SM_hooligandays

              My hooligan days with Shane
By Eugene Masterson

SHE was just 16 years' old when she first saw a picture of him in a music magazine above the caption "Shane O'Hooligan". Four years later she was exchanging passionate post-gig kisses and rolling on the floor of his dressing room.

                                            Shane MacGowan's girlfriend Victoria Clarke tells an extraordinary tale of loving and living in a
                                            rock 'n roll world with one of Ireland's greatest musical talents in her new book, "A Drink With
                                            Shane MacGowan".

                                            Even the singer's most ardent fans must wonder at Victoria's long tolerance of Shane's
                                            tempestuous drinking habits, his dalliances with drugs and his violent past.

                                            It all began when, sitting in her west Cork home, Victoria Clarke fantasised about running away
                                            to be a punk rocker. At 16 she did just that and moved in with a friend in London.

                                            One night in her local in Golders Green she met a young man called Spider Stacey, who told her
                                             he was in band called Pogue Mahone, and introduced her to the lead singer Shane.
                                            "I didn't recognise Shane as being the same man I'd envied a few years earlier and I was put off
                                             taking any further interest in him by his aggressive tone and arrogant air," she recalls.

"He ordered me to buy Spider another drink, for his birthday, which I would have done, had he not told me to. I told him to f—– off and sat down with my drink.
"For the rest of the evening I couldn't stop myself staring at him, even though I was annoyed with myself for being compelled to."

As the years passed Victoria warmed to Shane. "I didn't fall in love with Shane, though, until I was 20 and two things happened," she says.

One was when Shane was asked to kiss Victoria, because it was her birthday, and the second was over an argument about Sean Nos singing.

"Afterwards I kissed him goodnight and fell in love," she explains.

She left her boyfriend and waited until after a Pogues gig in the Mean Fiddler to make her move. "I was shameless and threw myself at Shane and we collapsed at the floor together in the dressing room and rolled around, amorously, until the club was deserted."

Several dates followed and the two became an item.

She describes Shane's flat as "disgusting" but "I didn't care, I was in love and I was happy."

The book, mainly conducted in question and answer conversations, is a remarkable piece of work.

Shane asks why he is routinely accused of being a drunkard: "Why pick on me? You know, Tom Waits drinks, Dr Feelgood drank. Miles Davis drank, you know what I mean, it's not unknown for people to drink. And I'm not even the p*** artist that people think I am anyway."

In a series of searingly honest interviews, the singer tells of his support for the IRA, his hatred of the English police and his school days hanging out with hardmen.

But he never contemplated becoming a bank robber or a paramilitary because, as he says himself: "I didn't have the guts".
It's all very much at odds with Shane the vegetarian who says: "I don't eat animals because I don't believe in animals suffering and I don't believe in humans suffering."

He had several run-ins with the police, including one incident where he was severely beaten by a detective while in custody after he was falsely accused of stealing a chair from a pub ( a friend of his took it and it was found in Shane's flat).
In 1988 Shane was involved in an incident at Dublin airport when he beat up a man in the toilets, but the Gardai were prepared to turn a blind eye.

Later he careered into a woman carrying her bags and she wanted him charged. The gardai offered him the choice of Mountjoy or St John of Gods and he chose the medical rather that penal option.

He woke up to find himself being stretchered off in an ambulance but inveigled his way out of hospital by charming the staff.
"I was a danger to myself and other people and a lunatic and as such they could keep me in there as long as they wanted. So I had to go to NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and group therapy.

"It think it's a load of crap, which is why it didn't work. Anything works, if you believe in it, but I don't personally believe God helps p*** artists and junkies, I think he's too busy helping starving people."

q 'A drink with Shane MacGowan' by Victoria Mary Clarke and Shane MacGowan is published by Pan/Macmillan books at ?15stg and goes on sale from tomorrow.