Linda Ashby

From the Bromley Contingent Anarchy session photos by Ray Stevenson 1976

Linda Ashby was no Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood or Sex Pistols acolyte but a sex dominatrix who was a key figure in early punk.  It was her apartment that became a stop over point after clubs for that loose set of people that comprised the ‘Bromley Contingent’ and friends, Sex Pistols, The Heartbreakers, workers from the shop SEX like Jordan, Malcolm and Viv and future band members like Adam Ant and eventually a home for some of them. As such it allowed influences to spread and friendships to be made.

Linda was part of the underground gay scene of clubs, prostitution, S&M, drugs, secret sexual preferences and the criminal element that flourished and exploited these hidden desires as they crisscrossed public figures in art, television, music and politics. She was also a visitor to the shop ‘Sex’ that sold clothing suitable for her business and it was a two way influence.

Ashby was excited by the fact that she didn’t have to change to go to work. This was the kind of existential danger that McLaren and Westwood had always wanted to capture. England’s Dreaming – Jon Savage

Linda was gay and her girlfriend Caroline was the DJ at Louise’s. Her occupation was a ‘dominatrix’ to city gents and personalities all over London. While we don’t know the ins and outs (sic) of her affairs, stories regarding a friend of hers, the infamous Miss Whiplash gives a taste of the surreal goings-on with men of ‘importance’.

While it all sounds colourful (and as we’ll see Linda was one of the lucky ones) Lindi was a prostitute and homeless at the age of 15 and recounts a story of a certain Jimmy Saville paying her and her thirteen year old friend £3 for sex in a room he kept in London and that all her customers were older men in their 40’s and 50’s. Add in corrupt police and powerful people compromised, then as Bertie Marshall recounts in ‘Berlin Bromley’ being too vocal about your clients and the knowledge you had about them could get yourself mysteriously killed with so much at stake.

That said Linda’s colourful occupation and its backdrop of the London Gay clubs of the time meant she came into contact with the equally colourful Bromley Contingent.

Adam Ant ..the brothel at Buckingham Gate run by Linda, who catered for those Members Of Parliament who had exotic tastes.

Linda was gay and a dominatrix. Her wealthy and important clients would visit her to be disciplined, insulted and/or hurt. She was a lovely woman in her late twenties, a proper punk with the hair and make-up that boldly said so. Her flat was large enough to accommodate a couple of her hooker pals and their clients at the same time that she was entertaining members of the punk hierarchy in the living room. Stand & Deliver – The Autobiography

Siouxsie  We all used to end up at Linda’s at the end of the night. She’d carry on her work while we were in the other room. We’d be sitting having cups of tea or something stronger and in the other room, there’d be a newsreader or a kids’ TV presenter with a baseball bat up their arse. She was a lesbian, but her work was never about sex. It was more about S&M, so I always thought it was a wonderful profession for her to have. Siouxsie & The Banshees – The Authorised Biography Mark Paytress

Severin It was open house to all of us. Linda liked collecting people. It was weird knowing someone with heir own suite of rooms in a hotel. Siouxsie & The Banshees – The Authorised Biography Mark Paytress

Bertie Marshall “You know Benny Hill is a client dear, he loves being put in a rubber mask and locked in a cupboard.” She [Linda] had a sex dungeon in Earls Court and a wide variety of clients from politics and show biz. Bertie Marshall – Berlin Bromley

Johnny Rotten also became a friend.

Linda was a very good friend of mine and she ran a call-girl kind of situation, shall we say, around by the back of Buckingham Palace. Which, oddly enough, was across the street from Scotland Yard, (ha ha ha) The police station! She used to titillate MPs; extra curricular activities late at night with many members of parliament. Very hilarious. Dick Vain Interview 2000

It was at Louise’s that she came into contact with the Bromley Contingent and others and soon changed her look.

…gone was the men’s pinstripe suit and the feathered haircut. Now she wore her hair in a blonde crop, eyes in black circles, leather knee boots, black nylon leotard, thick belt and riding crop. Bertie Marshall – Berlin Bromley

Picture Ray Stevenson – Anarchy magazine photo session 1976

More involved in the fetish side of the scene than the punk scene, check out the photos above at Linda’s flat by Ray Stevenson and the main lead photo. Linda is wearing The London Leatherman LP7 suit and boot stirrups are the LLM too). In the lead photo at the top of the page it’s Sharon Hayman’s foot with London Leather Man foot cuff in Linda’s crotch!

“The London Leatherman, also known as Ken, was a self-taught and highly specialised leather craftsmen whose workshop in the 1970s, 80s and 90s was based in Battersea, London, England. He created and made iconic pieces of clothing associated with early punk rock [McLaren took them all down to be fitted for leather jeans] and the very specific styles and looks from which he and his follow leather wearing enthusiasts were looking to achieve.”

Linda & Nancy – Sex Pistols Notre Dame gig – Photo credit Ian Dickson?

Her St James Hotel apartment in SW1 was smack in the middle of  Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral, New Scotland Yard, and an army barracks. Generous and uncomplaining, she had money, drugs and a warm place to stay. Her bedroom all decked out in pink was described by Bertie Marshall as “glowing like a big cunt.”

Bertie Marshall Linda’s flat was decorated in Heals sofas and velvet curtains, it was my first touch with a certain glamour. She was very generous with her pills and vodka that she’d send out for at 4am. It wasn’t Punk aesthetic at all, it was very 70s. Linda was very schizo though, moody, a drama queen, you were in favour then out. 3a.m interview October 2001

Linda Ashby provided downers and a crash pad to help the come down from speeding post clubbing and gigs as she went about her business dispensing pain and pleasure. Jordan would stay there as would members of the Bromley Contingent such as Berlin, Simon, Debbie Juvenile and Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen who Berlin caught crabs from sleeping next to! For a while Helen Wellington-Lloyd, Johnny Rotten, Jordan (who Linda had a crush on according to Jordan in her book Defying Gravity and recounts being taken horse riding with Sid Vicious by Linda in Hyde Park!) and Simon Barker all lived in her flat.

Walter Lure Jordan {Walter means Linda Ashby, but you don’t contradict a legend} the dominatrix dyke had a large flat just off Green Park near Buckingham Palace. Some of us stayed there a night or two on cots. She had cash so we could get drugs as well. I also met Chrissie Hynde, Patti Paladin and Judy Nylon there for the first time. The Pistols would stop by as well. Jordan { he means Linda} would be torturing her clients in the back room while we were all hanging out in the front rooms. Someone said they saw David Frost coming out one afternoon looking all red faced after having gone through a session with her. Quite the scene at the time. Joe Whyte Interview Louder Than War 2017

Adam Ant helped decorate it though with unexpected results.

Adam Ant I liked it at Linda’s place, and in the summer of 1977 I wrote a lot of songs there, listening to Iggy Pop’s The Idiot…Because I had little money, I would sometimes earn cash by painting peoples flats, often sleeping there while doing the job. Linda’s was such a place. Stand & Deliver – The Autobiography

One night, after finishing painting the kitchen a brilliant white, a sleeping Adam Ant in his sleeping bag, is woken by an angry Sid Vicious.

Adam Ant …some time later I felt a whack on my cheek. I woke up to see Sid’s face looking down at me…he threw several punches to my face, which I hardly felt, and finished off with one to the groin. Then he was gone. Stand & Deliver – The Autobiography

An irate Adam picks up a hammer and goes looking for Sid but doesn’t find him. At a later stage at the Marquee he exacts revenge by making Sid brick it by punching the wall next to his face surmising that he incurred Sid’s wrath by casually remarking to someone at the Sex Pistols boat party that he would give Sid bass lessons if he wanted them.

Daily Mail December 2014 Chris Hastings

It was her kitchen, daubed with graffiti and slogans, that was used for the legendary photo sessions by Ray Stevenson that were used for the one-off ‘Anarchy’ magazine and have been featured countless times in every punk story or documentary.

Sid and Nancy eventually moved in (was this flat the tardis? – how many people could fit in it?) bringing inevitable trouble and a police heroin bust. This was the culmination of a number of complaints against Linda and the St James Hotel management eventually managed to persuade her to give up her flat at the start of 1979 and with that the group of friends dispersed. Times had changed; Punk and its fashion had moved on, The Sex Pistols had split up and Rotten started proceedings against Glitterbest and McLaren. Tracie O’Keefe had died earlier in the year and both Sid and Nancy were also dead.

Apparently, the story ends well for Linda Ashby who achieved some sort of domestic bliss. She knew the game was up and moved out to the country. Mick Mercer’s fanzine Panache 13 from 1980 featured a Siouxsie & the Banshees interview where they talked about where members of the Bromley Contingent were now.

Siouxsie: She’s in the country with some horses. She’s retired from being a working lady.

JR: I hear she got married and moved out to the country. Apparently she lives on some farm. So she’s milking cows-she always did (ha ha ha). So no change there! Dick Vain Interview 2000

Punk77 raises its glass to Linda Ashby – a very remarkable lady who metaphorically and physically did the establishment right up its arse and got it to pay for it!

---

---