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Analyse the title and describe the record sleeve : What do you imagine about the song?

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A Brief History of Punk's Birth in the UK - MusicMadeUs

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The Clash - London Calling (Official Video)

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Punk presented by PG3 - Digipad by La Digitale

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Une application en ligne pour créer des murs multimédias collaboratifs proposée par La Digitale

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différenciation : guidages pour élèves en difficulté

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différenciation : guidages pour élèves en difficulté

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Amplified - Classic Rock & Music History

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Punk: Born In The US, Thrived In The UK? | History of Punk | Amplified

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A man in punk dress is apparently admonished by a man in London in the mid-1980s. Punk's expressive dress and anarchic politics were seen as a general affront to middle English conservatism in the mid-1970s, with the movement continuing as a subculture through the 1980s and beyond.

EVERYONE knows the sound of punk: unfiltered and breathless, an assault of sonic claustrophobia captured unpolished in a studio, or garage, living room, or perhaps an alleyway. Guitar riffs are sharp and unruly, driven by drums clattering around a gritty, decisive bassline. Vocals are unpolished and expressive, yelling lyrics loaded with agenda above the instruments. Aggression, frustration, sneering sarcasm - and all of it loud.

Everyone too knows the look of punk: statement haircuts, ripped clothing, badges, metalwork, makeup and leather. To its makers and its audience, punk was the cultural identity of anger, disenfranchisement, and rebellion.

The surge of - and appetite for - the punk scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s wasn't limited purely to the music. It became an ideology, spawning literature, poetry, fashion and political defiance. But, as dramatised in new Disney+ biopic Pistol, it was the music that became its gravitation point, giving a beat and an identity to a genre that would explode, implode - and be reinvented over the decades around the world. (The Walt Disney Company is majority owner of National Geographic Partners.)

Defining the undefinable

Punk as a movement - perhaps appropriately - defies definition. Defined by Monika Sklar in her book Punk Style, punk was a 'vital new way to perform subcultural ideas, that incorporated its own art, music, dress and lifestyles... commonly rooted in those who are somehow disenfranchised from society."

People in punk dress walk down King's Road in London in the 1970s.

Photograph by Homer Sykes / Alamy

Exactly when it was appended to music is uncertain, though it's likely to have been a lot earlier than most realise. A note in the San Francisco Call of 3 October 1899 carried the outraged remarks of one Otto Wise, who reviewed the singing of a companion in a fraternity house as "the most punk song ever heard in a hall." In this and later tuneful contexts, which were plentiful, the word was used as an adjective to describe any kind of music that was authentically ragtag or unpolished - the implication being that those making it were somewhat rough around the edges as well.

Far from a simple expression of alternative ideas, or music simply of a lowbrow nature, by the time 'punk rock' was a thing, it was perceived as being on a mission to deliberately provoke. Miriam-Webster defined the music as "marked by extreme and often deliberately offensive expressions of alienation and social discontent" - though the word wasn't used widely when the movement was first finding its voice. It was around, though: In the May 1971 edition of edgy music magazine Creem, journalist Dave Marsh, in a retrospective of 1960s US bands ? and The Mysterions, described their output as being a "landmark exposition of punk rock" - one of the first times the term was coined as a genre.

The Sex Pistols in the United States, 1978. Punk rock grew concurrently in the U.S. and the U.K., though the musical movement began in America with bands such as the New York Dolls and The Stooges helping set the scene for what would follow. Stooges songs were part of the repertoire of the Sex Pistols.

American groups such as the New York Dolls and the Ramones ('New York rock'), The Stooges and the MC5 in Detroit ('garage rock') had the swagger and bare-bones musicality vibe nailed. But the general use of a term soassociated with scallywags of one kind or another was frowned upon, and mainly used by journalists to categorise elements of their music. A 1976 article in the UK's Sounds magazine by John Ingham was entitled ' Welcome to the (?) Rock Special' - the question mark a clear statement that nobody quite knew what to call the new movement now emerging in the U.S., Australia and in the U.K. On the eastern side of the Atlantic at least, punk rock didn't get its enduring identity until there was a band of suitably shameless menace upon which to pin it.

Trigger point

The Sex Pistols performing in Norway, 1977. The band used European dates to emphasise their 'banned in the UK' notoriety, though in truth the band was never banned; merely their songs were excluded from the playlist of conservative broadcasters like the BBC, which it is believed limited their commercial success. Many believe the controversial single 'God Save the Queen' reached number 1 in the singles chart but was denied the accolade, losing out to Rod Stewart's 'I don't want to talk about it.'

Photograph by Norway National Archives

Against such a scene, by the mid-1970s the emergence of a colourful counter-culture of bands that seemed to articulate the country's frustrations were a tempting lightning rod for disenfranchised youngsters.

Punk rock's musicality - or as perceived in some quarters, lack thereof - was itself a reaction. While artistically, the songs sometimes sounded like the band had only a loose acquaintance with their instruments (a 1973 review of The New York Dolls compared the sound of the band to lawnmowers) it was a conscious riposte to grandiose, stadium-filling bands playing rambling prog-rock and employing operatic and indulgent performances.

Punk rock, when it arrived, was edgy, brief and unpolished, with unpredictable and chaotic live performances which sometimes ignited pent up crowds into violenc e. Out went virtuoso solos and twinkly stagecraft: musicianship came second to attitude, and the feeling of accessibility - that those on stage weren't couched and pampered rock stars, but just someone with struggles, frustrations and something to say. Lyrics were often politicised or critical of what was increasingly seen as a country run by arcane and regressive institutions.

Such rough but charismatic sound also bred its own recession-proof fashion. The ascetic, unkempt look of American rock bands such as The Ramones and Television and artists such as Lou Reed and Patti Smith - ripped jeans held together with safety pins, recycled thrift store clothes and t-shirts - spread across the Atlantic and became individualistic styles that were by definition a unique statement. While aped - ironically - by fans, the emerging movement provided a platform for self-expression that was authentic, rag-tag, and accessible for anyone.

Some of the boldest statements were crafted by Vivienne Westwood, who at the time was in a relationship with socialite and sometime promoter Malcolm McLaren. After the latter had spent a period in the U.S. managing the New York Dolls, he became interested in managing a local band called The Strand, which he and Westwood used as a kind of musical billboard for their Chelsea fashion boutique. With the rise in popularity of fetish wear, Westwood and McLaren had renamed the boutique from Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die to SEX - and The Strand to the Sex Pistols, with McLaren describing his desired aesthetic for the band as 'sexy young assassins. '

'The antithesis of humankind'

It was an uncomfortable contradiction that success and popularity was the inverse to punk's philosophy, but also the inevitable consequence of connection with large numbers of disenfranchised record buyers. This came to a scandalous head in December 1976 when Thames TV presenter Bill Grundy - who, in a last-minute switch, found himself interviewing The Sex Pistols instead of Queen in a primetime evening broadcast - appeared to challenge the band on its anti-materialistic authenticity given it had accepted £40,000 for a record deal.

Singer John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, mumbled a swearword under his breath which Grundy asked him to repeat in defiance of the channel's stringent policies. After more goading, guitarist Steve Jones broke into a profanity-loaded rant at the presenter, all of which was broadcast live. Grundy's career never recovered, and the Sex Pistols were instantly notorious.

Left: Top:

Westwood and McLaren's shop on The King's Road in 1976. Initially named Let it Rock, then Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, then SEX - and later The Seditionaries, and finally World's End, which it remains to this day.

Photograph by Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy

Right: Bottom:

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood in London, 1977. Westwood wears the original artwork for God Save the Queen on her t-shirst. Westwood's designs were deliberately intended to shock and provoke, and she and McLaren's influence over the Sex Pistols made them a leading charge on both the genre's music and look.

Photograph by Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy

The perceived threat that punk rock presented to society was framed neatly by the release of what would become an anti-establishment anthem. For a target, as the head of state presiding over a country enduring austerity, the Queen was apparently as good as any.

The sleeve for the single God Save the Queen (1977.) The song was originally called No Future, and variations of the artwork, designed by artist Jamie Reid, included images of the Queen with a safety pin through her lip and swastikas over her eyes.

Photograph by Robert Lazenby / Alamy

Lydon - who wrote the lyrics - has held the opinion that the song, which was originally titled No Future, was misunderstood. In Isle of Noises, Lydon told author Daniel Rachel the song captured "the idea of being angry, of the indifference of the Queen to the population and the aloofness and indifference to us as people." But writing in The Times in 2022, he stated: "I've got no animosity against any one of the royal family. Never did. It's the institution of it that bothers me and the assumption that I'm to pay for that."

The inherent provocativeness of punk's anti-establishment, anti-capitalism and anti-conformist statements inevitably went into darker territory, which deepened the divide between the older, more conservative generation and the punks themselves. As cultural theorist Dick Hebdige wrote in Subculture: The Meaning of Style, "No subculture has sought with more grim determination than the punks to detach itself from the taken-for-granted landscape of normalised forms, nor to bring down upon itself such vehement disapproval."

Violence was a feature of many punk gigs - both within the crowd, between the crowd and the band, and between the more strait-laced public spoiling for a fight with a subculture seen as a genuine threat to the British way of life. Despite a reputation for unruliness, the punks became targets, too.

"Punk rock is nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy, prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating... I think most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death."

"Punks' transgressive, shocking attitudes and stances caused normative culture to react viciously against them," wrote Andrew H. Carroll in 'Running Riot': Violence and British Punk Communities, 1975-1984, "and it further isolated them from normative society; the reactions against them pushed punks deeper into their alternative community."

Another theory for punk's perceived aggression was the spiralling divorce rate and the dissolution of what many considered 'traditional' family values. As Connell states, "one way young people reacted to this was by constructing a new community, centred on punk music, that used violence to define itself."

In addition, sinister accessories such as dog chains and knives were adopted as effects. In a further shock attack on older generations swastikas and other Nazi aesthetics were frequently worn as a deliberate provocation to those who had fought in WWII three decades earlier.

The Sex Pistols sign a record deal, 1977. Manager Malcolm McLaren (second from right) orchestrated stunts such as this for maximum publicity and affront to institutions such as the monarchy. It's no accident the contract was signed in front of Buckingham Palace, nor that the record God Save the Queen was released to coincide with the Queen's silver jubilee. The band themselves denied the record was timed as such.

Photograph by PA Images / Alamy

Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in 1978. Both would be dead a year later Spungen supposedly at the hands of Vicious, and Vicious by a drug overdose. As Vicious died whilst awaiting trial, the question over who murdered Spungen - she was found stabbed by Vicious's knife in late 1978 while the latter was in a drug-induced blackout - remains controversial.

Photograph by Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy

Punk goes mainstream

Vicious's death was considered one of the death knells for punk itself. Bands that followed The Sex Pistols' lead included Buzzcocks, The Damned and The Slits, all of whom were influential in developing punk rock as a genre along various political themes, from austerity to equality, with some - including The Clash - becoming highly successful in the process. The latter made racial tension one of its protest flags, after lead singer Joe Strummer witnessed the violence between police and Black revellers at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976, penning the song White Riot in response.

The Clash, pictured here in 1979, would be one of the British bands that would develop punk rock beyond the 1970s.

Photograph by Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy

As the 1970s became the 1980s, punk became even more resplendent. But as the decade progressed, inflation fell, the economy improved and new, less volatile bands caught the attention of younger generations.

While less menacing and gritty, the bright colours, creative hairstyles and use of makeup and other more tranquil ostentations of the 1980s music fashion appeared a natural development of punk. But stylistically, many of the bands that followed were an exaggerated contrast to their predecessors. Artists influenced by the punk movement such as Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Adam and the Ants earned the early nickname 'peacock punks.' The anger quelled, the motivations became less aggressive; guitars were augmented by new technology such as synthesisers that once again gave songs the produced shimmer bands like the Sex Pistols had gleefully binned. Punk, as a subculture, remained - but popular music evolved.

Their philosophy, however, didn't - and has emerged periodically since, with movements such as gothic rock, grunge and EMO exhibiting many of the anarchic attributes that led to punk. Some of the albums produced in that first wave frequently rank in critics' lists of the top albums of all time.

One of the bands identified as a kind of spiritual heir to The Sex Pistols emerged from Seattle in 1987. But for the lead singer, it was the philosophy, not the music, that tied the two together. "The only reason I might agree with people calling our band "The Sex Pistols of the 90s" is that, for both bands, the music is a very natural thing, very sincere," said Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana. "All the hype the Sex Pistols had was totally deserved - they deserved everything they got."

Editor's note: this article originally stated Bill Grundy worked for the BBC. This has been corrected.

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What was punk - and why did it scare people so much?

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EVERYONE knows the sound of punk: unfiltered and breathless, an assault of sonic claustrophobia captured unpolished in a studio, or garage, living room, or...

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The BFI National Archive holds a magnificent collection of film and television, from the birth of cinema to today.

Explore the Punk on Film collection on BFI Player to see many more beautifully preserved films.

Curator (BFI National Archive):
Vic Pratt

Additional text:
Alex Davidson

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The hidden history of UK punks - Google Arts & Culture

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These rare films are a time capsule of the attitude, music and fashions that besieged Britain as punk took over.

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Henry Rollins: When someone asks you 'what's punk?' my reply is "If you have to ask, you're never going to know." Apparently someone asked Louie Armstrong or Lightening Hopkins what jazz or the blues were respectively, and apparently that's the answer they gave them, so I don't know who said what to whom when, but a lot of times if you have to ask. . . .

I think it changes from person to person. So what is punk? Everything from the Velvet Underground to Occupy Wall Street and anything in between. The kid who throws his spaghetti from the high chair onto his father's face, he's pushing back. He's sticking it to the man as he sees it. I like that. So that is punk.

So is there punk rock today? Is there punk? Is there a punk ethic? Absolutely. Where there is young people and vitality you're going to find punk rock. You'll find it in the youth of Tehran who want a different future. You'll find it in young people in Saudi Arabia who look at Sharia law and go "No, and I might have to die to overturn it, but I'm not taking this." That to me is punk rock. The questioning of authority, pushing back against established structures of authority, of government, of the way it is. Questioning anything and everything to me is punk rock. It's also very Jeffersonian, and so that to me is punk rock. You can ask the next person. He or she might tell you something different, so it is subjective.

So is it present in our lives today? Absolutely. I find it in music. I find it in art. I find it in filmmaking. I find it in these amazing demonstrations happening all over the world, these Twitter-fed, Facebook-fed flash-mobbing revolutions that are happening all over the world that are indeed changing the course of government, ousting people like Hosni Mubarak and changing people's minds.

So yeah, punk rock is alive and well.
Directed / Produced by
Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

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Henry Rollins: When someone asks you 'what's punk?' my reply is "If you have to ask, you're never going to know." Apparently someone asked Louie Armstrong or Lightening Hopkins what jazz or the blues were respectively, and apparently that's the answer they gave them, so I don't know who said what to whom when, but a lot of times if you have to ask.

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Mark Jordan enjoys walking around his Welsh home town "got up like a Christmas tree" in vintage Vivienne Westwood bondage shirts and bright blue brothel creepers. "The other day, I was stopped by this young guy walking the dog, he was wide-eyed and said, 'What is that you're wearing?'" Jordan says. "His eyes were on sticks when I told him that some of this old punk gear is worth thousands."

A teen of the late 1970s, punk was Jordan's escape from growing up on a drab Merseyside council estate through an economic recession. It was a wild time, Jordan, now 61, recalls, though nothing like the handed-down caricatures of punk anarchy today. "It wasn't all sitting in doorways drinking lager with a dog on a string," he explains. "Johnny Rotten said, 'Get off your arse!' - don't sit on it. Punk was always more about outrageousness and embracing life."

Coming of age in the late-1970s - an era of power cuts, refuse strikes and a prevailing mood of social disquiet - the punk generation was defined by DIY fun and a rejection of authority. This was a sub-generation distinct from the 1940s and 50s baby boomers who came of age in a shiny new postwar social contract, complete with the promise of full employment.

But for many of this generation, the punk ethos never died and it's as relevant today as it was 45 years ago and now, as they approach the traditional age of retirement in a climate that recalls their formative years, the sense of rebellion and the DIY ethos is just as much of a guiding principle as it ever was.

'It wasn't all sitting in doorways drinking lager with a dog on a string': Mark Jordan. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Some are railing against working the wageless "granny shift", plugging the social and childcare gaps as sandwich carers; some are packing up their homes and taking to the road as later-life nomads; others are seeking, after the boot up the arse of the pandemic, to (in the new parlance) "self-actualise" as butterfly later-life creatives emerging from their chrysallises after decades of toeing the 9-to-5 line.

Comedian Jenny Eclair's standup show Sixty Plus! (FFS!) XXL Show! tours across the UK from 2 September. It explores what being 60 means for today's 1960s-born "babes". "Being part of the punk generation affected how I think and it's probably why I still have a problem with being told what to do - and it's why I swear so much," Eclair, 63, says. "In some respects, punk was a licence for the middle classes to rebel, and that sense of rebellion continues in our later years."

In February, 67-year-old former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon competed to represent Ireland in the Eurovision song contest with his hit, Hawaii, a love letter to his wife of 44 years, Nora Forster, who was living with Alzheimer's disease (sadly she died on 6 April). Lydon lost out to shiny man-band Wild Youth, but his bid was a watershed for the generation for whom he was a standard-bearer, says David Amigoni, who researches later-life creativity at Keele University. "The new 60-somethings are finding that the field of creative possibilities for their later years are broader than ever - from theatre to music and art."

Another cultural marker is the book Retirement Rebel. The memoir documents media worker Siobhan Daniels's decision to hand in her notice, sell her house and possessions and take to life on the road in her Auto-Trail Tribute motorhome, Dora the Explorer. It's become a cult hit and today Daniels, 61, encourages older Britons to embrace the self-actualising possibilities of later-life nomadism. She's often approached by tearful 60-somethings who want to unburden themselves about their desire for a more fulfilling life ("I'm a travel agony aunt"). Anecdotally, she says, a growing number of 60-plus women are leaving "husbands at home in front of the telly" and travelling solo. "We have less money as a generation, especially single-parent empty nesters like me, so that means we have to be more creative," Daniels says. "Though I still find it strange that I've become a later-life influencer, as I used to hate the word."

'It's about an attitude, thinking for yourself and not accepting authority': Frank Cutter. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Karen Arthur, who runs the podcast Menopause Whilst Black and has authored the "happy fashion" ebook Eight Ways to Wear Your Happy, also sees a trend of 60-something women rejecting the capitalist patriarchy and refusing to fade away. She says that the punk spirit and ethos they embraced in their youth is the perfect expression of this.

"I spent years worrying what other people thought and now I just want to be loud and take up space and be totally myself," she says. She sees a similar sentiment in many women in her age group, for whom the confidence of later life is combining with a desire to set boundaries around one's time and efforts, whether that's rejecting grandparental childcare or being the go-to event caterer out of a materfamilias sense of duty. "We're exiting relationships that no longer serve us, we're saying no to things we don't want to do; we're cutting people out of our lives who don't make us feel good," she adds. "There's a new mood and that mood is about grabbing life by the wotsits."

The granny shift is a tender point for the over-60s with a yearning to self-actualise through travel, says Anne Hardy, a sociologist who studies later-life "snowbirds" (sun-seeking van and motorhome nomads). "Women who choose this lifestyle are often judged harshly by their own children and by society," she says. "They are construed as being somehow selfish for leaving their grandchildren."

In 2012 the late queen of punk Vivienne Westwood bemoaned the conformism of younger dressers, arguing that ersatz fast fashion meant that only older Britons dressed with any gesture of individuality. This idea is striking to Melanie Smith, 63, a fostering support worker in Wigan who moonlights as a gig photographer. Smith is child-free and sees herself as a member of the first generation who made an identity through the independence this lifestyle afforded. "Not having kids meant that I could carry on with my nightlife and that really kept me going in my day job," she says.

'At long last I'd found my tribe': Chris Freeman. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Last year, Smith's Bengal cat, Rococo, died at 16, and Smith decided to throw caution to the wind and have the green-eyed tabby tattooed on her forearm to memorialise her feline fellow traveller. She also dyed her long white hair a fetching shade of cerise. "They say you can't have long hair when you're older. They say you shouldn't dress in bright colours and have tattoos, particularly as a civil servant, but I just thought: 'I'm 63, I'll do what I want. I'll wear my hair pink and long and I'll wear band T-shirts and skinny jeans and great big platform shoes.'"

Back in the punk days, Smith sneaked a cheap Kodak plastic camera into gigs and would take candid shots of Blondie and Siouxsie Sioux. But it's important, Smith says, not to get stuck in the past. In 2008, she set up Mudkiss, a fanzine and photography project, and today she photographs bands influenced by punk's great youth roar as well as being house photographer at Manchester gig venues O2 Victoria Warehouse and O2 Ritz. "It's following all the new bands that keeps you engaged," she says, "you can't get dragged down by the day-to-day and stuck in the soundtracks of your youth".

Chris Freeman, 61, appreciates that he's one of the luckier members of his age cohort. Retired after 40 years as an operations manager and based in Bracknell, he is materially comfortable. The problem, until a few years ago, was the porridgy beigeness of his corporate life. Although he had dabbled in punk and new romanticism, he had little choice, he says, but to knuckle down to get on in a culture in which the old eccentrics with their bright silk ties and bowler hats were giving way to a sea of sartorial and attitudinal conformity.

In 2019, a chance encounter changed his life. Freeman was browsing London's Spitalfields market and stumbled upon the Colour Walkers: a social group of bright dressers who congregate once a month to promenade around streets of east London. In February 2020, Freeman joined a Colour Walk event dressed in a bright green satin blouse, dungarees, face paint and a leather beret and felt, he says, "like I had at long last found my tribe". Today, Freeman is a regular at Colour Walk events and in 2022 made his stage debut at the pansexual beauty pageant, Alternative Miss World. He wore head-to-toe gold satin with a black leather corset and felt "marvellous, although a bit of an impostor. I revelled in it." The real tragedy, Freeman feels, is when older Britons "just sit there and wait for permission to express themselves". This is something he'd like to see change as the old punks step on to the stage as Britain's elders. "Who will give you that permission?" he asks. "No one. You just have to go for it."

'I spent years worrying what other people thought': Karen Arthur. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Describing herself as a "punk pagan", Frank Cutter, 56, hopes her generation will rewrite what it means to segue into later life, if partly out of financial necessity. A private tutor and singer with the post-punk band Anarchistwood, Cutter dresses in stage attire that combines colourful clown makeup with Medusa-like hair ribbons and costumes, such as a dramatic Harlequin-inspired jumpsuit with a large embroidered vagina on the front "which is also a pocket, quite practically".

"I don't really know anyone my age who thinks that they will be able to fully retire any time soon," Cutter says. Having spent her youth in squats across west London, Cutter and some of her old punk friends often talk about returning to communal living. "It's not for everyone as you have to be flexible and sociable and God knows loads of us get fixed in our ways as we age," she laughs. But living an uptight, ever-decreasing later life is everything Cutter wants to avoid.

For Cutter, punk was all about "peace and anarchy and doing what you want as long as it isn't about harming people". It was also about sexual freedom. Cutter is bisexual, and the scene was a sanctuary in the 80s.

Today, she has nine children and stepkids, aged between from 18 and 31, she also has two grandchildren, aged seven and two, and a younger female partner. She is, for her part, very happy to be a punk grandma. But Cutter dislikes it when people tell her they "used to be" a punk. "It's not about the hair colour and the piercings you once had, it's about an attitude: thinking for yourself and not accepting authority." It's an inward rebellion, Cutter says, that surely applies at any age.

After four decades as a media studies teacher in Manchester and a health scare, Mark Jordan is rediscovering the old punk ethos in his autumn years, working as an arts documentary maker and buying back replicas of the clothes he donated to museums decades ago, bringing a dash of the old sartorial outrageousness to his adoptive town of Mold in Flintshire.

"I don't think the punk generation thought we would live to 30, let alone 60," he says. "But those who made it are doing interesting things, working as filmmakers and photographers and musicians and artists. It's bloody brilliant to see."

The coming-of-age 60s are highly individual, creatively frustrated and making their mark in an economic landscape that calls to mind their formative years. They're also kicking back against the facile expectation that they'll plug the gap where the state has failed: providing elder care for partners, or on-tap grandparental childcare. Expect more natty dressers, late-blooming artists, novel living arrangements and silver am-dram in coming years, Amigoni predicts.

"Old punk rockers never die/They just decompose/They yell and kick and smell like shit/And punch you in the nose," runs a lyric of US novelty band 60 Year Old Punk. Jordan puts it this way: "We may not be able to retire on a final salary pension, but we are going to make a hell of a lot of noise and not go out with a whimper."
Jenny Eclair's Sixty Plus! (FFS!) XXL Show! is on tour from 2 September. For tickets, visit jennyeclair.com

This article was amended on 5 May 2023. Owing to an editing error, an earlier version gave Frank Cutter's first name as "Fran". It has also been clarified that Melanie Smith is specifically a fostering support worker, and that Mark Jordan is an arts documentary maker.

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Lust for life: the punks keeping the spirit of rebellion alive

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Punk rock exploded in 1977 with a raw power seldom seen since. But Johnny Rotten (as he used to call himself) is 67 now, and most of his fans from that time are in their 60s. So what became of all that energy, spiky hair and safety-pins?

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LONDON -- Jean Paul Gaultier cannot stop gushing about his love for all things British -- the punks, the humour, the tartan, David Bowie -- all vital inspirations to the French designer.

But it took the Frenchman a while to come round to British cuisine -- and some of it remains firmly off the menu.

"Now I love the food -- at the beginning no. Apart from the English breakfast," Gaultier said Tuesday, gently poking fun at terrible English food and Anglo prudishness as he opened the London leg of a major exhibition celebrating his three decades as one of fashion's best-loved rebels.

The show features 165 of his over-the-top creations, from Madonna's cone bras to risque bondage-inspired corsets to men's skirts.

Some of Gaultier's designs, like his signature Breton stripes, are unmistakably Gallic. But he said London's irreverence has always been his inspiration and his escape from the snobbishness of Parisian haute couture.

"It was my vitamin," he told The Associated Press, speaking English with a thick French accent. "I love the freedom of London. I saw it in the streets, the rock scene, the rock stars, the concerts. The energy, the character, all the people that are different, assuming their own beauty and character.

"In the London clubs they're there to dance. In Paris, they're there to pose," he added.

Gaultier -- who can talk a mile a minute -- recalled how much he was struck by the original Rocky Horror Show and the punk movement when he visited London in the 1970s.

Bringing that provocative flair back to Paris, the designer would inject a healthy dose of street sassiness into the exclusive world of couture gowns. One of them, a tulle ruffle gown worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in 2000 and shown at the exhibition, sported a camouflage pattern. It took 312 hours to make. Another bejeweled evening dress next to it adorns a mannequin with a green Mohawk hairstyle almost a metre tall.

Gaultier has always embraced the different, preferring tattooed, bald, curvy and androgynous models to stick-thin blondes. At the beginning of his career he posted a newspaper ad that read: "Non-conformist designer seeks unusual models -- the conventionally pretty need not apply."

Lifeless mannequins will never do for the exhibition. Instead, organizers showed the garments on mannequins with uncannily lifelike faces that blink, stare and speak. Those modelling his extravagant mermaid gowns beckon with their siren song, and there is even a projection-beamed version of Gaultier greeting visitors.

At 61, Gaultier is as mischievous and energetic as ever. But with this retrospective -- which has already toured New York and other cities in the U.S. and Europe -- the designer is also reflective about aging and the transience of fashion.

"My view about beauty is not concerned with stereotype. Getting old can also be very beautiful," he said.

"The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk" runs to Aug. 25 at London's Barbican Centre.

view larger image

French couturier Jean Paul Gaultier gestures as he speaks to the media in a Q&A session during the launch his exhibition 'The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier : From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk' at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. (AP / Sang Tan)

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Jean Paul Gaultier pays tribute to London punk at fashion exhibition

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Jean Paul Gaultier opened the London leg of a major exhibition celebrating his three decades as one of fashion's best-loved provocateur with over-the-top creations, from Madonna's cone bras to risque bondage-inspired corsets to men's skirts.

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My English Teacher - Les tutos de Mme AUDISIO

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Méthodologie B2 - Réussir l'épreuve de Compréhension de l'Ecrit - BAC ANGLAIS

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Cambridge Dictionary | English Dictionary, Translations & Thesaurus

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The most popular dictionary and thesaurus for learners of English. Meanings and definitions of words with pronunciations and translations.

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Find definitions for over 300,000 words from the most authoritative English dictionary. Continuously updated with new words and meanings.

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Oxford Learner's Dictionaries | Find definitions, translations, and grammar explanations at Oxford Learner's Dictionaries

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The largest and most trusted free online dictionary for learners of British and American English with definitions, pictures, example sentences, synonyms, antonyms, word origins, audio pronunciation, and more. Look up the meanings of words, abbreviations, phrases, and idioms in our free English Dictionary.

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Elénie Alfera. Translated by Genevieve Hartmann

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Some of fashion's biggest designers are set to pay tribute to the 1970s punk movement through a couture exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer.

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Liz Ham started taking photos of women in the punk scene because she wanted to pay tribute to a diverse community that, in her experience, was welcoming, supportive and liberating for the women and girls who were part of it. Now her new book, Punk Girls, brings together more than 100 of these portraits - including of rock stars, activists, artists, performers and musicians - to celebrate the colourful and confident rule-breakers and nonconformists of Australia's underground
* All captions by Liz Ham. Punk Girls is out now though Manuscript

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Punk girls: portraits from the underground - in pictures

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Liz Ham started taking photos of women in the punk scene because she wanted to pay tribute to a diverse community that, in her experience, was welcoming, supportive and liberating

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The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, near the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg. It began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. It is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point logarithmic International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level5 ("Accident with Wider Consequences").

The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system that allowed large amounts of water to escape from the pressurized isolated coolant loop. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). TMI training and procedures left operators and management ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation. During the event, these inadequacies were compounded by design flaws, including poor control design, the use of multiple similar alarms, and a failure of the equipment to clearly indicate coolant inventory level or the position of the stuck-open PORV.

The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, and led to new regulations for the nuclear industry. It accelerated the decline of efforts to build new reactors.

Anti-nuclear movement activists expressed worries about regional health effects from the accident. Some epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident did determine that there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of cancer, while other studies did not. Due to the nature of such studies, a causal connection linking the accident with cancer is difficult to prove.

Cleanup at TMI-2 started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cost of about $1 billion (equivalent to $2 billion in 2022). TMI-1 was restarted in 1985, then retired in 2019 due to operating losses. Its decommissioning is expected to be complete in 2079 at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion.

Simplified schematic diagram of the TMI-2 plant[21]

In the night hours before the incident, the TMI-2 reactor was running at 97% power, while the companion TMI-1 reactor was shut down for refueling. The main chain of events leading to the partial core meltdown on Wednesday March 28, 1979, began at 4:00:36 a.m. EST in TMI-2's secondary loop, one of the three main water/steam loops in a pressurized water reactor (PWR).

The initial cause of the accident happened 11 hours earlier, during an attempt by operators to fix a blockage in one of the eight condensate polishers, the sophisticated filters cleaning the secondary loop water. These filters are designed to stop minerals and impurities in the water from accumulating in the steam generators and to decrease corrosion rates on the secondary side.

Blockages are common with these resin filters and are usually fixed easily, but in this case, the usual method of forcing the stuck resin out with compressed air did not succeed. The operators decided to blow the compressed air into the water and let the force of the water clear the resin. When they forced the resin out, a small amount of water forced its way past a stuck-open check valve and found its way into an instrument air line. This would eventually cause the feedwater pumps, condensate booster pumps, and condensate pumps to turn off around 4:00 a.m., which would, in turn, cause a turbine trip.

Given that the steam generators were no longer receiving feedwater, heat transfer from the reactor coolant system (RCS) was greatly reduced, and RCS temperature rose. The rapidly heating coolant expanded and surged into the pressurizer, compressing the steam bubble at the top. When RCS pressure rose to 2,255 psi (155.5 bar), the pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) opened, relieving steam through piping to the reactor coolant drain tank (RCDT) in the containment building basement. RCS pressure continued to rise, reaching the reactor protection system (RPS) high-pressure trip setpoint of 2,355 psi (162.4 bar) eight seconds after the turbine trip. The reactor automatically tripped, its control rods falling into the core under gravity, halting the nuclear chain reaction and stopping the heat generated by fission. However, the reactor continued to generate decay heat, initially equivalent to approximately 6% of the pre-trip power level. Because steam was no longer being used by the turbine and feed was not being supplied to the steam generators, heat removal from the reactor's primary water loop was limited to steaming the small amount of water remaining in the secondary side of the steam generators to the condenser using turbine bypass valves.

When the feedwater pumps tripped, three emergency feedwater pumps started automatically. An operator noted that the pumps were running, but did not notice that a block valve was closed in each of the two emergency feedwater lines, blocking emergency feed flow to both steam generators. The valve position lights for one block valve were covered by a yellow maintenance tag. The reason why the operator missed the lights for the second valve is not known, although one theory is that his own large belly hid it from his view. The valves may have been left closed during a surveillance test two days earlier. With the block valves closed, the system was unable to pump any water. The closure of these valves was a violation of a key Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rule, according to which the reactor must be shut down if all auxiliary feed pumps are closed for maintenance. This was later singled out by NRC officials as a key failure.

After the reactor tripped, secondary system steam valves operated to reduce steam generator temperature and pressure, cooling the RCS and lowering RCS temperature, as designed, resulting in a contraction of the primary coolant. With the coolant contraction and loss of coolant through the open PORV, RCS pressure dropped as did pressurizer level after peaking fifteen seconds after the turbine trip. Also, fifteen seconds after the turbine trip, coolant pressure had dropped to 2,205 psi (152.0 bar), the reset setpoint for the PORV. Electric power to the PORV's solenoid was automatically cut, but the relief valve was stuck open with coolant water continuing to be released.

In post-accident investigations, the indication for the PORV was one of many design flaws identified in the operators' controls, instruments and alarms. There was no direct indication of the valve's actual position. A light on a control panel, installed after the PORV had stuck open during startup testing, came on when the PORV opened. When that light-labeled Light on - RC-RV2 open -went out, the operators believed that the valve was closed. In fact, the light, when on, only indicated that the PORV pilot valve's solenoid was powered, not the actual status of the PORV. While the main relief valve was stuck open, the operators believed the unlighted lamp meant the valve was shut. As a result, they did not correctly diagnose the problem for several hours.

The operators had not been trained to understand the ambiguous nature of the pilot-operated relief valve indicator and to look for alternative confirmation that the main relief valve was closed. A downstream temperature indicator, the sensor for which was located in the tail pipe between the pilot-operated relief valve and the pressurizer relief tank, could have hinted at a stuck valve had operators noticed its higher-than-normal reading. It was not, however, part of the "safety grade" suite of indicators designed to be used after an incident, and personnel had not been trained to use it. Its location behind the seven-foot-high instrument panel also meant that it was effectively out of sight.

Less than a minute after the beginning of the event, the water level in the pressurizer began to rise, even though RCS pressure was falling. With the PORV stuck open, coolant was being lost from the RCS, a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). Expected symptoms for a LOCA were drops in both RCS pressure and pressurizer level. The operators' training and plant procedures did not cover a situation where the two parameters went in opposite directions. The water level in the pressurizer was rising because the steam in the space at the top of the pressurizer was being vented off through the stuck-open PORV, lowering the pressure in the pressurizer because of the lost inventory. The lowering of pressure in the pressurizer made water from the coolant loop surge in and created a steam bubble in the reactor pressure vessel head, aided by the decay heat from the fuel. This steam bubble was invisible for the operators and this mechanism had not been trained. Indications of high water levels in the pressurizer contributed to confusion, as operators were concerned about the primary loop "going solid", (i.e., no steam pocket buffer existing in the pressurizer) which in training they had been instructed to never allow. This confusion was a key contributor to the initial failure to recognize the accident as a LOCA and led operators to turn off the emergency core cooling pumps, which had automatically started after the pilot-operated relief valve stuck and core coolant loss began, due to fears the system was being overfilled.

With the pilot-operated relief valve still open, the pressurizer relief tank that collected the discharge from the pilot-operated relief valve overfilled, causing the containment building sump to fill and sound an alarm at 4:11 a.m. This alarm, along with higher than normal temperatures on the pilot-operated relief valve discharge line and unusually high containment building temperatures and pressures, were clear indications that there was an ongoing loss-of-coolant accident, but these indications were initially ignored by operators. At 4:15 a.m., the relief diaphragm of the pressurizer relief tank ruptured, and radioactive coolant began to leak out into the general containment building. This radioactive coolant was pumped from the containment building sump to an auxiliary building, outside the main containment, until the sump pumps were stopped at 4:39 a.m.

At about 5:20a.m., after almost 80 minutes with a growing steam bubble in the reactor pressure vessel head, the primary loop's four main reactor coolant pumps began to cavitate as a steam bubble/water mixture, rather than water, passed through them. The pumps were shut down, and it was believed that natural circulation would continue the water movement. Steam in the system prevented flow through the core, and as the water stopped circulating it was converted to steam in increasing amounts. Soon after 6:00a.m., the top of the reactor core was exposed and the intense heat caused a reaction to occur between the steam forming in the reactor core and the zircaloy nuclear fuel rod cladding, yielding zirconium dioxide, hydrogen, and additional heat. This reaction melted the nuclear fuel rod cladding and damaged the fuel pellets, which released radioactive isotopes to the reactor coolant, and produced hydrogen gas that is believed to have caused a small explosion in the containment building later that afternoon.

NRC graphic of TMI-2 core end-state configuration.

1. 2B inlet

2. 1A inlet

3. cavity

4. loose core debris

5. crust

6. previously molten material

7. lower plenum debris

8. possible region depleted in uranium

9. ablated incore instrument guide

10. hole in baffle plate

11. coating of previously-molten material on bypass region interior surfaces

12. upper grid damage

At 6:00 a.m. there was a shift change in the control room. A new arrival noticed that the temperature in the pilot-operated relief valve tail pipe and the holding tanks was excessive, and used a backup - called a "block valve"- to shut off the coolant venting via the pilot-operated relief valve, but around 32,000 US gal (120,000 L) of coolant had already leaked from the primary loop. It was not until 6:45a.m., 165 minutes after the start of the problem, that radiation alarms activated when the contaminated water reached detectors; by that time, the radiation levels in the primary coolant water were around 300 times expected levels, and the general containment building was seriously contaminated with radiations levels of 800 Rems/hr.

At 6:56a.m. a plant supervisor declared a site area emergency, and less than 30 minutes later, station manager Gary Miller announced a general emergency. Metropolitan Edison (Met Ed) notified the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), which in turn contacted state and local agencies, Governor Richard L. Thornburgh and Lieutenant Governor William Scranton III, to whom Thornburgh assigned responsibility for collecting and reporting on information about the accident. The uncertainty of operators at the plant was reflected in fragmentary, ambiguous, or contradictory statements made by Met Ed to government agencies and to the press, particularly about the possibility and severity of off-site radioactivity releases. Scranton held a press conference in which he was reassuring, yet confusing, about this possibility, stating that though there had been a "small release of radiation...no increase in normal radiation levels" had been detected. These were contradicted by another official, and by statements from Met Ed, who both claimed that no radioactivity had been released. In fact, readings from instruments at the plant and off-site detectors had detected radioactivity releases, albeit at levels that were unlikely to threaten public health as long as they were temporary, and providing that containment of the then highly contaminated reactor was maintained.

Angry that Met Ed had not informed them before conducting a steam venting from the plant, and convinced that the company was downplaying the severity of the accident, state officials turned to the NRC. After receiving word of the accident from Met Ed, the NRC had activated its emergency response headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and sent staff members to Three Mile Island. NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie and commissioner Victor Gilinsky initially viewed the accident as a "cause for concern but not alarm". Gilinsky briefed reporters and members of Congress on the situation and informed White House staff, and at 10:00 a.m. met with two other commissioners. However, the NRC faced the same problems in obtaining accurate information as the state, and was further hampered by being organizationally ill-prepared to deal with emergencies, as it lacked a clear command structure and did not have the authority either to tell the utility what to do or to order an evacuation of the local area.

In a 2009 article, Gilinsky wrote that it took five weeks to learn that "the reactor operators had measured fuel temperatures near the melting point". He further wrote: "We didn't learn for years-until the reactor vessel was physically opened-that by the time the plant operator called the NRC at about 8:00 a.m., roughly half of the uranium fuel had already melted."

It was still not clear to the control room staff that the primary loop water levels were low and that over half of the core was exposed. A group of workers took manual readings from the thermocouples and obtained a sample of primary loop water. Seven hours into the emergency, new water was pumped into the primary loop and the backup relief valve was opened to reduce pressure so that the loop could be filled with water. After 16 hours the primary loop pumps were turned on once again, and the core temperature began to fall. A large part of the core had melted, and the system was still dangerously radioactive.

On the day following the accident, March 29, control room operators needed to ensure the integrity of the reactor vessel. In order to do this, someone needed to draw a boron concentration sample in order to ensure there was enough of it in the primary system to shut down the reactor entirely. Unit 2's chemistry supervisor, Edward "Ed" Houser, volunteered to draw the sample, after his co-workers were hesitant. Richard Dubiel, the shift supervisor, asked Pete Velez, the radiation protection foreman for Unit 2, to join him. Velez would monitor airborne radiation levels and ensure that no overexposure would occur for either of them. Wearing excessive amounts of protective clothing - three pairs of gloves, one pair of rubber boots and a respirator, the two navigated the reactor auxiliary building to draw the sample. However, Houser had lost his pocket dosimeter while taking measurements. Houser had noted the sample he drew looked "like Alka-Seltzer" and was highly radioactive, with readings as high as 1000 rem/hr. The two then fled the building. Houser had gone past the NRC's annual dose limit for radiation exposure (5 rem/yr in 1979), and spent an estimated 8 hours in the shower attempting to decontaminate himself.

On the third day following the accident, a hydrogen bubble was discovered in the dome of the pressure vessel and became the focus of concern. A hydrogen explosion might not only breach the pressure vessel but, depending on its magnitude, might compromise the integrity of the containment building leading to a large-scale release of radioactive material. However, it was determined that there was no oxygen present in the pressure vessel, a prerequisite for hydrogen to burn or explode. Immediate steps were taken to reduce the hydrogen bubble and, by the following day, it was significantly smaller. Over the next week, steam and hydrogen were removed from the reactor using a catalytic recombiner and by venting directly into the open air.

The release occurred when the cladding was damaged while the pilot-operated relief valve was still stuck open. Fission products were released into the reactor coolant. Since the pilot-operated relief valve was stuck open and the loss of coolant accident was still in progress, primary coolant with fission products and/or fuel was released, and ultimately ended up in the auxiliary building. The auxiliary building was outside the containment boundary.

This was evidenced by the radiation alarms that eventually sounded. However, since very little of the fission products released were solids at room temperature, very little radiological contamination was reported in the environment. No significant level of radiation was attributed to the TMI-2 accident outside of the TMI-2 facility. According to the Rogovin report, the vast majority of the radioisotopes released were noble gases xenon and krypton resulting in an average dose of 1.4 mrem (14 μSv) to the two million people near the plant. In comparison, a patient receives 3.2 mrem (32 μSv) from a chest X-ray-more than twice the average dose of those received near the plant. On average, a U.S. resident receives an annual radiation exposure from natural sources of about 310 mrem (3,100 μSv).

Within hours of the accident, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began daily sampling of the environment at the three stations closest to the plant. Continuous monitoring at 11 stations was not established until April 1, and was expanded to 31 stations on April 3. An inter-agency analysis concluded that the accident did not raise radioactivity far enough above background levels to cause even one additional cancer death among the people in the area, but measures of beta radiation were not included, because the EPA found no contamination in water, soil, sediment, or plant samples.

Researchers at nearby Dickinson College-which had radiation monitoring equipment sensitive enough to detect Chinese atmospheric atomic weapons-testing-collected soil samples from the area for the ensuing two weeks and detected no elevated levels of radioactivity, except after rainfalls (likely due to natural radon plate-out, not the accident). Also, white-tailed deer tongues harvested over 50 mi (80 km) from the reactor subsequent to the accident were found to have significantly higher levels of cesium-137 than in deer in the counties immediately surrounding the power plant. Even then, the elevated levels were still below those seen in deer in other parts of the country during the height of atmospheric weapons testing. Had there been elevated releases of radioactivity, increased levels of iodine-131 and cesium-137 would have been expected to be detected in cattle and goat's milk samples; yet elevated levels were not found. A later study noted that the official emission figures were consistent with available dosimeter data, though others have noted the incompleteness of this data, particularly for releases early on.

According to the official figures, as compiled by the 1979 Kemeny Commission from Metropolitan Edison and NRC data, a maximum of 480 PBq (13 MCi) of radioactive noble gases (primarily xenon) were released by the event. However, these noble gases were considered relatively harmless, and only 481-629 GBq (13.0-17.0 Ci) of thyroid cancer-causing iodine-131 were released. Total releases according to these figures were a relatively small proportion of the estimated 370 EBq (10 GCi) in the reactor. It was later found that about half the core had melted, and the cladding around 90% of the fuel rods had failed, with 5 ft (1.5 m) of the core gone, and around 20 short tons (18 t) of uranium flowing to the bottom head of the pressure vessel, forming a mass of corium. The reactor vessel-the second level of containment after the cladding-maintained integrity and contained the damaged fuel with nearly all of the radioactive isotopes in the core.

Anti-nuclear political groups disputed the Kemeny Commission's findings, claiming that other independent measurements provided evidence of radiation levels up to seven times higher than normal in locations hundreds of miles downwind from TMI. Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and anti-nuclear advocate, said "I think the numbers on the NRC's website are off by a factor of 100 to 1,000".

Gundersen offers evidence, based on pressure monitoring data, for a hydrogen explosion shortly before 2:00 p.m. on March 28, 1979, which would have provided the means for a high dose of radiation to occur. Gundersen cites affidavits from four reactor operators according to which the plant manager was aware of a dramatic pressure spike, after which the internal pressure dropped to outside pressure. Gundersen also claimed that the control room shook and doors were blown off hinges. However, official NRC reports refer merely to a "hydrogen burn". The Kemeny Commission referred to "a burn or an explosion that caused pressure to increase by 28 pounds per square inch (190 kPa) in the containment building", while The Washington Post reported that "At about 2:00 pm, with pressure almost down to the point where the huge cooling pumps could be brought into play, a small hydrogen explosion jolted the reactor." Work performed for the Department of Energy in the 1980s determined that the hydrogen burn ( deflagration), which went essentially unnoticed for the first few days, occurred 9 hours and 50 minutes after initiation of the accident, had a duration of 12 to 15 seconds and did not involve a detonation.

A sign dedicated in 1999 in Middletown, Pennsylvania, near the plant, describing the accident and the evacuation of the area.

Three Mile Island in background behind Harrisburg International Airport, a few weeks after the accident

Twenty-eight hours after the accident began, William Scranton III, the lieutenant governor, appeared at a news briefing to say that Metropolitan Edison, the plant's owner, had assured the state that "everything is under control". Later that day, Scranton changed his statement, saying that the situation was "more complex than the company first led us to believe". There were conflicting statements about radioactivity releases. Schools were closed and residents were urged to stay indoors. Farmers were told to keep their animals under cover and on stored feed.

Based on the advice of the Chairman of the NRC and in the interest of taking every precaution, I am advising those who may be particularly susceptible to the effects of any radiation, that is, pregnant women and pre-school aged children, to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice. We've also ordered the closings of any schools within this area.
-- Dick Thornburgh

Governor Dick Thornburgh, on the advice of NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie, advised the evacuation "of pregnant women and pre-school age children...within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility". The evacuation zone was extended to a 20-mile radius on Friday, March 30. Within days, 140,000 people had left the area. More than half of the 663,500 population within the 20-mile radius remained in that area. According to a survey conducted in April 1979, 98% of the evacuees had returned to their homes within three weeks.

Post-TMI surveys have shown that less than 50% of the American public were satisfied with the way the accident was handled by Pennsylvania State officials and the NRC, and people surveyed were even less pleased with the utility (General Public Utilities) and the plant designer.

Several state and federal government agencies mounted investigations into the crisis, the most prominent of which was the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, created by Jimmy Carter in April 1979. The commission consisted of a panel of twelve people, specifically chosen for their lack of strong pro- or anti-nuclear views, and headed by chairman John G. Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College. It was instructed to produce a final report within six months, and after public hearings, depositions, and document collection, released a completed study on October 31, 1979. The investigation strongly criticized Babcock & Wilcox, Met Ed, GPU, and the NRC for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training, lack of communication of important safety information, poor management, and complacency, but avoided drawing conclusions about the future of the nuclear industry. The heaviest criticism from the Kemeny Commission said that "... fundamental changes will be necessary in the organization, procedures, and practices-and above all-in the attitudes" of the NRC and the nuclear industry. Kemeny said that the actions taken by the operators were "inappropriate" but that the workers "were operating under procedures that they were required to follow, and our review and study of those indicates that the procedures were inadequate" and that the control room "was greatly inadequate for managing an accident".

The Kemeny Commission noted that Babcock & Wilcox's pilot-operated relief valve had previously failed on 11 occasions, nine of them in the open position, allowing coolant to escape. The initial causal sequence of events at TMI had been duplicated 18 months earlier at another Babcock & Wilcox reactor, the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station owned at that time by Toledo Edison. The only differences were that the operators at Davis-Besse identified the valve failure after 20 minutes, where at TMI it took 80 minutes, and the fact that the Davis-Besse facility was operating at 9% power, against TMI's 97%. Although Babcock engineers recognized the problem, the company failed to clearly notify its customers of the valve issue.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives conducted its own investigation, which focused on the need to improve evacuation procedures.

In 1985, a television camera was used to see the interior of the damaged reactor. In 1986, core samples and samples of debris were obtained from the corium layers on the bottom of the reactor vessel and analyzed.

Global history of the use of nuclear power. The Three Mile Island accident is one of the factors cited for the decline of new reactor construction.

According to the IAEA, the Three Mile Island accident was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power. From 1963 to 1979, the number of reactors under construction globally increased every year except in 1971 and 1978. However, following the event, the number of reactors under construction in the U.S. declined from 1980 to 1998, with increasing construction costs and delayed completion dates for some reactors. Many similar Babcock & Wilcox reactors on order were canceled; in total, 51 U.S. nuclear reactors were canceled between 1980 and 1984.

The 1979 TMI accident did not initiate the demise of the U.S. nuclear power industry, but it did halt its historic growth. Additionally, as a result of the earlier 1973 oil crisis and post-crisis analysis with conclusions of potential overcapacity in base load, forty planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the TMI accident. At the time of the TMI incident, 129 nuclear power plants had been approved, but of those, only 53 (which were not already operating) were completed. During the lengthy review process, complicated by the Chernobyl disaster seven years later, Federal requirements to correct safety issues and design deficiencies became more stringent, local opposition became more strident, construction times were significantly lengthened and costs skyrocketed. Until 2012, no U.S. nuclear power plant had been authorized to begin construction since the year before TMI.

Globally, the end of the increase in nuclear power plant construction came with the more catastrophic Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (see graph).

A clean-up crew working to remove radioactive contamination at Three Mile Island

Initially, GPU planned to repair the reactor and return it into service. However, TMI-2 was too badly damaged and contaminated to resume operations; the reactor was gradually deactivated and permanently closed. TMI-2 had been online for only three months but now had a ruined reactor vessel and a containment building that was unsafe to walk in. Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion. Benjamin K. Sovacool, in his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages.

Efforts focused on the cleanup and decontamination of the site, especially the defueling of the damaged reactor. Starting in 1985, almost 100 short tons (91 t) of radioactive fuel were removed from the site. Planning and work was partially hampered by too-optimistic views about the damage.

In 1988, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that, although it was possible to further decontaminate the Unit 2 site, the remaining radioactivity had been sufficiently contained as to pose no threat to public health and safety. The first major phase of the cleanup was completed in 1990, when workers finished shipping 150 short tons (140 t) of radioactive wreckage to Idaho for storage at the Department of Energy's National Engineering Laboratory. However, the contaminated cooling water that leaked into the containment building had seeped into the building's concrete, leaving the radioactive residue too impractical to remove. Accordingly, further cleanup efforts were deferred to allow for decay of the radiation levels and to take advantage of the potential economic benefits of retiring both Unit 1 and Unit 2 together.

In the aftermath of the accident, investigations focused on the amount of radioactivity released. In total, approximately 2.5 megacuries (93 PBq) of radioactive gases and approximately 15 curies (560 GBq) of iodine-131 was released into the environment. According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radioactivity emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was eight millirem (0.08 mSv), and no more than 100 millirem (1 mSv) to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

According to health researcher Joseph Mangano, early scientific publications estimated no additional cancer deaths in the 10 mi (16 km) area around TMI, based on these numbers. Disease rates in areas farther than 10 miles from the plant were never examined. Local activism in the 1980s, based on anecdotal reports of negative health effects, led to scientific studies being commissioned. A variety of epidemiology studies have concluded that the accident had no observable long-term health effects.

The Radiation and Public Health Project, an organization with little credibility amongst epidemiologists, cited calculations by Mangano-who has authored 19 medical journal articles and a book called Low Level Radiation and Immune Disease -that showed a spike in infant mortality in downwind communities two years after the accident. Anecdotal evidence also records effects on the region's wildlife.

John Gofman used his own, non- peer reviewed low-level radiation health model to predict 333 excess cancer or leukemia deaths from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

A peer-reviewed research article by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers between 1979 and 1985 among people who lived within ten miles of TMI. In 2009 Dr. Wing stated that radiation releases during the accident were probably "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates. A retrospective study of Pennsylvania Cancer Registry found an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in some counties south of TMI (although, notably, not in Dauphin County itself) and in high-risk age groups but did not draw a causal link between these incidences and the accident. The Talbott lab at the University of Pittsburgh reported finding a few, small increased cancer risks within the TMI population. A more recent study reached "findings consistent with observations from other radiation-exposed populations," raising "the possibility that radiation released from [Three Mile Island] may have altered the molecular profile of [thyroid cancer] in the population surrounding TMI", establishing a potential causal mechanism, although not definitively proving causation.

The ongoing TMI epidemiological research has been accompanied by a discussion of problems in dose estimates due to a lack of accurate data, as well as illness classifications.

Anti-nuclear protest following the Three Mile Island accident, Harrisburg, 1979

The TMI accident enhanced the perceived credibility of anti-nuclear groups and triggered protests around the world. President Carter-who had specialized in nuclear power while in the United States Navy -told his cabinet after visiting the plant that the accident was minor but reportedly declined to do so in public, in order to avoid offending Democrats who opposed nuclear power.

Members of the American public, concerned about the release of radioactive gas from the accident, staged numerous anti-nuclear demonstrations across the country in the following months. The largest demonstration was held in New York City in September 1979 and involved 200,000 people, with speeches given by Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader. The New York rally was held in conjunction with a series of nightly " No Nukes" concerts given at Madison Square Garden from September 19 to 23 by Musicians United for Safe Energy. In the previous May, an estimated 65,000 people-including California Governor Jerry Brown -attended a march and rally against nuclear power in Washington, D.C.

In 1981, citizens' groups succeeded in a class action suit against TMI, winning $25 million in an out-of-court settlement. Part of this money was used to found the TMI Public Health Fund. In 1983, a federal grand jury indicted Metropolitan Edison on criminal charges for the falsification of safety test results prior to the accident. Under a plea-bargaining agreement, Met Ed pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying records and no contest to six other charges, four of which were dropped, and agreed to pay a $45,000 fine and set up a $1 million account to help with emergency planning in the area surrounding the plant.

According to Eric Epstein, chair of Three Mile Island Alert, the TMI plant operator and its insurers paid at least $82 million in publicly documented compensation to residents for "loss of business revenue, evacuation expenses and health claims." However, a class action lawsuit alleging that the accident caused detrimental health effects was rejected by Harrisburg U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo. The appeal of the decision to U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals also failed.

The Three Mile Island accident inspired Charles Perrow's Normal Accident Theory, which attempts to describe "unanticipated interactions of multiple failures in a complex system". TMI was an example of this type of accident because it was "unexpected, incomprehensible, uncontrollable and unavoidable."

Perrow concluded that the failure at Three Mile Island was a consequence of the system's immense complexity. Such modern high-risk systems, he realized, were prone to failures however well they were managed. It was inevitable that they would eventually suffer what he termed a 'normal accident'. Therefore, he suggested, we might do better to contemplate a radical redesign, or if that was not possible, to abandon such technology entirely.

"Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Events which appear trivial initially cascade and multiply unpredictably, creating a much larger catastrophic event.

Normal Accidents contributed key concepts to a set of intellectual developments in the 1980s that revolutionized the conception of safety and risk. It made the case for examining technological failures as the product of highly interacting systems, and highlighted organizational and management factors as the main causes of failures. Technological disasters could no longer be ascribed to isolated equipment malfunction, operator error or acts of God.

After the TMI incident, President Jimmy Carter commissioned a study, Report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (1979).

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was later asked to tell Congress why naval nuclear propulsion (as used in submarines) had suffered no reactor accidents, defined as the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core. In his testimony, Rickover said:

Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others.

After the accident, Three Mile Island used only one nuclear generating station, TMI-1, which is on the right. TMI-2, to the left, has not been used since the accident.

TMI-2 as of February 2014. The cooling towers are on the left. The spent fuel pool with containment building of the reactor is on the right.

Unit 1-which was not involved in the 1979 accident-is owned by Exelon Nuclear, a subsidiary of Exelon.

After the incident at TMI-2, the NRC suspended the license to operate TMI-1, which was owned and operated by Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), one of General Public Utilities Corporation's regional utility operating companies. In 1982, the citizens of the three counties surrounding the site voted overwhelmingly in a non-binding resolution to retire Unit 1 permanently. In 1985, a 4-1 vote by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allowed TMI-1 to resume operations.

GPU formed General Public Utilities Nuclear Corporation as a new subsidiary to own and operate the company's nuclear facilities, including Three Mile Island. In 1996, General Public Utilities shortened its name to GPU Inc.

In 1998, GPU sold TMI-1 to AmerGen Energy Corporation, a joint venture between Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) and British Energy. (GPU was legally obliged to continue to maintain and monitor TMI-2.) In 2001, GPU was acquired by FirstEnergy Corporation and dissolved, and the maintenance and administration of Unit 2 was contracted out to AmerGen.

In 2000, PECO merged with Unicom Corporation to form Exelon. In 2003, Exelon bought the remaining shares of AmerGen from British Energy.

In 2009, Exelon Nuclear absorbed and dissolved AmerGen. Along with TMI Unit 1, Exelon Nuclear operates Clinton Power Station and several other nuclear facilities.

Unit 2 continues to be licensed and regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a condition known as Post Defueling Monitored Storage (PDMS).

The TMI-2 reactor has been permanently shut down with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off-site, reactor fuel and most core debris shipped off-site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored. The owner planned to keep the facility in long-term, monitoring storage until the operating license for the TMI-1 plant expired, at which time both plants would be decommissioned. In 2009, the NRC granted a license extension which allowed the TMI-1 reactor to operate until April 19, 2034. In 2017, it was announced that operations would cease by 2019 due to financial pressure from cheap natural gas, unless lawmakers stepped in to keep it open. When it became clear that the subsidy legislation would not pass, Exelon decided to retire the plant. TMI Unit 1 shut down on September 20, 2019. Following the permanent shutdown, Unit 1 is in decommissioning, moving to SAFSTOR status.

March 1979

TMI-2 accident occurred. Containment coolant released into environment.

April 1979

Containment steam vented to the atmosphere in order to stabilize the core.

July 1980

Approximately 1,591 TBq (43,000 curies) of krypton were vented from the reactor building.

July 1980

The first manned entry into the reactor building took place.

November 1980

An Advisory Panel for the Decontamination of TMI-2, composed of citizens, scientists, and state and local officials, held its first meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

December 1980

U.S. 96th Congressional session passed U.S. legislation establishing a five-year nuclear safety, research, demonstration, and development program.

July 1984

The reactor vessel head (top) was removed.

October 1985

Defueling began.

July 1986

The off-site shipment of reactor core debris began.

August 1988

GPU submitted a request for a proposal to amend the TMI-2 license to a "possession-only" license and to allow the facility to enter long-term monitoring storage.

January 1990

Defueling was completed.

July 1990

GPU submitted its funding plan for placing $229 million in escrow for radiological decommissioning of the plant.

January 1991

The evaporation of accident-generated water began.

April 1991

NRC published a notice of opportunity for a hearing on GPU's request for a license amendment.

February 1992

NRC issued a safety evaluation report and granted the license amendment.

August 1993

The processing of accident-generated water was completed involving 2.23 million gallons.

September 1993

NRC issued a possession-only license.

September 1993

The Advisory Panel for Decontamination of TMI-2 held its last meeting.

December 1993

Post-Defueling Monitoring Storage began.

October 2009

TMI-1 license extended from April 2014 until 2034.

May 2019

TMI-1 is announced to be closed in September 2019.

September 2019

TMI-1 shutdown at noon on September 20, 2019.

On March 15, 1979, twelve days before the accident, the movie The China Syndrome premiered and was initially met with backlash from the nuclear power industry, claiming it to be "sheer fiction" and a " character assassination of an entire industry".

In the film, television reporter Kimberly Wells ( Jane Fonda) and her cameraman Richard Adams ( Michael Douglas) secretly film a major accident at a nuclear power plant while taping a series on nuclear power. At one point in the film, an official tells Jane Fonda's character that an explosion at the plant "could render an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable". After the release of the film, Fonda began lobbying against nuclear power. In an attempt to counter her efforts, Edward Teller, a nuclear physicist and long-time government science adviser best known for contributing to the Teller-Ulam design breakthrough that made hydrogen bombs possible, personally lobbied in favor of nuclear power. Teller suffered a heart attack shortly after the incident and joked that he was the only person whose health was affected.

Meltdown: Three Mile Island

Meltdown: Three Mile Island is a four-part docuseries released by Netflix on May 4, 2022. The documentary recounts the events, controversies, and lingering effects of the accident. Featured in the series are Rick Parks, a TMI nuclear engineer turned whistleblower; Lake Barrett, an independent energy consultant who served as the NRC's on-site director for the TMI-2 cleanup; Eric Epstein, chairman of TMI Alert, a nuclear watchdog organization in central Pennsylvania; Michio Kaku an American theoretical physicist; and residents of the communities affected by the event.

Ford, Daniel (1982). Three Mile Island: Thirty Minutes to Meltdown. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-006048-5.

Halden, Grace (June 2017). Three Mile Island: The Meltdown Crisis and Nuclear Power in American Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-91764-4.

Holton, W.C. (September 1990). The Cleanup of Three Mile Island Unit 2 - A Technical History: 1979 to 1990. Palo Alto, CA: EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute). (PDF)

Kemeny, John G. (October 1979). Report of The President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island: The Need for Change: The Legacy of TMI. Washington, D.C.: The Commission. ISBN 978-0-935758-00-9.

Osif, Bonnie A.; Baratta, Anthony; Conkling, Thomas W. (2004). TMI 25 Years Later: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident and Its Impact. Conkling. ISBN 978-0-271-02383-0.

Rogovin, Mitchell (1980). Three Mile Island: A report to the Commissioners and to the Public, Volume I (PDF). U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Special Inquiry Group. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 30, 2010.

Thornburgh, Dick (2010). Where the Evidence Leads. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-6112-3.

Vilanova, Santiago (1980). El síndrome nuclear. El accidente de Harrisburg y el riesgo nuclear en España. Bruguera. ISBN 978-84-02-07390-7.

Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23940-1. (Google Books)

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The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, near the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg. It began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.

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The words ‘This is London Calling …’ were used by the BBC World Service during WWII as part of its broadcast to occupied countries.

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May 4, 1979: Margaret Thatcher wins the general election

The Iron Lady cometh
"I would just like to remember some words of St. Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment.

"'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope' ..."
Gallery: the 1979 election

1979 general election - the results in full
Conservatives: 43.9%, 335 seats
Labour: 36.9%, 269 seats
Liberals: 13.8%, 11 seats
Scottish National party: 1.6%, 2 seats
Ulster Unionists: 0.8%, 5 seats
Plaid Cymru: 0.4%, 2 seats
Social Democratic and Labour party: 0.4%, 1 seat
Ulster Democratic Unionist party: 0.2%, 3 seats
United Ulster Unionist party: 0.1%, 1 seat
Ind Rep: 0.1%, 1 seat

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Thatcher's 1979 election victory | Special Reports | guardian.co.uk Politics

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May 4, 1979: Margaret Thatcher wins the general election The Iron Lady cometh "I would just like to remember some words of St. Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment. "'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth.

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The history of punk music - Digipad by La Digitale

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Une application en ligne pour créer des murs multimédias collaboratifs proposée par La Digitale

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Mark Jordan enjoys walking around his Welsh home town "got up like a Christmas tree" in vintage Vivienne Westwood bondage shirts and bright blue brothel creepers. "The other day, I was stopped by this young guy walking the dog, he was wide-eyed and said, 'What is that you're wearing?'" Jordan says. "His eyes were on sticks when I told him that some of this old punk gear is worth thousands."

A teen of the late 1970s, punk was Jordan's escape from growing up on a drab Merseyside council estate through an economic recession. It was a wild time, Jordan, now 61, recalls, though nothing like the handed-down caricatures of punk anarchy today. "It wasn't all sitting in doorways drinking lager with a dog on a string," he explains. "Johnny Rotten said, 'Get off your arse!' - don't sit on it. Punk was always more about outrageousness and embracing life."

Coming of age in the late-1970s - an era of power cuts, refuse strikes and a prevailing mood of social disquiet - the punk generation was defined by DIY fun and a rejection of authority. This was a sub-generation distinct from the 1940s and 50s baby boomers who came of age in a shiny new postwar social contract, complete with the promise of full employment.

But for many of this generation, the punk ethos never died and it's as relevant today as it was 45 years ago and now, as they approach the traditional age of retirement in a climate that recalls their formative years, the sense of rebellion and the DIY ethos is just as much of a guiding principle as it ever was.

'It wasn't all sitting in doorways drinking lager with a dog on a string': Mark Jordan. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Some are railing against working the wageless "granny shift", plugging the social and childcare gaps as sandwich carers; some are packing up their homes and taking to the road as later-life nomads; others are seeking, after the boot up the arse of the pandemic, to (in the new parlance) "self-actualise" as butterfly later-life creatives emerging from their chrysallises after decades of toeing the 9-to-5 line.

Comedian Jenny Eclair's standup show Sixty Plus! (FFS!) XXL Show! tours across the UK from 2 September. It explores what being 60 means for today's 1960s-born "babes". "Being part of the punk generation affected how I think and it's probably why I still have a problem with being told what to do - and it's why I swear so much," Eclair, 63, says. "In some respects, punk was a licence for the middle classes to rebel, and that sense of rebellion continues in our later years."

In February, 67-year-old former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon competed to represent Ireland in the Eurovision song contest with his hit, Hawaii, a love letter to his wife of 44 years, Nora Forster, who was living with Alzheimer's disease (sadly she died on 6 April). Lydon lost out to shiny man-band Wild Youth, but his bid was a watershed for the generation for whom he was a standard-bearer, says David Amigoni, who researches later-life creativity at Keele University. "The new 60-somethings are finding that the field of creative possibilities for their later years are broader than ever - from theatre to music and art."

Another cultural marker is the book Retirement Rebel. The memoir documents media worker Siobhan Daniels's decision to hand in her notice, sell her house and possessions and take to life on the road in her Auto-Trail Tribute motorhome, Dora the Explorer. It's become a cult hit and today Daniels, 61, encourages older Britons to embrace the self-actualising possibilities of later-life nomadism. She's often approached by tearful 60-somethings who want to unburden themselves about their desire for a more fulfilling life ("I'm a travel agony aunt"). Anecdotally, she says, a growing number of 60-plus women are leaving "husbands at home in front of the telly" and travelling solo. "We have less money as a generation, especially single-parent empty nesters like me, so that means we have to be more creative," Daniels says. "Though I still find it strange that I've become a later-life influencer, as I used to hate the word."

'It's about an attitude, thinking for yourself and not accepting authority': Frank Cutter. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Karen Arthur, who runs the podcast Menopause Whilst Black and has authored the "happy fashion" ebook Eight Ways to Wear Your Happy, also sees a trend of 60-something women rejecting the capitalist patriarchy and refusing to fade away. She says that the punk spirit and ethos they embraced in their youth is the perfect expression of this.

"I spent years worrying what other people thought and now I just want to be loud and take up space and be totally myself," she says. She sees a similar sentiment in many women in her age group, for whom the confidence of later life is combining with a desire to set boundaries around one's time and efforts, whether that's rejecting grandparental childcare or being the go-to event caterer out of a materfamilias sense of duty. "We're exiting relationships that no longer serve us, we're saying no to things we don't want to do; we're cutting people out of our lives who don't make us feel good," she adds. "There's a new mood and that mood is about grabbing life by the wotsits."

The granny shift is a tender point for the over-60s with a yearning to self-actualise through travel, says Anne Hardy, a sociologist who studies later-life "snowbirds" (sun-seeking van and motorhome nomads). "Women who choose this lifestyle are often judged harshly by their own children and by society," she says. "They are construed as being somehow selfish for leaving their grandchildren."

In 2012 the late queen of punk Vivienne Westwood bemoaned the conformism of younger dressers, arguing that ersatz fast fashion meant that only older Britons dressed with any gesture of individuality. This idea is striking to Melanie Smith, 63, a fostering support worker in Wigan who moonlights as a gig photographer. Smith is child-free and sees herself as a member of the first generation who made an identity through the independence this lifestyle afforded. "Not having kids meant that I could carry on with my nightlife and that really kept me going in my day job," she says.

'At long last I'd found my tribe': Chris Freeman. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Last year, Smith's Bengal cat, Rococo, died at 16, and Smith decided to throw caution to the wind and have the green-eyed tabby tattooed on her forearm to memorialise her feline fellow traveller. She also dyed her long white hair a fetching shade of cerise. "They say you can't have long hair when you're older. They say you shouldn't dress in bright colours and have tattoos, particularly as a civil servant, but I just thought: 'I'm 63, I'll do what I want. I'll wear my hair pink and long and I'll wear band T-shirts and skinny jeans and great big platform shoes.'"

Back in the punk days, Smith sneaked a cheap Kodak plastic camera into gigs and would take candid shots of Blondie and Siouxsie Sioux. But it's important, Smith says, not to get stuck in the past. In 2008, she set up Mudkiss, a fanzine and photography project, and today she photographs bands influenced by punk's great youth roar as well as being house photographer at Manchester gig venues O2 Victoria Warehouse and O2 Ritz. "It's following all the new bands that keeps you engaged," she says, "you can't get dragged down by the day-to-day and stuck in the soundtracks of your youth".

Chris Freeman, 61, appreciates that he's one of the luckier members of his age cohort. Retired after 40 years as an operations manager and based in Bracknell, he is materially comfortable. The problem, until a few years ago, was the porridgy beigeness of his corporate life. Although he had dabbled in punk and new romanticism, he had little choice, he says, but to knuckle down to get on in a culture in which the old eccentrics with their bright silk ties and bowler hats were giving way to a sea of sartorial and attitudinal conformity.

In 2019, a chance encounter changed his life. Freeman was browsing London's Spitalfields market and stumbled upon the Colour Walkers: a social group of bright dressers who congregate once a month to promenade around streets of east London. In February 2020, Freeman joined a Colour Walk event dressed in a bright green satin blouse, dungarees, face paint and a leather beret and felt, he says, "like I had at long last found my tribe". Today, Freeman is a regular at Colour Walk events and in 2022 made his stage debut at the pansexual beauty pageant, Alternative Miss World. He wore head-to-toe gold satin with a black leather corset and felt "marvellous, although a bit of an impostor. I revelled in it." The real tragedy, Freeman feels, is when older Britons "just sit there and wait for permission to express themselves". This is something he'd like to see change as the old punks step on to the stage as Britain's elders. "Who will give you that permission?" he asks. "No one. You just have to go for it."

'I spent years worrying what other people thought': Karen Arthur. Photograph: Perou/The Observer

Describing herself as a "punk pagan", Frank Cutter, 56, hopes her generation will rewrite what it means to segue into later life, if partly out of financial necessity. A private tutor and singer with the post-punk band Anarchistwood, Cutter dresses in stage attire that combines colourful clown makeup with Medusa-like hair ribbons and costumes, such as a dramatic Harlequin-inspired jumpsuit with a large embroidered vagina on the front "which is also a pocket, quite practically".

"I don't really know anyone my age who thinks that they will be able to fully retire any time soon," Cutter says. Having spent her youth in squats across west London, Cutter and some of her old punk friends often talk about returning to communal living. "It's not for everyone as you have to be flexible and sociable and God knows loads of us get fixed in our ways as we age," she laughs. But living an uptight, ever-decreasing later life is everything Cutter wants to avoid.

For Cutter, punk was all about "peace and anarchy and doing what you want as long as it isn't about harming people". It was also about sexual freedom. Cutter is bisexual, and the scene was a sanctuary in the 80s.

Today, she has nine children and stepkids, aged between from 18 and 31, she also has two grandchildren, aged seven and two, and a younger female partner. She is, for her part, very happy to be a punk grandma. But Cutter dislikes it when people tell her they "used to be" a punk. "It's not about the hair colour and the piercings you once had, it's about an attitude: thinking for yourself and not accepting authority." It's an inward rebellion, Cutter says, that surely applies at any age.

After four decades as a media studies teacher in Manchester and a health scare, Mark Jordan is rediscovering the old punk ethos in his autumn years, working as an arts documentary maker and buying back replicas of the clothes he donated to museums decades ago, bringing a dash of the old sartorial outrageousness to his adoptive town of Mold in Flintshire.

"I don't think the punk generation thought we would live to 30, let alone 60," he says. "But those who made it are doing interesting things, working as filmmakers and photographers and musicians and artists. It's bloody brilliant to see."

The coming-of-age 60s are highly individual, creatively frustrated and making their mark in an economic landscape that calls to mind their formative years. They're also kicking back against the facile expectation that they'll plug the gap where the state has failed: providing elder care for partners, or on-tap grandparental childcare. Expect more natty dressers, late-blooming artists, novel living arrangements and silver am-dram in coming years, Amigoni predicts.

"Old punk rockers never die/They just decompose/They yell and kick and smell like shit/And punch you in the nose," runs a lyric of US novelty band 60 Year Old Punk. Jordan puts it this way: "We may not be able to retire on a final salary pension, but we are going to make a hell of a lot of noise and not go out with a whimper."
Jenny Eclair's Sixty Plus! (FFS!) XXL Show! is on tour from 2 September. For tickets, visit jennyeclair.com

This article was amended on 5 May 2023. Owing to an editing error, an earlier version gave Frank Cutter's first name as "Fran". It has also been clarified that Melanie Smith is specifically a fostering support worker, and that Mark Jordan is an arts documentary maker.

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Lust for life: the punks keeping the spirit of rebellion alive

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Punk rock exploded in 1977 with a raw power seldom seen since. But Johnny Rotten (as he used to call himself) is 67 now, and most of his fans from that time are in their 60s. So what became of all that energy, spiky hair and safety-pins?

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BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The legacy of punk

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John Lydon - the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten - is to appear in the TV jungle challenge I’m A Celebrity... But the legacy of the punk movement reaches far beyond reality TV.

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Punk movement: which ideologies?

The punk movement, which took root in England, expresses the period between 1976 and 1980 when a real craze for more aggressive rock bands appeared, sailing on a dark inspiration fuelled by the climate of economic crises, wars and attacks on European soil. More than just a musical trend, punk was to develop into an important social and artistic movement: "punkitude" came to shake up society and propose an alternative to the solutions, considered too utopian, proposed by the hippies. Indeed, like many movements, the punks were born out of contestation of the established order and in opposition to the previous movement.

The movement attracted, at least in its origins, people who did not feel they belonged in society, but did not seek to escape from it. These are people who have been deeply affected by economic crises, mass unemployment and have been lulled by images of wars on television. The famous slogan "No future" is a perfect illustration of the image they have of society. The main ideologies and political contestations of the movement have their origins in this feeling of exclusion: anarchism, individualism, existentialism, anti-capitalism, anti-authoritarianism, or anti-racism. They question the place of the individual and his or her freedoms in the society in which they grow up, making freedom of expression and thinking for oneself the centre of their philosophy. To put it simply, the punk movement wants to create a society where human beings are as free as possible by opposing all forms of authority. The famous "do it yourself" associated with them, more than just being a stylistic signature, is the symbol of these political demonstrations and societal reflections.

Gilles Pierroux said "Rarely has an artistic movement corresponded so amazingly with the social shock of which it is contemporary. [...] the 1970s had representations marked by the seal of violence, terrorists, autonomists and punks denouncing, each in their own way, the major problems of the present world. The more acute the problem, the more violent the protest; one could almost believe that, in periods of deep crisis, society itself gives rise to marginal people whose role will be to expose the evil, thus exorcising it and solving it in part."

A movement doomed with "no future"?

This is not to say that the movement has died out, but rather that it no longer fulfils its initial aspirations. Commercial recuperation having passed by, the artistic punk codes are well and truly present in many fields associated with art, such as high fashion, communication or cinema.

More than 40 years ago, the Sex Pistols launched the refrain "no future", which then became the emblem of punk rock. But, paradoxically, this movement had a sequel. It endured because it revolutionised attitudes through its style of dress and its way of expressing itself. Punk has survived, and not only because of its aggressive music: it is the more global artistic movement that has survived. As Vincent Bernière, co-author of , says: "Punk is about energy and doing things even if you don't master the technique" . The punk movement brought a real stylistic revolution, the "Do It Yourself" gave birth to a style of dress so strong that it is still alive today. Fashion has changed people's perception of the way they dress, their vision of the world, their way of projecting themselves into it. This fashion is like what the punk movement represented, it went against all established principles. It is a fashion that did not start in the design studios, but developed in the street and went up to the designers. Punk fashion challenged the established codes, because it provoked, uglied, and challenged. Today, it has become a norm, as Olivier Saillard, director of the Musée Galliera, points out: "Anyone can wear a piercing, pink hair, or ripped jeans today" .

Although it has lost its initial philosophy, the punk movement has had a legacy: it has made it possible to question the perception of the individual within society and the way in which he/she can express him/herself. In 1978, the band Crass sang "Punk is dead", yet even today, there are punks in every country. Paradoxically, the promoters of punk wanted to abolish traditions and created one.