The Specials playing the Hope & Anchor in Islington on Novemeber 30, 1980. Photo: Mike Baess

THE shocking and unexpected news that The Specials’ legendary singer Terry Hall had died surely stirred many memories of the band performing locally for their legion of Camden and Islington fans.

The band got their first gigs at historic music venues in the area such as the Music Machine (now Koko), the Dublin Castle, in Parkway, the Hope & Anchor in Upper Street, Islington, and the Electric Ballroom in Camden High Street.

And it was at the Hope & Anchor in November 1980 that the band played the first of two memorable shows to support the pub’s Blanket Coverage campaign to help local elderly people.

Specials’ fan Sara-Jane Eichler, daughter of the pub’s then landlords John and Sue Eichler, remembers the gig well.

“This was part of Blanket Coverage, two weeks of benefit gigs when bands that had made it came back to raise money and help the local elderly in Islington,” said Sara-Jane. “Proceeds from the gigs helped buy blankets, slippers, hot water bottles and dressing gowns to keep the elderly warm during the cost of living crisis caused by Thatchers’ Tory government (ring any bells?). I’d seen the band a few times but this was a very special night.”

The Specials playing the Hope & Anchor in Islington on Novemeber 30, 1980. Photo: Mike Baess

Indeed it was and it totally underlined the caring attitude of the band and the band’s deft lyrics that reflected the changing political landscape and rise of the far right in some of the hardest-hitting social commentary ever to make it onto Top Of The Pops and the top 10 music chart.

That was the dichotomy facing the band – their music was about social change and they were among the vanguard of new multi-racial, Two Tone bands in the UK yet their ska sound attracted a far-right following due to the music’s previous association with skinheads in the late 60s and early 70s.

They’d come down from Coventry and started playing their first London gigs at great music pubs such as the Dublin Castle and Hope & Anchor – and in next to no time built up a sizeable local following.

They caught the eye of Camden-based music business manager Rick Rogers, whose PR company Trigger was based above the famous Rock On record shop next to Camden Town station.

Rick was already managing punk legends The Damned and had guided the early campaigns for new wave record labels Stiff Records and Chiswick Records but was up for a new challenge.

As punk rock was waning Rick caught the band at one of their early gigs and guided them within a year to a number one album and single – Too Much Too Young – on their own Two Tone Record label.

Their rise to the top was lightning quick. I was covering the music scene on the old Camden Journal then and witnessed them climbing in popularity from supporting The Clash on a tour of the UK to headlining college gigs and then playing the Music Machine and Electric Ballroom within a matter of months.

The band was on the cusp of major arena success following the release of their massive number one hit, Ghost Town, and Terry lasted a few more months before quitting with co-singer Neville Staples and guitarist Lynval Golding to form Fun Boy Three.

The Specials playing the Hope & Anchor in Islington on Novemeber 30, 1980. Photo: Mike Baess

For a few months in 1981 The Specials became the most important band in the UK with the lyrics to Ghost Town eerily becoming the soundtrack for disenchanted youth who were rioting across the country in reaction to what was memorably described by journalist Mark Beaumont as “a brooding evocation of Thatcher’s wasteland Britain”.

It had a particular resonance for me and my union colleagues at the old Camden Journal National Union of Journalists chapel in the midst of our (eventually successful, thank heavens) struggle to save the paper from closure by its management.

Later the band re-grouped with new personnel calling themselves Special AKA and around this time the group’s drummer John “Brad” Bradbury became a next-door neighbour in Belsize Park and eventually married my best friend’s sister, Emily.

I remember being in the Sir Richard Steele pub in Haverstock Hill with Brad once in the late 90s and he must have been asked about at least three times in half hour if the band would ever reform.

He just shrugged his shoulders and said that although he wanted it, it had to be a collective decision.

That finally happened in 2009, albeit without group leader and main songwriter Jerry Dammers, and since then they’ve twice played The Roundhouse – the last gigs being in 2021.