“I wanted adventure, fame, financial independence,
all the things a starry eyed young girl could wish for”.

But unlike most teenage dreamers, Poly was determined to make her dreams a reality.

“I was never happy at school. Playground politics always disturbed my concentration
and I wasn’t particularly good with authority.
Mum taught me to type and I soon realised that
it would be either school or the office. Neither option filled me with much enthusiasm”.

Indeed when running away from home at the age of fifteen to tour the rock-festivals
that still lingered on in the forgotten corners of the post-hippie English countryside
it can be seen that Poly was escaping a future of mundanity
that she feared more than the dangers of the road.

Poly’s hippie adventure would last for over two years,
and when she finally returned home at the age of eighteen,
she was more determined than ever to establish her identity in the world.
She started by setting up her own boutique
in Beaufort Market, on the Kings Road, in Chelsea.
It was indeed the name of the fashion label that she used
for her home spun autographed couture, that would give her the art-i-ficial pseudonym
and punky-trade-marks that she would later adopt as front-woman of X-ray Spex.
Poly Styrene was born.

“I started with nothing but a few melodic lyrics and a lot of determination.
I got a band together and within a very short space of time
we were internationally famous and in the charts!”

Such overnight success was not just down to luck.
Poly and her band injected a much-needed burst of colour
and fun into a punk scene that was nihilistic and destructive.
Although not lacking with the necessary anger and energy to make it on the scene.
X-ray Spex never took themselves too seriously,
and soon distinguished themselves by their difference to the rest.
Poly herself wasn’t the archetypal pop princess.
This unconventionally pretty youth with short hair,
tooth-braces and a war-helmet perched cockily on her head was the tank-girl-rebel
long before the Courtney Love/Kelly Osborne angry grunge queens of the present day.