Padlocks: Living with Sid & Nancy: LIVING WITH SID AND NANCY

The life of Sid & Nancy squatting in the room of a fellow user over several months of 1977 may not sound like a good read but if you're fascinated by the story of 70s London, Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungeon and the punk scene this book has it all in its non glorification of addiction. Atmospheric, truthful, revealing and brutal, I couldn't put this book down and I craved the next read like those in the book craved their next fix. Fascinating and entertaining and one of the best books on hard drug addiction period.

Den makes you feel like you are in the flat with him. A great read for anyone with any interest in the pistol.He describes the slow decline deeper into drug dependency in an honest way at the end of the book.A really interesting read

A different view on Sid and Nancy written by someone who knew them.Dens book is well written and tells it like it was.If you like the Pistol’s or punk in general,it’s well worth the money 🎸😎🎸

True story written by a real witness of the scene. Highly recommended for young people that still ignores everything about drugs.

Den Browne's memoir 'Padlocks' is an honest, unflinching account of a six-month period in 1977 when he shared a one-room flat in London with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Den himself was not involved in the music industry or the burgeoning punk scene, but met the notorious couple through one of those 'simple twists of fate'. Hoping to score some heroin Sid and Nancy rang the wrong doorbell: Den's instead of that of the smack dealer who lived upstairs. Having a habit himself he immediately saw how to turn the situation to his advantage and offered to score on their behalf. Sid and Nancy stayed that evening and didn't leave for six months. What struck me most is the unexpected picture the book paints of Nancy. Scapegoated and vilified by press and Pistols' fans alike as well as members of the band itself, Nancy has gone down in punk history as the villain of the piece: loud, crude, demanding, whingeing, responsible for Sid's habit and therefore his death. But Den paints a very different picture. Nancy comes across as bright, erudite and actually quite likable. Her first reaction on entering Den's flat was to dash over to the bookcase, exclaiming "Wow! You guys have books ... Malcolm Lowry ... Anne Sexton ... Sylvia Plath, right!" Nancy had a taste for literature. Who knew? She was also adept at handling Sid: mediating to avoid conflict, smoothing things over. This really isn't the Nancy everyone has come to know and hate. Den's Introduction is subtitled 'You Can Skip This Bit If You Just Want To Read About Famous People', but I would advise you not to. 'Padlocks' evokes the chaotic, heroin-fuelled anarchy of the punk era through Den's account of his own habit and the characters it brought him into contact with. It is evocative and highly readable. I cannot recommend it enough.

I finished this book last night, it was amazing. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Punk, the Pistols, or heroin addiction. The prose is fantastic, you feel like you're really there with them, like reading a good work of fiction, although it's not! It's refreshing to read something from someone who was there at the time and knew them intimately, and makes a lot of the stuff written about them seem a bit, well, shameful really. I look forward to reading more of his work in future.

I loved the book, and so pleased it finally saw the light of day.I’ve known Den for over 12 years and he has always wanted to tell his story about his encounter with the notorious punk couple.This book has been in the making for years and finally it’s here with no holds barred. If you wondered what it was really like to live with the most famous punk couple in the 70’s then this is the book for you. It’s very different from other books about Sid or Nancy.I don’t want to give away any spoilers but just to say it’s a genuine,, authentic personal story. One for fans of the Sex Pistols/ Sid or anyone interested in music culture and history.

I ordered the electronic version and read it in 30 minutes? Each page was a sentence long? Anyone with a hard copy please tell me how many pages it is.