The London Bus Driver's Prayer

Our Father,
Who art in Hendon
Harrow Road be Thy name
Thy Kingston come
Thy Wimbledon
In Erith as it is in Hendon.
Give us this day our Berkhampstead
And forgive us our Westminsters
As we forgive those who Westminster against us.
Lead us not into Temple Station
And deliver us from Ealing,
For thine is the Kingston
The Purley and the Crawley,
For Iver and Iver
Crouch End

Ian Dury - Still Sorely Missed

Ian Dury, who died of cancer aged 57, March 27, 2000, was one of few true originals of the English music scene, the only man to successfully combine the energy and excitement of rock 'n' roll and funk with the bawdy humour, wit and home-spun philosophy of music-hall and of his native Essex. The fact that he had been crippled since childhood, and was severely ill during his final years as a performer, merely added to his stature. He was truly brave - both physically and in the way he approached his music.



That bravery was evident at his first major London concert, at the Hammersmith Odeon in May 1978, at the height of the punk era. The audience were told to prepare for "one of the jewels in England's crown", and on came not Dury but his hero, the veteran music-hall star Max Wall, who was barracked by the boisterous crowd until Dury stormed on to quieten them down. When he reappeared with his band, he hobbled across the stage, supported by a stick, looking like some spivvy Cockney update of a Dickensian villain. The punks were suitably impressed.

Here was a man already in his mid-thirties who looked crippled but dangerous, and had an armoury of quite extraordinary songs, ranging from the realistically romantic to the outrageous. He could belt out a thoughtful rock song like Sweet Gene Vincent, and then introduce a distinctive Essex spin. Even hardcore punks were taken aback by the stories of Plaistow Patricia or Billericay Dickie, dealing as they did with the life and loves of losers, chancers and wide-boys from the East End and beyond. No one then, or since, could match lyrics like "a love affair with Nina in the back of my Cortina, a seasoned-up hyena couldn't have been more obscener".

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