Considering rule one of punk was to adopt a convincingly anti-social working-class persona, Rikki And The Last Days Of Earth made a rookie error. They had the look – all leather and spiky hair – and they were certainly early adopters, releasing their first single in May 1977.

But they blew it by naming the independently released disc ‘Oundle RocSoc’ after the posh private school where they sold it after an early gig.

Never mind: it was enough to earn them a record deal with DJM who re-released the lead track, City Of The Damned.

Rikki Sylvan (Nick Condron to his parents in Kensington) was a public school-educated sound engineer and The Last Days Of Earth were the equally exotically named Valac Van Der Veen, Andy Prince (or sometimes Prinz), Nik Weiss and Hugh Inge-Innes Lillingston, who had gone to Eton (not that you’d know it from his name).

I can’t help feeling the lack of enthusiasm shown them by the music papers was not entirely based on their music and had more to do with questions surrounding their authenticity: such a key component in punk, despite privately educated icons like Joe Strummer and Shane McGowan. And, for that matter, Lu Edmonds (variously of The Damned, PiL and Siouxsie & The Banshees), who went to school with me.

Listening to City Of The Damned now, Rikki Sylvan’s theatrical vocals and the prominent synths mark them down as having more in common with a pre-punk band like The Doctors Of Madness or Ultravox than the Pistols amd Clash.

They split up in 1978 after disappointing reviews and worse sales for their debut album Four Minute Warning.

Rikki went back to his day job, mixing Gary Numan’s first two albums and his old band rather disappeared from history.