver’s next lesson was Drama, but he was sent home because his tutor thought he was drunk. Ian was also sent home and there he gave Tony a couple of the tablets.

  When Kevin Curtis returned to the flat he listened outside his son’s bedroom and could hear nothing but the sound of a record clicking around the turntable. He banged on the door to wake them up. Tony was in a confused state, yet after trying to put on still more clothes over his jacket, he was able to walk home to Hurdsfield. Ian was taken to have his stomach pumped. On leaving the hospital Ian met Oliver, who was only just going in. He had gone straight to bed when he got home, but his mother was concerned. She had called a doctor who said that he did not know what was wrong with Oliver. By midnight, when she had trouble finding his pulse, she sent for an ambulance.

  Ian said he had taken the tablets for a laugh to see what would happen. Oliver’s explanation was more dramatic and with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek he said flippantly that he was trying to kill himself. Sadly, Ian’s welfare was forgotten and his more humorous friend spent every Wednesday for the following six months having counselling. There were repercussions at school, of course. Both of them were suspended, Ian longer than Oliver for some reason. It may have been Oliver’s lie that prevented the boys from being expelled. In the end it was Stephen Morris, in the year below Ian and Oliver at the King’s School, who was expelled for over-indulging in cough medicine.

  The stomach-pumping incident hadn’t deterred Ian. Many more lunchtimes were spent in Sparrow Park – an oasis of peace behind the bustle of what used to be a market place, behind St Michael’s church in Macclesfield town centre – sniffing dry-cleaning fluid or popping pills in relative seclusion.

  Sometimes when Ian took his friends back to his parents’ flat, he would mime to records on his acoustic guitar. He had made a brief, half-hearted attempt to learn to play, with little success. The drugs they took dulled their senses and Ian would often inflict pain on himself to see how much he could bear in this anaesthetized state. He used cigarettes to burn his skin and would hit his leg with a spiked running shoe. His pals would laugh at the blood, but were never inspired to copy him. Yet Ian’s violence was not directed at anyone else. Friends found him extremely loyal. He would decide whom he was going to ‘do right by’ and stick to them. His stubborn streak meant that he seldom changed his mind about a person.

  *

  I was six months younger than Ian and attended Macclesfield High School for Girls, which was considered at the time to be a sister establishment to the King’s School. I was born in Liverpool, but my parents left the city when I was three in order to bring up my younger sister and me in a more rural and less fraught environment. After spending a couple of years in Wiltshire and Sussex, we had finally settled in Macclesfield, Cheshire.

  The Victoria Park flats were situated half-way between Macclesfield High School and the bus station, so it became a habit for me and my friends to stop off at the family advice centre there before catching the bus home. The centre and the youth club were run as a joint venture and provided help and support for the residents of the council flats. An odd assortment of people would hang out there.

  ‘We used to bounce between different groups of friends. Within each group there was a particular way you behaved. There was only one time I saw him in an extreme state of anxiety. One afternoon, me, Colin Hyde and Ian had taken a load of sulphate, which heightens your anxiety level, gives you a jittery anticipation. Staying together as a group was fine, we listened to records, etc. But then Colin and I had to go up to Hurdsfield and we left Ian on his own. When we were walking back down Park View corridor, we could see Ian pacing up and down in a manic way and he had a Hoover flexible hose wrapped around him. Anxiety was streaming out of him. His mum had come back and he couldn’t stay in the house. He was wrapping it around himself in a morose, jittery way – we thought it was a snake at first – and he had that drained look he sometimes got. It was a particular look, wasted, ashen. That was possibly the first time I had ever seen him with that expression.’

  Tony Nuttall

  Sometimes the family advice centre provided a cover for truancy which would otherwise have kept the local children on the streets, and I suppose it gave them a shelter without question or interference. Sometimes this went horribly wrong. On one occasion a group of youngsters hid themselves in a store cupboard to sniff ‘camping gaz’. When the atmosphere became unbearable, Colin Hyde leapt out and then tried to push the door closed on the others. Ian managed to struggle out, then Tony Nuttall, but Colin struck a match and threw it into the cupboard before anyone else could leave. The three remaining youngsters were lucky to escape with blistered faces and arms, and singed hair.

  That summer after Ian had taken his first overdose, I met Tony Nuttall at the youth club. With his scruffy clothes, untidy hair and long nose, he resembled a cross between a young Rod Stewart and Cat Weasel, but his se
nse of humour and wide smile gave him an attractive appeal all of his own. He spoke of his friend Ian and was so excited at the prospect of introducing me to him that, one evening, I agreed to leave the youth club with him. Ian was living at 11 Park View with his parents and sister. As we walked towards the end of the landing and rounded the corner, I saw a tall figure staring out over the balcony and across the football pitch. I was intrigued, though not drawn to him. His hair was quite long, he was wearing make-up and eye shadow and his sister’s short pink fun-fur jacket. He nodded at me politely, but did not seem particularly interested in Tony’s new girlfriend. I felt like I was at an audition or waiting to be granted an audience. I got to know Tony through the club, but despite the fact that he and Ian were such close friends, I never saw Ian there.

  Over the following months I spent most of my spare time with Tony and Ian. Our usual meeting place was Mr and Mrs Curtis’s flat. Although the other rooms were cosy, Ian’s room looked like a cell and reflected Ian’s minimalist attitude towards decor. There were two single beds – presumably for when Tony stayed the night – and a chest of drawers. Ian’s record collection was neatly held in a small box and although his taste could be varied, he was in the habit of changing his discs rather than extending his collection. His other prized possessions, namely his Oz magazines and his collection of music newspapers, were in the bottom drawer of the chest. Most telling of all was a black ring-file holding lined paper and cardboard filing cards. Each filing card was labelled either ‘Novel’, ‘Poems’, or ‘Songs’. I thought him rather ambitious, but he showed no signs of embarrassment about it.