Last Updated on February 19, 2023
Book published in 2010 by CornDog Publishing, this intro was written by the author – ‘Marv Gadgie’
Book price £5.00, P&P (in UK) is £1.50
So here’s “Now Then Gadgie”; a book what I did write all by myself. A book? Gadzooks! How did this come about you ask? The screen goes wobbly and we all travel back in time to 1997…
I had been living in Boston for about six months (a town I had never heard of until … well, that’s another story) and the local punk scene was just getting back on its feet. In an attempt to contribute and document the wonderful world of fen punk I decided to knock together on a state of the art electric type writer a fanzine. Issue 1 was released in a flurry of underwhelming local apathy but all 35 copies were successfully released in to the wild and a second volume appeared.
There came a point however where I realised that there are only so many times you can fill a zine with “… then Urko took to the stage and completely decimated the entire venue leaving a dusty pile of rubble and broken and battered punters. Poindexter were alright as well …” before it got a bit samey.
By about issue three then I started indulging myself (and Gadgie’s small but growing readership) in my love of dubious post apocalyptic world flicks – has anyone else on earth ever seen America 3000? – even dodgier Sci-Fi like the wonderful Buck Rogers and the true life documentary Planet of the Apes and of course, Blondie. Issue 4 saw me invest in a PC! Taking this a step further and after much jovial discussion and encouragement from the ever amusing and sadly late Jas Toomer, I also began including tales from my youth in the pages of Gadgie zine.
And so it came to be, Gadgie seemed to develop a reputation for being somewhat irreverent and filled with tomfoolery from yesteryear (and more recent times) as I delved deep in to my memory to dredge up all manner of stories to entertain an ever growing readership. It was these stories that seemed to touch on something with the punks that picked up Gadgie, reviews were generally positive, and other zines (Suspect Device and Scanner in particular) invited me to contribute to their own pages, all of which encouraged me to go on. And on. And on.
Enter Mr Andrew Culture who became Gadgie’s number one fan and also PR man as he took stacks of the zines, sold them through his distro and returned for more with alarming regularity. “Marv, have you ever thought of writing a book?” he asked me one day and do you what? Yes. Yes I ruddy well had. I had in fact taken all the story type content from the zines, eliminated reviews, news, interviews and the ranting and raving that most “early issues” contain and had begun piecing it all together already. When completed it read like some biographical narrative tracing my life from the mean streets of late 70’s/early 80’s North East England to the modern day where
I reside in Boston as a happily married, father of one, PE teaching, punk rocking, fanzine writing, thirty something who really should know better.
That my friend is what you have in your hands now. Playing out on bikes, vanquishing the Bodo Glimpt sackys, the bum and tail show, psycho Science teachers, Cross Country fun and games, crawling through the dead cow tunnel, getting chased by Boss Eye and Gnome, Boston Youth Crew mooning the nazis, shitting in the pissoir, the dog shit den, the swimming baths locker rats, the frozen dog biscuit shop, people pooing on football terraces, asthma attacks … it’s all there (all the, ahem, favourites) collated in to one volume. Marv Gadgie
‘Now Then Gadgie’ is the best collection of childish tales and punk rock adventure ever to come out of The Fens. This book collects all of the best bits from the legendary long running zine ‘Gadgie’ and is guaranteed to make you laugh, chuckle, titter, guffaw with stories with titles like ‘poo sticks and clemmies’, ‘the wanger wanger’ and ‘the exploding Christmas tree’.
Foreword by Andrew CultureTrying to remember when I first found out about Marv and his zine Gadgie is a bit like trying to remember the first time I giggled at someone saying the word penis. I know it was probably a good number of years ago, I am fully aware that discovering it was like having an extra ray of sunshine enter my life, I know that I still find it as funny now as I did when I first learned of it, but I just can’t remember when the discovery was made. Ultimately the exact time and date I discovered Marv’s tales of youthful remembrance is about as irrelevant as remembering the first time I laughed at someone guffing; both have become fairly integral parts of my life and things I have no desire to be without.I don’t want this introduction to give you the impression that Now Then Gadgie is a puerile publication – it’s something so much better – it’s a collection of anecdotes that contain something that we can all identity with. Marv’s stories appeal to young and old alike and show just how much skill the author has in his observations, they paint a picture of someone with a huge heart, and an even bigger capacity for mischief! This book is also proof that if you look at life with a slightly tilted head, you’ll have a lot more fun. So get yourself comfy, prepare libation, and digest some Gadgie…
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