Reasons to be partly cheerful

Ian Dury – The Definitive Biography by Will Birch (Sidgwick & Jackson).

The author of this biography is himself familiar with the pub rock scene of the early 70s where bands like Dury’s Kilburn and the High-Roads and Birch’s own Kursaal Flyers laid the ground for British punk and, in Dury’s case, a successful career as a purveyor of quirky and uniquely British songs; rye reflections on otherwise neglected aspects of life, “Sing along a Smokey/Sayin’ Oaky-dokey/Comin’ outa chokey”. And, indeed, the book gives us many reasons to be cheerful.

Birch has produced a thoroughly well and mostly first-hand sourced account of a life and career where success came somewhat against the odds and was in no small part down to the drive and ambition its subject possessed. Musically and culturally it is well informed. Sadly
from my point of view though, it takes a decidedly unreconstructed view of Dury’s status as a disabled person. Birch also reaches some rather simplistic conclusions about the impact his impairment had on Ian Dury as both a man and a performer.

The onset of polio, contracted in a Southend open-air swimming pool, and its physical effects on the young Dury is referred to in tones of almost Victorian tragedy. The title given to the book’s first part, which recounts these early days is “Tragedy”. It would be nice to think that this was a knowingly ironic reference to the Bee Gees’ song which was about as close to being the musical antithesis to Kilburn and the High-Roads material as it’s possible to get. Sadly no.

The chapter which tells in detail the story of how, following the onset of polio, Dury is sent in 1951 to Chailey Heritage, an institution set up to give young physically disabled people a “useful” craft is entitled “Cruel Summer”.

Some of the conclusions Birch draws are at best over-generalised and at worst, based on assumptions too easy to make: “He became understandably bitter and physically off-balance, the loss of equilibrium making him irritable and stroppy, but his disability would render him effectively immune from physical retaliation if he chose to lash out with his tongue.”

Don’t get me wrong. For readers who are interested in reading an account of the development of an unusual musical talent – Dury never did really crack the whole singing business – this book undoubtedly delivers. Birch has talked to many of the people who were directly involved with Ian Dury such as song-writing collaborator Chaz Jankel and former Kilburns manager Charlie Gillett.

But what is totally lacking are two things. Any subtle thinking at all concerning Dury’s life and attitudes as a disabled person, the impact, for example, in his later years of his experiences of institutional life at Chailey, but, more importantly and ultimately disappointingly, any of the sense of irony and mischief which Dury himself brought to bear when talking about himself and living as a disabled person.

Ian Macrae