‘Croydon’ A song by Captain Sensible

His Musical Career

Captain Sensible is known the world over as a former punk musician and songwriter spearheading the punk movement at several pub venues in Croydon, the most well-known being the Greyhound in Park Lane and the Star in Broad Green, as a member of South Norwood band Johnny Moped.

From 1975 he became bassist with the first UK punk band to obtain a record deal, the Damned, founded by Brian James, ahead of rival punk bands who signed to huge corporations with far more lucrative deals.

Stiff Records released the first ever punk single, New Rose by the Damned, in 1976, followed by the first ever punk album Damned Damned Damned,  favourably reviewed in the music press. The band went on to record an early John Peel punk session for BBC Radio 1, with great trepidation from Radio 1 Controller Derek Chinnery. They received high commendation from BBC Producer Jeff Griffiths for their musicianship as well as their geniality and politeness in the midst of notorious scandals in the tabloid press after the Sex Pistols’ appearance on Thames Television’s Today programme.

Brian James’ departure gave Sensible the opportunity to become lead guitarist and a prolific songwriter, sharing some lead singing with Dave Vanian. Sensible left for a successful solo career from 1981, intermittently returning to the band. As of 2022 the original line-up thrives and continues to tour, post-Covid 19.

Sensible has never failed to claim and celebrate his South Norwood roots, although he was not born in the borough. Despite his musical competence and myriad musical influences from Coltrane to Egg and Quicksilver Messenger Service, he has always had time to engage with his fans and relate to people, displaying a loyalty to his music colleagues who helped his career, and celebrating the founding of his eponymous Sensible Garden. Other than a mural of the Damned on the soon to be demolished Nestle Building 6n Park Lane, the Garden is the only local celebration of a great humanist as well as musician.

Sensible’s affable personality and capacity for friendship in a medium plagued by music egos attracted quality performers such as Robyn Hitchcock and south London producer Tony Mansfield and ex-Selhurst Grammar musician/engineer Matt Fisher, both talented musicians who dabbled with innovative synthesizers such as the Fairlight CMI workstation, diverting Sensible away from his 1970s guitar riffs.

Mansfield helped him get a 4-year deal with the A&M label from the 1980s by producing four demos for him. His first solo album Women and Captains First was a collection of his own songs rejected from earlier Damned albums, with Robyn Hitchcock contributing to some lyrics. It was engineered and produced in 1982 in Croham Rd, Croydon.

The final track Croydon (lyrics co-written with Hitchcock) is Sensible’s autobiography in song, immortalising his days at Stanley Tech, with a tale of the theft of the bronze bust in the entrance hall, possibly of the trade school’s first President, as well as trying to get to know girls from the local schools, and cleaning Fairfield Halls’ toilets from 1974 to 1975. Sensible was pressurised by A&M to add an extra album track to balance out the quantity of songs on each side, so he was advised to cover a favourite record. Not wanting to proffer a poor imitation of See Emily Play or Waterloo Sunset, he rifled through his parents’ vinyl collection and found the LP South Pacific, choosing the lesser-known Happy Talk that was released against his wishes as a single. It got to the UK’s No. 1 slot. To his regret, the gold disc was received by Ridge Farm Studios who mixed the track, and not to Fisher or Mansfield who laboured over the entirely synthesised backing using a Roland MC500. Meanwhile, he sat drinking Youngs real ales in the Dog and Bull, Surrey Street, until Mansfield drove him to Fisher’s studio to create the vocal track. Ever the self-critic, he deplores hearing his drunken voice over a well-crafted backing track. 

The Captain has proved very loyal to Croydon and South Norwood, a lifelong follower of local team CPFC, performer at the Fairfield Halls, and still continuing periodically to provide filmed interviews and contributing to Croydon’s Archives. He launched the opening of the Sensible Garden, named after him, in July 2014 on old waste ground on South Norwood High Street opposite his old secondary school. He returned to the garden in 2017 to preside over the installing of a bench in memory of the instigator of the Sensible Garden, Robbie Gibson.