PATGILBERT  WRITER

Pat Gilbert’s definitive biography of the Clash – universally acclaimed as a great book – has already sold over 50,000 copies in paperback. For the 30th anniversary of the band’s classic London Calling album, it was reissued with a stunning new cover.

For the book Pat Gilbert – a former MOJO editor with the highest credentials – talked to everyone, in over 70 interviews with the key participants – roadies, producers, friends and fans - and above all the band members themselves, including Joe Strummer before his death, to be able to give the first real insight into what went on behind the scenes during the Clash’s ten-year career.

Based on the notoriously corrupt activities of Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad, The Sweeney TV cop show followed two dishevelled, uncouth detectives, Regan and Carter, played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, who hurtled around London in a battered Ford Granada roughing up old-school Cockney villians who failed to spill the beans.

Where Dixon Of Dock Green would bid his viewers “Goodnight all” with a cheery salute, this pair snarled “Shut it!” at toe-rags who spoke out of turn and “Put ‘em away, love” at gangsters’ molls whose boudoirs they’d burst in on. Philip Glenister’s Gene Hunt in Life on Mars is both parody and homage.

Now Pat Gilbert has written the book on this at-the-time radical and controversial show, interviewing dozens of people who made it happen, from screenwriters and police advisors to stuntmen.