Strummer: a spokesman for punk and a man of principle. (News).

"`So is that what you're calling us now?' said the arresting officer on seeing my Clash badge with the classic picture from the 1976 Ladbroke Grove riots. `No,' said the desk sergeant. `They're a band and they're really good.'

It's hard for people these days to know just how edgy Ladbroke Grove was back in 1976-77. Squats, cheap flats and pubs with `characters' still could be found in plenty.

For anyone who was involved in punk, The Clash were the voice of it all. The Pistols had been upstaged by the clownish antics of McLaren and, with the departure of Lydon, had become a parody of punk that gave succour to the dreadful lumpen-punk that followed. But The Clash remained true. There were endless discussions over whether the band had `sold out' by signing to CBS, all played out to the soundtrack of their music. Did it really matter?

Joe Strummer was a real man. Compassionate and committed, but then everyone already knows that. What they probably don't know is the respect he was held in by people whose lives were touched by his actions. At his funeral, his coffin was preceded by an honour guard of fire officers and a piper; men and women who turned out in the ...