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I’ve had only one real job in my life. I know what you’re thinking, but managing the Sex Pistols wasn’t a job; it was a lifestyle that consisted of creating an environment that you could run wild in. The boring job was in London in 1962, when I was 16. I hadn’t done well on my exams — in fact, I hadn’t bothered to take most of them. University was not in the cards.
My mother dragged me to the local labor exchange, where a man read off a list of available jobs: machine operator in a pen factory, assistant to a linens salesman, booking clerk for Fyffes banana boats. As he worked his way down the list, he came across a job for a trainee wine taster at George Sandeman, the venerable wine merchant. The occasional glass of sherry on religious days was the only wine I’d tasted. But my mother, a walking cliche of nouveau riche, thought this sounded respectable enough to boast about at cocktail parties