Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way

by Richard Branson

  ‘Can we sign them?’ I asked.

  ‘If you can cope with them,’ he said. ‘We certainly can’t.’

  The Sex Pistols were given £75,000 by A&M as compensation for the cancelled contract. Together with the £50,000 they had been given from EMI, they had earned £125,000 for doing nothing more than a bit of swearing and vomiting and one single. Once again, The Sex Pistols were looking for a record label.

  I began to marvel at how Malcolm McLaren had played his cards so well. The Sex Pistols were now the most shocking band in the country. Among all the punk bands which now rapidly materialised, The Sex Pistols were still the most notorious. They had a single called ‘God Save The Queen’ which I knew they wanted to release in time for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Day in July 1977.

  I watched and waited, knowing that Malcolm McLaren didn’t like me. He sneered at me as a hippie who had become a businessman. But, as the weeks passed and Jubilee Day came closer, nobody else came forward to sign The Sex Pistols. I knew that Virgin was perhaps the only record label who could do it. We had no shareholders to protest, no parent company or boss to tell me not to. On 12 May 1977 Malcolm McLaren finally came to see us. The tables had turned. Virgin signed the British rights for The Sex Pistols’ first album for £15,000, with a further £50,000 payable for rights for the rest of the world.

  ‘Do you realise what you’re getting into?’ McLaren asked me.

  ‘I do,’ I assured him. ‘The question is, do you?’

  From the moment we signed The Sex Pistols, McLaren was looking for ways to alienate us so that we’d be sufficiently embarrassed to want to get rid of them. To McLaren’s horror and bemusement we refused to be outraged. We released ‘God Save The Queen’, which was banned by BBC radio and soared to number two in the charts. It would have been number one, but record shops like Virgin and HMV, which would be likely to be selling large quantities of the record, were excluded from the sample taken in order to compile the charts.

  On Jubilee Day 1977, Malcolm McLaren rented a Thames pleasure cruiser and steamed upriver towards the House of Commons. The police knew that something was up, and as we set off from Westminster Pier two police launches shadowed us. The band waited until they were right alongside the House of Commons and then they picked up their guitars and drumsticks and roared out their own version of the national anthem:

  God save the Queen,

  A fascist regime,

  Made you a moron,

  A potential H-bomb.

  God save the Queen.

  She ain’t no human being,

  There ain’t no future in England’s dream,

  NO FUTURE! NO FUTURE!

  The police pulled up alongside and insisted that the band stop playing. This was unwarranted since the boat had a licence for bands to play. It brought back memories of The Beatles’ last ever live performance on the rooftop of the Apple studios when the police pulled the plug on them. If it had been Frank Sinatra on board there would have been no problem. The police boarded our boat and steered us back to the pier, where they arrested Malcolm McLaren, mainly because he put up such a spirited fight and started yelling, ‘Fascist pigs!’

  That week we sold over 100,000 copies of ‘God Save The Queen’. It was clearly the number-one record, but Top of the Pops and the BBC claimed that Rod Stewart was really the number one. ‘God Save The Queen’ was banned from the television and radio. From our point of view it was good business: the more it was banned, the better it sold.

  The Sex Pistols were a turning point for us, the band we had been looking for. They put Virgin back on the map, as a record company that could generate a huge amount of publicity, and that could cope with punk rock. The Sex Pistols were a national event: every shopper up and down the high street, every farmer, everyone on every bus, every grandmother, had heard of The Sex Pistols. And living close to that kind of public outcry was fascinating. As Oscar Wilde pointed out, ‘The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’ The Sex Pistols generated more newspaper cuttings than anything else in 1977 apart from the Silver Jubilee itself. Their notoriety was practically a tangible asset. Most of the press was negative, but so had it been for The Rolling Stones when they had set out fifteen years earlier.

  In November 1977 Virgin released Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols. The lettering on the album sleeve was a brilliant design by Jamie Reid, crudely cut out from newspaper headlines in the same way as kidnappers’ notes and hate mail were delivered. Virgin shops put large yellow posters in their windows advertising the record. Not surprisingly, there would always be someone who was offended by this. One day the manager of our shop in Nottingham was arrested under the same Indecent Advertisements Act of 1889 for which I had been arrested nearly ten years previously, when the Student Advisory Centre had advertised help for people suffering from venereal disease. I called John Mortimer, who had defended me then.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve fallen foul of the Indecent Advertisements Act again,’ I told him. ‘The police are saying that we can’t use the word “bollocks”.’

  ‘Bollocks?’ he asked. ‘What on earth’s wrong with bollocks? It’s one of my favourite words.’

  ‘They’re making us take down The Sex Pistols’ posters saying “Never mind the bollocks, here’s The Sex Pistols”, and they’re threatening to injunct the album.’

  He told me that we needed a linguistic adviser, a professor of English who could define the exact meaning of ‘bollocks’ for us. Since the case had been brought in Nottingham, I called up Nottingham University.

  ‘Please can I speak to your professor of linguistics?’ I asked.

  ‘That would be Professor James Kinsley,’ said the lady on reception.

  I was put through and explained the situation.

  ‘So one of your staff has been arrested for displaying the word “bollocks”?’ said Professor Kinsley. ‘What a load of bollocks! Actually, the word “bollocks” is an eighteenth-century nickname for priests. And then, because priests generally seemed to speak such a lot of nonsense in their sermons, “bollocks” gradually came to mean “rubbish”.’

  ‘So “bollocks” actually means either “priest” or “rubbish”?’ I checked, making sure I hadn’t missed anything.

  ‘That is correct,’ he said.

  ‘Would you be prepared to be a witness in court?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ he said.

  I enjoyed the court case. The police prosecutor was determined to win what was clearly a case of national importance. Our shop manager was cross-examined and admitted that he had prominently displayed The Sex Pistols’ poster in the shop window. The police officer recited how he had arrested him since he was displaying this offensive poster. The policeman had the smug look of someone who was doing the public a great service and expected to be praised for it.

  ‘No questions,’ John Mortimer said when he was invited to cross-examine the policeman.

  Rather disappointed, the policeman stood down.

  ‘I would like to call my witness,’ John Mortimer said when he stood up. ‘Professor James Kinsley, professor of linguistics at Nottingham University.’

  As Professor James Kinsley explained that ‘bollocks’ was nothing to do with testicles but actually meant ‘priests’ and then – due to priests’ sermons being full of it – ‘rubbish’, John Mortimer peered at him myopically and appeared to be struggling to straighten out his thoughts.

  ‘So, Professor Kinsley, are you saying that this expression “Never mind the bollocks, here’s The Sex Pistols”, which is the basis of this prosecution, should more accurately be translated as “Never mind the priests, here’s The Sex Pistols”?’ asked John Mortimer.

  ‘I am. Or it could mean “Never mind the rubbish, here’s The Sex Pistols”.’

  John Mortimer allowed a silence to develop in the court. ‘“Never mind the priests, here’s The Sex Pistols”,’ he mused. ‘That is the meaning of this expression. Well, I have nothing
further to add. It sounds like a strange title for a record, but I doubt whether the Church would mind.’

  ‘I doubt they would either,’ Professor Kinsley agreed.

  The prosecutor then pressed Professor Kinsley on this point, asking him how he could be sure that no clergyman would be offended.

  Professor Kinsley then played his trump card by folding down his polo neck to reveal a dog collar. Professor Kinsley was also known as Reverend Kinsley.

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped the magistrate. He straightened his back, squared his shoulders and, adopting as much magisterial solemnity as he could muster, announced:

  ‘The case is dismissed.’

  10 ‘“I thought I’d move in,” Joan said.’

  1976–1978

  ONE WEEKEND IN EARLY 1976 I met my future wife, Joan Templeman, at the Manor. I make up my mind about someone within thirty seconds of meeting them, and I fell for Joan almost from the moment I saw her. The problem was that she was already married to someone else, a record producer and keyboard player who was producing a Virgin band called Wigwam.

  Joan was a down-to-earth Scots lady, and I immediately saw that she did not suffer fools gladly. I knew that I couldn’t attract her attention in the same way as I had attracted Kristen. Most of my past relationships with women had been based on great public showmanship, but for the first time I felt that here was a woman who didn’t want me to get up to my usual antics.

  Joan worked in an antiques shop called Dodo on Westbourne Grove, close to our offices at Vernon Yard. On Monday morning I hovered uncertainly outside the shop, then screwed up my courage and walked in. The shop sold old signs and advertisements. When I asked the lady who owned the shop whether Joan was there, she looked at me suspiciously.

  ‘Are you a customer?’ she asked, glowering.

  ‘Yes, I’m fascinated by old signs,’ I said, looking uncertainly around the shop.

  Joan came through from the back.

  ‘I see you’ve met Liz,’ she said. ‘Liz, this is Richard.’

  ‘So what would you like to buy?’ Liz pressed me.

  There was no way out. Over the next few weeks, my visits to Joan amassed me an impressive collection of old handpainted tin signs which advertised anything from Hovis bread to Woodbine cigarettes. One tin sign read DIVE IN HERE FOR TEA! I also bought a large pig which played the cymbals and had once stood in a butcher’s shop. One of my favourite signs was an old picture advertising Danish bacon and eggs which showed a pig leaning casually against a wall listening to a chicken singing. The chicken was celebrating her freshly laid egg and the caption to the scene was NOW, THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! I gave this to Simon Draper, since he was always terribly grumpy in the mornings until he had eaten a decent breakfast. He hung it over his desk, where it later inspired the title for our annual greatest-hits compilations, Now That’s What I Call Music. By the time I had bought all my Christmas presents from Dodo, Liz told Joan that she was the best shop assistant she had ever had.

  Joan had been married to her husband, Ronnie Leahy, for almost eight years, but they had no children. Ronnie travelled a good deal, and it seemed to me, perhaps conveniently, that he and Joan had begun to drift apart. Whenever Ronnie was away, I called up Joan’s friends and asked whether they were seeing Joan.

  ‘Mind if I tag along?’ I asked casually.

  They soon called me ‘Tag-along’, which I really didn’t mind as long as by tagging along I had the chance to sit somewhere near Joan and talk with her. Our courtship was unlike the other romances I’d had, which I’d been able to control. Joan is an intensely private person, and it was extremely difficult to find out the state of her marriage. While I knew what I felt about her, I had very little idea what Joan made of me. I thought that she might be intrigued by my persistence, but beyond that I was in the dark.

  Eventually, Joan agreed to come with me to the Isle of Wight, and we spent the weekend in a tiny hotel in Bembridge. It was the start of our affair. Since Joan was married we both carried on living double lives. She could not see me during the week, when Ronnie was at home, but early one morning she decided to surprise me by dropping round to my house in Denbigh Terrace, where I was still living. As she let herself in, she saw my cleaning lady Martha going up the stairs to my bedroom carrying a tray with two cups of tea on it. Joan knew that I was in bed with another woman – which I was – so she stopped Martha and put a flower on the tray.

  ‘Just say to Richard that Joan says hello,’ she said, and then turned on her heel and went back to the shop.

  I was mortified. I dashed round to see her at Dodo and persuaded her to have lunch with me.

  ‘So what’s all this about undying love?’ Joan asked sarcastically.

  ‘Well, I was lonely,’ I said lamely. ‘I couldn’t wait until the weekend.’

  ‘That’s a pathetic excuse!’ Joan said.

  I tried to look ashamed of myself and contrite, but we caught each other’s eye and then both burst out laughing.

  Our affair continued for almost a year. We were desperate to be with each other, and would call each other up whenever we had five minutes to spare. Joan would slip away from Dodo and I would leave Vernon Yard, and we would meet at Denbigh Terrace, which was right between us. The geography of our affair was very tight-knit: Vernon Yard, Westbourne Grove and Denbigh Terrace all cross Portobello Road within twenty yards of each other, and so Joan and I lived out our affair within a tiny intense triangle.

  When we stole twenty precious minutes at lunch, quarter of an hour before a meeting, or a few moments after Dodo shut up shop, we tried to shut the outside world away. But, along with the passion, we were also intensely aware that Joan was married (indeed, on paper, I was in the same situation myself), and that we were in danger of causing pain to Ronnie. In some ways Joan and Ronnie had a similar relationship to Kristen’s and mine: Ronnie had wanted to experiment with sleeping with other women and had told Joan that she needed to broaden her horizons, too. Joan had been at a loss because she wasn’t able to cope with a series of one-night stands, and so she gradually began to fall in love with me.

  Our affair was further complicated when Kristen heard that I was in love with Joan and arrived back in London. By this time I had managed to buy Duende back from Kevin Ayers. At more or less the same time, Kristen had left him. She now told me that she wanted to get back together with me. We were, after all, still married. My family has always maintained that you stick with your marriage through thick and thin, and so I felt a great responsibility to agree to Kristen. But I was in love with Joan. It was a nightmarish situation for each of us: Joan felt torn between me and Ronnie; Kristen had been torn between me and Kevin; and I now felt torn between Kristen and Joan. What had started off as a dream affair with Joan in the tiny bedroom in the house at Denbigh Terrace was now beginning to destroy five people’s lives.

  The tangle of these four relationships finally resolved itself when I was at a party with both Joan and Kristen. Joan’s best friend Linda cornered me:

  ‘So who are you actually in love with?’ she demanded. ‘This can’t go on. You’re all killing yourselves and you need to sort it out.’

  I saw Joan talking to someone else.

  ‘I’m in love with one woman,’ I said, looking across at Joan. ‘But she’s not in love with me.’

  ‘I’m telling you that she is,’ said Linda, following my look.

  We left it at that.

  The next night I was alone on Duende. It was a dark February night and raining hard. I was on the telephone so I didn’t hear the sound of knocking. Then the door opened and I swung round. It was Joan.

  ‘I’ll call you back later,’ I said to the phone, and moved across to hug her.

  ‘Well, I thought I’d move in,’ Joan said.

  ‘We’ve had another Nigerian order,’ Chris Stylianou told me. ‘They love this guy U-Roy.’

  Chris Stylianou was now Virgin’s export manager, and throughout the last few months of 1977 had picked up
thousands of pounds’ worth of business from, of all bizarre places, Nigeria. The Nigerians loved reggae music. At the time, virtually the only British record label that sold reggae was Chris Blackwell’s Island Records.

  In 1976 I had followed Chris Blackwell’s footsteps to Jamaica with a view to signing some reggae acts. After sitting on his veranda for days on end I had finally managed to sign up Peter Tosh, who had sung with Bob Marley, and a performer called U-Roy. Legalize It, Peter Tosh’s first album with Virgin, had sold well in 1977. But now there was a different sound: Jamaican DJs and radio jocks were cutting their own records and chanting a whole lot of rhyming slang and political slogans to a background beat. It was an early form of rap music. They were called ‘toasters’ and it was U-Roy, a bejewelled hipster, who was doing so well in Nigeria. I knew that there must be more toasters out in Jamaica and I decided we should go out there and corner the market.

  I always like to get away from London in the middle of winter. I’ve found that sunshine and long-distance travel always gives me a clearer perspective on London life. And this time I had two extra reasons to get away from the city: I wanted to take Johnny Rotten with me because he was having some difficulties with The Sex Pistols and Malcolm McLaren; I also hoped to meet up with Joan, who was going to Los Angeles with Ronnie to give their marriage one last chance. Johnny Rotten was delighted to come since he loved reggae, and Joan and I agreed not to speak until she had resolved her marriage one way or another.

  At the last minute, Simon was unable to come with me and I went with Ken. And so, at the start of 1978, a punk rocker, an accountant and a reformed Earl’s Court hippie flew together to Kingston, Jamaica, to sign up some reggae bands and look for toasters. Knowing that Jamaicans didn’t trust written contracts, we flew in with a briefcase containing $30,000 in cash and set up shop in the Kingston Sheraton. Word soon went around that three gringos were in town looking to audition musicians, and a stream of bands started coming round to the hotel room. Ken sat on the bed with his briefcase; Johnny and I listened to the bands’ tapes and chatted to them. Johnny decided which artists we should sign, and then Ken would open up the briefcase and take out the money. American dollars were hard currency in Jamaica, where imports were banned and everything was bought on the black market. Some of the bands were so keen to impress us that they brought their drums and guitars with them. Our room was soon full of tall Rastafarians wearing massive bobble hats in red, yellow and green stripes. One tall singer towered over us and sang lovingly about his spiritual homeland of Ethiopia.