Atypical Girl – Penny Kiley

And socially, because it showed the human face of the unemployment statistics – the truth about Thatcher’s ‘price worth paying’. Also, it had actors who’d appeared at the Everyman, like Bernard Hill who played Yosser ‘Gizza job’ Hughes. This all made me feel proud. The documentary that Granada made about us focused on unemployment too. The beginning of the programme set the scene: ‘The rapid decline of manufacturing industries coupled with the move to new technology have left a generation of young people without work .

. . 40% of the 100,000 unemployed people in Liverpool are 24 or under.’ One of my colleagues put it more starkly: ‘The jobs simply don’t exist any more.’ You can see me in the background in some scenes, looking anxious and trying to organise people, but I don’t talk. At the end, some of the boys in the team were interviewed about their future. Some tried to sound optimistic, but others sounded bitter. It was hardly surprising: unemployment had risen above three million for the first time since the 1930s.

Having a degree, as most of us did, didn’t make any difference if you had no work experience. Down south it was hard – in Kent, Maggie was doing secretarial work which was all she could get – but in the north it was almost impossible.

The director had the bright idea of using a video game as a framing device, to make the programme look young and modern. Dave, the youngest of us and the best at arcade games, was filmed playing. Then shots of the screen were edited in between scenes. At the end it said: ‘Game over.’ * ‘You haven’t got much experience.’ ‘What’s a graduate doing applying for this job?’ ‘We don’t employ people with punk rock haircuts.’ * I tried very hard to get a job in the arts.

Once, I nearly got a job with Apollo Theatres.

Penny Kiley was Liverpool correspondent for Melody Maker during the post-punk years of the late 1970s and 1980s. She also wrote for Smash Hits and was pop columnist for the Liverpool Echo. She was diagnosed as autistic at the age of sixty. 1kitap1.com/en ATYPICAL GIRL Punk rock, Liverpool and trying to be normal PENNY KILEY 1kitap1.com/en This paperback edition first published in Great Britain in 2026 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd Birlinn Ltd West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QS www.polygonbooks.co.uk 1 Copyright © Penny Kiley, 2026 The right of Penny Kiley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. If any omissions have been made, the publisher will be happy to rectify these in future editions. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. This work is reserved from text and data mining (Article 4(3) Directive (EU) 2019/790).

ISBN 978 1 84697 691 9 eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 744 4 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library. Typeset by Initial Typesetting Services, Edinburgh Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, Elcograf, S.p.A. 1kitap1.com/en Contents Prologue PART 1: MORNING OF OUR LIVES The punk rock question Sod the Jubilee: part 1 How to look like a punk: part 1 Complete control 1977 Punk’s not dead Life’s a gamble How to look like a punk: part 2 How to become a music journalist Career opportunities: part 1 I fought the law Rewind: 1955 PART 2: REVOLUTIONARY SPIRITS Acting Questions I can’t answer: part 1 Typical girls Ghost town Rough Trade raincoats For a friend Rewind: 1966 Gizza job God-given leisure How to be a hack Film script in your pocket 1988 PART 3: THERE’S A TEAR IN MY BEER How to be a grown-up You’ll never walk alone Liverpool now Are you ready for the 1990s?

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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