Dear Reader,
Johnny Green was the former road manager of the Clash, a sardonic, literate, poetic and sharply dressed chancer from Kent whose natural habitat was the boozer and who caught hold of the slipstream of punk in the 1970s and sat in it until his recent death. He was also a former Rouleur columnist.
I didn’t know Johnny well – I met him in person once, at some reception or other to celebrate the Grand Départ of the 2007 Tour de France in London, where he gleefully poked fun at the formality of the event, confiding in me that he felt like he’d crashed the Ambassador’s party. At the same time, as with all great columnists, I felt like I knew him as a personal friend.
Johnny’s columns had strange energy, and like Rouleur itself, they were as innovative as hell, combining astute observations about the world of cycling with allusions to history, rock-and-roll references and a use of language which, despite being printed on paper, was more oral than written history. He dropped his gs in text as he did in life, and his columns were punctuated by full stops and glottal stops. Only Johnny would go from Torq Bars to Torquemada in the space of a single sentence, and you could tell that he was far more interested in what he could learn from the latter than the former. One column would be inspired by a visit to a shop, shooting off from the second paragraph into tangents containing references to Napoleon, 1970s cricketer “Flat Jack” Simmons, Kendal Mint Cake, the yogi who tried to climb Mount Everest, what bands eat when they’re on tour and finally getting around to a bit of cycling at the end. Another would be a reflection on spectating at bike events, and as a fan of the Seagulls, I winced in self-recognition when I read the line, “It might prove anathema to sit quietly, politely, in my numbered seat, like a Brighton and Hove Albion supporter…” Johnny’s last column was in Rouleur 50, coincidentally on the following page from an interview with Mark Cavendish that I contributed as a freelancer, and it had it all: Joe Strummer, Bo Diddley, Lady Gaga, Jake and Dinos Chapman, the Wallace Collection, Disneyland and more (this was a column about magazine covers). And every one, according to one of my predecessors as editor, Ian Cleverly (‘Cleverclogs’ to wordsmith Johnny), handwritten in longhand, transcribed into an email by his daughter and always containing at least one reference to each of the Eddies Merckx and Cochrane.
I loved Johnny’s columns because he understood that cycling takes us places, both literal and metaphorical. For him, the overlap between cycling and culture both high and low elevated both, and though we’re another 85 editions old from Johnny’s last column, Rouleur continues not to be just about cycling. Turn to page 66 and read Barry Ryan’s feature about Il dio di Roserio, a classic of Italian literature, for confirmation.
While I’m on the subject of columnists, we’re sad to be saying farewell to Orla Chennaoui, whose column this month will be her last one. Within the team, we describe Orla as the ‘soul’ of the magazine – her columns, always perfectly written, clean and full of meaning – are never anything but an inspiration, leaving our readers with a positive, life-affirming message to end the magazine. Orla is focusing her considerable, elemental, world-changing energy on her brilliant initiative, Ten Times Braver (find out more at tentimesbraver.com), and her television career, as well as her family. However, we’ve made Orla promise to drop in with the occasional feature in the future, and we can’t wait to work with her again.
I hope you enjoy Rouleur 135, for the amazing features, fascinating and thought-provoking columnists, and for sharing the journey as we continue to discover where cycling can take us.
Edward Pickering - Editor
