Kelvin Clarke, Little Plumstead:
I was there at Cromer Links on Christmas Eve – well, only just! Having borrowed my father’s car and secretly bought tickets for four of us, we were really upset when the gig was cancelled. Not expecting minds to be changed and the gig to be back on again, I told my Dad where we’d planned to go. When the council agreed to allow it to be held – the rumour was that coachloads from London were coming, gig or no gig – it was a case of ‘Dad, please, please can I borrow the car?’
I remember seeing Sid Vicious standing on the balcony and the next minute he was standing beside me. He was asking the lad next to me if he could have his tie, yes a tie, it was covered in pictures of nude women though! Sid looked incredibly pale, well simply white, terribly thin and covered in short thin cuts, obviously the razor blade stories were true.
The music started, the quality was poor, but who cared, the atmosphere was great. In between numbers, Johnny would just stare forward and make silly noises.
I went to many of the punk gigs, The Stranglers, The Jam, The Boomtown Rats, The Adverts, and was always surprised that however intimidating people looked in their punk gear, they were always so friendly.
There were never any fights and if you were knocked over while po-going, they always picked you up.

Steve Baker, head of leisure and community services at North Norfolk District Council:
It was part of my teenage years to spend Saturday evenings up at the Links. It was a fantastic place.
We’d been to the more regular groups and it was quite exciting to see the anarchist type of group. I always remember how skinny and insignificant Sid Vicious looked but with this snarl on his face.
I remember at the end of the concert the roadie saying, ‘I want four girls up in the dressing room right now.’

Duncan Sutton, Corpusty:
An absolute blinder.

Andrew Turner, Langham:
We were incredibly lucky young punks in Norfolk. All the top bands of the day played at West Runton Pavilion and of course the band to see were the Pistols. I didn’t see them when they played at Runton, it was before they became nationally known, and as they were virtually banned from playing in the UK after the Bill Grundy incident [when the Pistols unleashed a string of televised obscenities] it looked like I never would.
Then in November a ‘secret’ tour was announced in the music press. The venues weren’t listed, but a map of the UK was printed with crosses giving a strong clue as to where they were playing. Imagine our excitement to see a cross right up on the Norfolk coast!
We immediately thought the concert would be at West Runton, but word soon got around that it was at the old Links Pavilion, which I believe had been unused for some time.
Inside the Pavilion it was very shoddy, paint peeling off the walls – I’d only been once before, in 1972 to see Blackfoot Sue with my Mum! – and there wasn’t a proper bar, just cans of beer being sold over the counter.
The band were encamped on the balcony, Johnny looking especially cool grooving to the dub reggae being pumped out of the PA, wearing an old army pith helmet.
Sid Vicious was wandering around the audience, looking very mean.
He spotted a guy wearing a pink tie with a naked lady on it and swapped a T-shirt for it.
The show itself was good, although ultimately it could never quite live up to our expectations. They tore through virtually everything they’d recorded in good style. I can’t remember any great witticisms from John, but Steve Jones, the guitarist, passed out half a case of beer to the fans down the front.

Rob Aherne:
I’ve not lived in Norfolk for more than 20 years but remember that North Norfolk seemed to have more big name bands than the rest of the country put together. I started going to West Runton Pavilion – The Pit – in November 1976, missing the Pistols gig there by a few months, but I did see the Cromer Christmas ’77 gig.
Everybody at school was buzzing – rumours were out that a huge rocker army was on the move to annihilate the local punks and that hundreds of London punks were coming down to support them.
I’ll never forget the experience of walking up to the venue from Cromer Bus Station expecting world war three any second.
Our group had all agonised about whether we would be overtly punk – bondage gear etc – but as we didn’t own any, most of us just had ripped jeans and old pullovers and T-shirts.
The gig was scheduled to start early and would only last one hour and most of North Norfolk Constabulary was mobilised for the occasion – you could see both cars quite clearly!
Once inside the pavilion you could see why the gig was here rather than West Runton – if this place was trashed it would be an improvement – there were warning signs everywhere about not using these doors and not going on a balcony due to subsidence.
Hundreds of people were milling around, forming an orderly queue for drinks or just looking worshipfully at Sid and Johnny lolling by the mixing desk.
Occasionally somebody would get enough nerve to go up and ask for an autograph or ask a question.
Then they started playing and it was quite simply one of the best gigs I had ever attended. They were a tight accomplished group. They played all four of the main singles, most of the other material from Never Mind The B******s and new tracks like A Punk Prayer. They played for just over an hour and finished with, I think, Pretty Vacant.
We all filed out into the early evening and everybody went home with no trouble, no fighting and with the feeling that this was something we would all look back upon one day...And then some of us got changed and went and saw Rockotto at West Runton Pavilion.