Touching From a Distance (2 page)

Ian Kevin Curtis was born in the Memorial Hospital, Old Trafford, Manchester, on St Swithin’s Day, 15 July 1956, although at the time his parents, Kevin and Doreen Curtis, lived in Hurdsfield on the outskirts of Macclesfield. They had been married four years and Kevin was a Detective Officer in the Transport Commission Police. The small family unit was close knit, and Ian and his younger sister Carole spent much of their childhood visiting relatives in Manchester. Ian had fond childhood memories of the time spent with his mother’s parents and often spoke of more distant relatives who lived in Canvey Island, Essex.

Even at pre-school age, Ian showed a love of books and a keenness to learn. His favourite stories were those in his treasured collection of Ladybird history books. He particularly liked to draw Roman soldiers and gladiators and as soon as he was old enough began to lap up films such as
El
Cid
and
Jason
and
the
Argonauts.
As an infant he attended Trinity Square Primary School in Macclesfield where he was considered a delightful child to teach, after which he went to Hurdsfield Junior School.

The Curtis family became particularly friendly with the Nuttalls who lived five
doors up from them on Balmoral Crescent. The two mothers were constant companions and, as a result, Ian’s closest friend for the next sixteen years was Tony Nuttall. Tony was wiry and eighteen months younger than Ian, and they were nicknamed Batman and Robin. Despite being in different years at primary school, they always met at the gate and ran home for dinner together. Indulging in all the usual street games, they played spies and bandits and tried to keep in with the big boys, choosing to like the Who and
the Rolling Stones because it was considered more manly than liking the Beatles.

Ian inherited his father’s love of writing and silent moods. Kevin Curtis had written several plays, but they had never been published. One of Ian’s favourite relatives was his father’s sister, Aunty Nell, a large, overbearing woman with an excessive determination to get what she wanted from life. Bold and generous, Aunty Nell showered Ian with gifts and transfixed him with tales of her youth and her early modelling career. She made her life seem so exciting and instilled in him a great belief that there was more to living than working nine to five and sharing an identical existence to your neighbours. Their personalities were strikingly similar in that they were both self-assured and determined, although sometimes it seemed as if Nell would actually lend some of her confidence to Ian – he was visibly more outgoing in her company. As she had no children of her own she tended to mother him a little and often their relationship would appear slightly conspiratorial. One had the impression that if Ian were to confide in anyone, it would be Aunty Nell.

Her father, Grandfather Curtis, is recalled by Ian’s family as a ‘wonderful old fellow’ who died with barely a penny in his pocket, but Ian would romanticize and describe an Irish man who changed his religion every day and joked about the Irish political situation. Grandfather Curtis came from Port Arlington which is now in County Kildare, twenty-seven miles from Dublin. In 1900 he and his brother joined the army and went out to India for twelve years. Ian’s grandfather loved India and the army life, so it is not surprising that although he was demobbed just as the First World War was starting, he re-enlisted immediately and joined the Royal Horse Artillery in France. Despite being wounded, he survived the war and returned not to Ireland but to England, where his parents had settled. An avid reader of non-fiction, his insatiable interest in the world around him and his exciting lifestyle made him a captivating companion for Ian. The two of them spent a great deal of time talking together and his grandfather’s death when Ian was only seven years old left a large hole in the young boy’s life. Ian often spoke of
the jocular granddad who was a loser at cards, but had the charming good looks of Errol Flynn.

Ian was a performer from a very early age and seemed to be forever taking his fantasies to the extreme. Once, when he had decided to be a stunt man, he persuaded Tony to help him rig up a wooden sledge as a landing pad. After drumming up local children to watch, he donned an old crash-helmet and jumped from the roof of a one-storey garage. The sledge shattered in all directions and the showman walked away from his first stunt.

Ian never did anything by halves; any interest became a vocation. Speedway rider Ivan Majors was Ian’s hero and he drew parallels between himself and the dashing world champion, dubbing his friend Tony as a new Chris Pusey – a less glamorous, stubbly chinned rider , who was renowned for crashing. When they were in their early teens the boys saved £10 and bought an old BSA Bantam motorcycle. They knew nothing about engines and after pushing the bike five miles home, congratulated themselves on using second gear in the fields. Ian was not mechanically minded, not really relishing getting his hands dirty. He always had a fascination for fame and the glamorous side of life, but the practical considerations that go with it escaped him. When he was older he would speak of owning a prestigious car, yet he shied away from learning to drive.

Ian took his hobbies very seriously. Rather than just kick a ball around the field with a few
friends he organized a football team called the Spartans – his childhood admiration for the Ancient Greeks helped him to choose the name. He arranged fixtures by advertising in a magazine. His approach was always to decide how best to get something done; failure was not an option. Ian appeared to get what he wanted and Tony Nuttall could never decide if Ian was spoilt or whether he was able to make things happen through sheer determination. Either way, he was always able to find the initiative when he wanted something badly.

The first band Ian formed was with Tony Nuttall, Peter Johnson and Brian McFaddian. Peter wore his spectacles on the end of his nose and was considered respectable and studious. He played the
piano in a radical way by plucking the strings with a pencil. Later he went to the King’s School with Ian, where he became interested in classical music. Brian was a guitarist whom Ian and Tony had met while caddying for pocket money at Prestbury golf club. Ian chose to play bass and Tony bought himself a drum kit. Very young and obviously ahead of their time, Ian’s first band died an apparently painless death shortly thereafter.

In the late 1960s, the large community of back-to-back terraced houses behind Macclesfield railway station was demolished to make way for a new complex of council flats. Each block was indistinguishable from the next. With their long, shared balconies and lonely stairways, they were destined to become more insalubrious than the housing they replaced. Unaware of their impending fate, the Curtis family were pleased to be allocated a flat overlooking the football field. With a pleasant view and in close proximity to Macclesfield town centre the new flat seemed ideal. They left their comfortable house with a garden and friendly neighbours, and moved nearer to the town centre.

Ian began a new phase in his life when he passed his eleven-plus examination and was admitted to the King’s School in Macclesfield. It was and still is a school with a good reputation, although intelligence is no longer the only entry requirement, and the cost today would be prohibitive to a typical working-class family.

Ian was understandably apprehensive about the type of people who would attend such a school. Socially it was a long way from his home in Victoria Park. Nevertheless, he soon made a very mixed bunch of friends. The first was Kelvin Briggs, whom he recognized from one of his football fixtures against a team from Adlington. A few of his new friends were to some extent rather plummy, but Ian remained unpretentious and did not try to blend in with them. He grew his hair longer than the others so that it was difficult to see his face. This may have been the intention as at this time his face was still chubby and his jowled appearance had earned him the nickname of ‘Hammy’. He was also quite tall and his ubiquitous limbs were awkward,
as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Yet when he channelled his energy in the right direction, he was a competitive rugby player and enjoyed sprint training. Of course, this didn’t prevent him skiving off lessons for the all-essential cigarette.

Most people felt either drawn to Ian or rejected by him, depending on how they interpreted his demeanour. He is described by Mike Kelly, a childhood acquaintance who lived nearby, as a person one would cross the road to avoid merely because his eyes said: ‘Stay away.’

Oliver Cleaver found Ian intriguing, partly because of his background and image, but also because they shared the same view on the educational system at King’s. They kicked against the rigidity of the school timetable, feeling that it discouraged individuality in its pupils. Part of Oliver’s rebelliousness involved friendship with Ian. The two of them challenged the ritualistic life of the school whenever possible. Both Oliver’s parents were teachers and Oliver’s sister was at university reading Russian. The prospect of knowing Ian Curtis must have seemed like an ideal opportunity for Oliver to break away from his ordered and relatively safe life. However, Ian was always very well behaved when introduced to anyone’s parents and came across as a quiet, serious young man. His recalcitrance could be well hidden when necessary.

Ian’s main love in life was music and many lunchtimes were spent at the Victoria Park flat listening to the MC5, Roxy Music and the Velvet Underground. His fanaticism for David Bowie, and in particular his version of Jacques Brel’s song ‘My Death’, was taken at the time to be a fashionable fascination and merely Ian’s recognition of Bowie’s mime, choreographed by Lindsay Kemp. The fact that most of Ian’s heroes were dead, close to death or obsessed with death was not unusual and is a common teenage fad. Ian seemed to take growing up more seriously than the others, as if kicking against it could prolong his youth. He bought a red jacket to match the one James Dean wore in
Rebel
Without
a
Cause.
He wanted to be that rebel but, like his hero, he didn’t have a cause either. Mostly his rebellion took the form of verbal objection to anyone else’s way of life and, if he
thought it appropriate, a sullen or disinterested expression. Because he was different, people wanted to be included in his circle of friends. He could draw in a person with his enigmatic charisma, which even then was obvious.

It was impossible for Ian to afford the albums he wanted as well as cigarettes and drink, so it wasn’t long before he resorted to going to the indoor market in Macclesfield wearing a great coat. Records stolen beneath the coat one week would be resold to the same stall a week later. Ian and his school friends would often visit an off-licence, stuffing small bottles of spirits up their jumpers before the little old lady came out to sell them a Mars bar. Ian’s actions were always more considered, he never took any real risks, while Oliver always felt that if he got into serious trouble his family would be there to fall back on. Ian was less blasé, possibly because his father was a policeman, but he enjoyed flirting with authority. He relished choosing outrageous clothes, perhaps wearing something in heinous taste and with eye make-up to draw attention to himself. He and Tony Nuttall would go for an under-age drink at the Bate Hall in Macclesfield because the local CID drank there. Sometimes during school lunch hours, Ian would visit The Bull in Victoria Park flats with his King’s School friends. They would take off their school ties and chat up the girls, thinking they were men of the world with their half pints of lager. Kelvin remembers being caught in a pub leading to a one-week suspension from school, but fortunately he was able to intercept the letter that the school wrote to his parents.

Ian and his contemporaries were able to smoke dope, sniff solvents and still leave time for studies. Although it was obvious to his friends that Ian was clever, he never seemed to do any work. His studies may have suffered, but he still managed to gain seven O levels in English Language, English Literature, Religious Knowledge, History, Latin, French and Mathematics. He was even awarded prizes in his favourite subjects – History and Divinity. Ironically, despite his admiration of the pomp and power of Germany, he failed O level German. He never spoke about furthering his education or which university he would like to attend. Although it was seldom discussed,
the other boys had realistic career plans, but Ian always talked of a career in the music business. He and Oliver would bicker about who would be the singer in the band, but Oliver never took the conversations seriously. It was clear to Oliver that groups such as the Beatles became famous in the music business by practising laboriously. No one ever saw Ian learning to play the guitar and he never stood up and sang. His posing antics in the bedroom were taken as part of the fun, not a serious commitment to stardom.

When Mott the Hoople’s ‘All the Young Dudes’ hit the charts, Ian began to use the lyrics as his creed. He would choose certain songs and lyrics such as ‘Speed child, don’t wanna stay alive when you’re twenty-five’, or David Bowie’s ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’, and be carried away with the romantic magic of an early death. He idolized people like Jim Morrison who died at their peak. This was the first indication anyone had that he was becoming fascinated with the idea of not living beyond his early twenties, and the start of the glitter and glamour period in his life.

By 1972, taking easily available household drugs became a pastime taken for granted by Ian. Tony Nuttall was often included in these escapades, but was unable to take to some of Ian’s new chums. Despite being friends for so long, they began to drift apart. This was exacerbated by the fact that Tony had failed his eleven-plus and attended a secondary modern school on the other side of town.