Pauline Black of The Selecter on Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex

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0:05Pauline Black:Pop quiz. What's in your kid's lunchbox? At Whole Foods Market, they've already done the studying. Over 300 food ingredients are banned from their shelves. No hydronated fats in the peanut butter and no high fructose corn syrup in the cookies. And for sandwiches, there are no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in any of their deli meat. So you can pack lunchboxes with peace of mind. Get back to school ready at Whole Foods Market.

0:34Zoe Howe:Today's guest is best known as the lead singer of The Selector, the Coventry two-tone band who seem as popular today as they were when they were formed in 1979. Welcome to Great Lives, Pauline Black. Tell us whom you've picked and why.

0:51Celeste Bell:I picked the lead singer of X-Ray Specs and that was the great polystyrene, formerly known as Marion Joan Elliott Saeed, I think. And she had this enormous effect on me, as I recall, the first time that I heard, oh, bondage, up yours. Just that very first beginning of, you know, little girls should be seen and not heard. But I think, she said, really resoundingly, just the sound of this woman and her voice and the song that she went into. She had a very particular, strident voice, but it was fierce, it was angry, it was all of those things. But nonetheless, underneath all that, there was this kind of cheekiness as well.

1:39Celeste Bell:When I saw her for the first time on, I think it was Top of the Pops, when Germ-Free Adolescent came out, there she was in this kind of red army jacket, peat cap, goggles on the peat cap, braces on her teeth, and looking so much not like, I guess, a punk of the time. You know, somebody like Susie Sue or whatever. I mean, she wasn't into, you know, wearing black and fishnet tights where Hull was in or any of that. She was just like there, fully formed, and singing, I think your deodorant smells nice. and it was absolutely captivating, absolutely captivating. And I was looking at that time for, you know, a different music, a different music than was associated with black women, which was normally disco or soul music.

2:35Celeste Bell:And here was somebody who had owned the space and decided that she was going to be different and she was different with a capital D.

2:45Zoe Howe:So you make it very clear why she was an influence on you personally, but on your music. I mean, you've never been punk.

2:52Celeste Bell:Punk is an attitude. It's got nothing to do with the music. Punk is really kind of rock music played very, very fast. And to a certain extent, you could argue that this was a different space and this was a different way of getting one's message across. And she really did do that.

3:09Zoe Howe:We're going to hear from Polly's daughter, Celeste, in a moment, plus Polly's biographer, Zoe Howe. First, though, here's Polly talking to you, Pauline, in a great show from 2010 called Women of the New Wave. Take a listen.

3:25Celeste Bell:Well, I was wearing braces at the time and I felt I couldn't be really girly or very sexy with the braces on. And also, you know, it's a young look to wear those kind of train track braces. so I didn't want to have a very sort of overtly sexy image. I also remember wearing selfish dresses that were like tube-like so they gave you like an androgynous look because they didn't show any of your shape and then just wearing leggings underneath and leotards and then putting on an army helmet and goggles and having short hair and not wearing very much makeup. I also didn't want people to sort of shout out get them off and I thought, I never want that to happen to me, so I purposely tried not to have a sexy look.

4:14Zoe Howe:And over on my left, we have the great X-Ray Specs, Polly Starr in a germ-free adolescence. On the line from Barcelona, we have Polly's daughter, Celeste Bell, and the producer tells me that he can hear you in the background at some of Polly's interviews on Radio 1. Was it an exciting life for you growing up beside her?

4:36Celeste Bell:Yes, it was a very eventful childhood. I was born in 1981. So my mother was already, she had already left x-ray specs. And she subsequently joined the Hare Krishna movement when I was about six months old. So in many ways, the polystyrene that everyone knows is kind of someone that I rediscovered later in my life as a teenager. But I'd always heard her, People call her Polly and from Polly Styrene to Maharani, as she was known when I was a child. My mother's life was a roller coaster of different identities and aliases and personalities and living very different lives all in one life. And I've joined her for the ride for a lot of that.

5:25Zoe Howe:You co-wrote with Zoe here, you co-wrote a biography. And you say this, she was an artist, a maverick, an individual and an eccentric. That's at the start of the biography, which is called Dayglo. Now, Zoe, you're with me here in the studio in London. Did you ever see her live? What was that like?

5:46Pauline Black:I did, yes. So Polly Styrene and I had kind of crossed paths a couple of times. And first of all, when I was working on my first book about the slits. and yes it was coming up to this really important gig at the roundhouse which would be a reunion of x-ray specs polly and and her the people she was working with at the time had sort of got in touch with me to say could you write like a sort of press bio for this show that we're doing it was very exciting so yes i went to that show and of course didn't realize that that would be you know the last time i would get to see polly styrene play live but it was just this beautiful moment at the end when celeste joined her on stage and and it was magic and of course it would only be a couple of years until she would pass away.

6:26Pauline Black:But it's a beautiful memory, I think, for everyone who was there.

6:30Zoe Howe:That was towards the end of her life, as it turned out. Let's go right back to the beginning and start with her early life. She was born Marion, later shortened to Marie in 1957. Tell me, Zoe, about her parents.

6:46Pauline Black:Do you mind if I refer this question to Celeste? Because I just

6:48Celeste Bell:feel like because they're Celeste's grandparents.

6:50Zoe Howe:Yes, yes.

6:51Celeste Bell:So my grandmother, her name was Joan Nora Elliott and she was born in 1927 in Bromley, Kent, where my mother was also born. Even though my mother grew up in Brixton, she was born in Bromley as well. And there is a kind of Bromley punk connection as well that's quite well known. And my grandfather, his name was Mohamed Osman Saeed. He was born in Berbera in Somaliland or Somalia. He was a seaman and they met at a dance. It wasn't an easy relationship between the two of them. There was some very big cultural differences.

7:33Zoe Howe:They stayed together for a while, did they?

7:35Celeste Bell:Yes. And my mother had a brother and it was a difficult experience for the family because there were very few mixed race families at the time.

7:45Zoe Howe:But Zoe, the Guardian obituary says that her father was an impoverished Somali aristocrat. He wasn't, was he?

7:57Pauline Black:Well, I think that might come from, Celeste, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think sometimes Polly would say things and just sort of conjure up little kind of different versions of the reality because I remember reading that as well um quite a while ago and I think oh you know gosh that's that you know and I think the reality obviously the reality is what Celeste is sharing with us now so um but yeah I think that that kind of um chimes with what Celeste was saying about all these kind of different this sort of collage of identities Polly was creating and playing with and to conjure up this sort of um I think she said this sort of plastic princess um this kind of reflection of the kind of artificial side of, you know, life and consumerism where nothing is quite real, you know, when that starts to take over or when everyone starts to expect you to be that all the time.

8:46Zoe Howe:Pauline?

8:47Celeste Bell:I think as well that, I mean, within the pop industry, the way that women are treated, certainly back then, was very different maybe to what it is now. Because I've watched footage of Polly being interviewed because one doesn't look like somebody like Debbie Harry or whatever would have been, you know, the ideal in inverted commas. At that time, Polly was very, very different. She was very forthright. Men, and I've noticed this in my own life as well, feel as though they can just sort of cut across you in a way they wouldn't do to somebody like Miss Harry. and I feel that she, in her responses, her responses became quite defensive and maybe that defensiveness is not, you just tell people rubbish and they believe it, you know?

9:43Celeste Bell:I mean, if it's in The Guardian, it must be true. As long as it's spelt right. And so I feel that she was coming from that kind of place more than sort of, you know, some fantasy in her own life for her own world.

9:59Zoe Howe:She ran away when she was 15. Zoe, what do we know about this time?

10:05Pauline Black:Yeah, so, I mean, it's kind of a brave thing to do. She was a tough kid as well. You know, she grew up, you know, I remember her sister referring to them as kind of latchkey kids. They were just playing on the estate and playing on the bomb sites in South London and they had a lot of independence. So, you know, she probably didn't think much of like, you know, I'm going to go out there and travel around the UK and go to rock festivals. Is that what she did? Yeah, and she was a seeker as well, you know, from a really early point. That's the impression I got.

10:32Celeste Bell:Wasn't she a bit of a hippie as well? Yeah, a bit of a hippie. I mean, that's the thing. Everybody was a bit of a hippie in the early 70s. I wasn't. Everyone except you. Can't all be blessed, can't you?

10:47Pauline Black:But yeah, that's right. And I think that comes throughout her whole career, actually, that sense. Certainly, you know, in the solo work as well that came after X-Ray Specs, I think that comes through. and so all of this is incredibly formative for her and very brave as well it all sort of comes to a halt I gather when she trod on a rusty nail in a stream and she got sepsis and she had to go home and so this kind of adventure was sort of cut short I think it was a seminal time for her and of course we take all those experiences with us and it's always part of the conjuring of what would become who she was as a singer-songwriter but also I would say I think she was quite an intimidating presence at the punk club The Roxy because I remember when I was talking to The Slits about other female artists who were in that scene, part of that scene, especially kind of early on.

11:33Pauline Black:And there was a sense that, hang on, you know, OK, The Slits is like a gang, but here comes Polly. Yes, OK, in a band, in X-Ray Specs, but she's very much kind of also out on her own, in a way, commanding the stage with this incredible rallying cry of a voice. And I think it really kind of was like, well, this is next level stuff. Now, how did that start? Well, I think, I hope I'm getting this right, But I think with her involvement in theatre, she had experience in singing as well. So she had a lot of power and knowledge as to how to use her voice. But I think this turning point came when she met Falcon Stewart, who would become her manager, her partner.

12:10Pauline Black:And they became involved with each other. He was a very influential, charming, well-connected, quite upper-class dude. That's the impression I got. And so I think he was, again, another formative influence on Polly. Pop quiz. What's in your kid's lunchbox? At Whole Foods Market, they've already done the studying. Over 300 food ingredients are banned from their shelves. No hydronated fats in the peanut butter and no high fructose corn syrup in the cookies. And for sandwiches, there are no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in any of their deli meat. So you can pack lunchboxes with peace of mind. Get back to school ready at Whole Foods Market.

12:54Zoe Howe:Was the first song Silly Billy? Have I got that right?

12:58Celeste Bell:You have got that right, yes. And it sounded a little bit like sort of Althea and Donna's Uptown Top Ranking.

13:04Zoe Howe:A little bit reggae-ish then.

13:05Celeste Bell:Yeah, a little bit reggae-ish, a little bit ska kind of thing. But I mean, that was all floating in the ether at that time. She did feel very connected in a way to the Caribbean community from an early age because there were very few Somali people around her when she was growing up, but she had the Caribbean community were very prominent. And in fact, the first house that she lived in with her mother, they lived in a halfway house. It was kind of very impoverished dwellings that were owned by a notorious slum landlord. In fact, her mother shared a house with a Caribbean family who would often look after my mother when she was very small.

13:45Celeste Bell:And they would babysit my grandmother who was working full time.

13:50Zoe Howe:When did she become polystyrene?

13:52Celeste Bell:I mean, again, there are lots of different stories that I've heard from my mother and then also from researching. But I believe the genesis of the name was the store. She had a shop in Beaufort Market that was, I believe she called it polystyrene. And she sold handmade plastic jewellery and jelly shoes, even outfits that we would later see on Top of the Pops when she was performing.