How getting kicked out of Jersey made a top Sex Pistols track

Tuesday 31 October 2017

Squelchy shoes, pink pyjamas, and getting escorted by Police off the island… 40 years after the riotous ‘Never Mind the B*llocks’ album entered the ears of young punk rockers, the Sex Pistols have recalled how getting kicked out of Jersey provided the inspiration for one of its top tracks.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine to commemorate the album’s 1977 release, Johnny Rotten explained how the anarchic gang had hoped for a quiet island break, only to be rejected from nearly every island hotel over fears that they’d wreak anti-establishment havoc on Jersey shores. While frustrating at the time, it provided the spark for the song ‘Holidays in the Sun.'

“We decided to have a holiday as band en masse and we grouped ourselves in the Channel Islands and they immediately rejected us,” he recalled. “As Sex Pistols, we found ourselves banned just about everywhere. They wouldn't let us stay at any hotel. We marched up and down the beaches looking for somewhere to stay and the whole thing became really pathetic.” 

Eventually, they found a place to rest their spikey-haired heads – but were escorted to the airport by police a mere 24 hours later. That set the wheels in motion for an inspirational trip to Berlin.

Video: Local TV crews captured the rockers' trip back to the airport.

Rotten continued: “Steve and Paul went home, and me and Sid [Vicious] decided to go to Berlin, because it was the maddest place to go. Me and Sid were thinking, "Bloody hell, if we can't get into somewhere as soft as the Channel Islands, let's go find out what the Berlin Wall is about." And that whole experience was thrilling for me, and that's where ‘Holidays in the Sun’ came from.”

What Rotten failed to mention, however, was what the band got up to during their short stay on the island. June Gamble, a former receptionist at the Grand Hotel who booked the Brit rockers in, recalled a wild scene as they entered the premises.

“A man dressed in a black leather jacket came in on his own and said he had come to check in. He was followed by the rest of the band. I remember Sid Vicious was dressed in pink striped pyjama bottoms - no top except for a school tie. They were each asked to sign the hotel register and John Lydon signed ‘Johnny Rotten’. I told him he had to sign his real name as it was a police register and he had to give his address. He told me he wouldn’t give his address because he didn’t want fans outside his house. I told him he had to and so he wrote illegibly,” she told Express. 

Pictured: The Grand Hotel, where the Sex Pistols caused chaos before being thrown off the island.

This was only a taste of the craziness to come.

“The Grand Hotel at that time had some elderly permanent residents who lived there, they came down to dinner in evening dress and furs and, as they walked through reception to the dining room, Sid Vicious lay down on the carpet and put his legs up onto the back of the switchboard in reception. The hotel manager, Mr Buckeridge, found out from the deputy manager that the band were in the hotel and instructed staff not to say anything to anyone about them staying there. They were shown to their rooms by the porters.”

But the secret wasn’t safe for long. June mentioned the special guests to a friend of hers who had previously worked at The Grand, and had since moved to work for the local television station.

“The Sex Pistols staying at the Grand Hotel was on the news programme that night. In the morning, the police arrived and took the band away in cars.”

Video: 'Holidays in the Sun' - the 1977 classic inspired by their unusual island break.

The most anarchic thing they did? No smashed up rooms, or TVs being thrown out of windows, but a reported prank involving residents’ footwear… 

“They didn’t do anything very ‘rock and roll’, apart from (allegedly) urinating in some of the residents’ shoes which had been placed in the corridor for polishing. Mr Buckeridge was really annoyed and told us all off as he squelched around reception in his damp shoes!”