Paul Hebden ‘Hebby’ R.I.P.
Well known local T-shirt entrepreneur and mainstay of the punk scene Paul Hebden aka ‘Hebby’ was found dead at his home on Saturday 23rd January 2010. There’s a report in the Sunday Sun.
It’s well known that Hebby hadn’t been having the best of times lately: he’d been made redundant from the Post Office, was having a legal dispute with a neighbour that preventing him from building an outhouse to resume his T-shirt printing business and his drinking had become excessive. The last time I saw him I asked if he was now an alcoholic and he admitted he was.
It appears that after several recent threats to commit suicide, he finally did. For someone who always seemed so chipper noone took these threats seriously.
Hebby was well known in the local punk scene, a larger than life character that was never short of an opinion, he never failed to remind everyone that he was the first person in the north-east into The Misfits, a claim which was true. While the rest of us were still listening to UK punk in the very early 80s Hebby had found and championed the USA punk scene and avidly collected bands like: Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Government Issue, DOA etc. to much scorn, but eventually he won us over and was proven right.
A friend for 30 years, Hebby worked as a T-shirt printer for companies and then himself. He printed shirts for many of the bands I worked with including The Dickies, Man or Astroman? and more recently Subway Sect.
He will be much missed by me and all who knew him.
“HEBDULA” you got your haircut…!!
it’s a tragedy of the highest order, the man was a local legend, funny as fuck and always good craic – our twice a week sessions will be very sadly missed
great write up for him.r.i.p mate.
I have known Hebby for 20 years, he used to sell his T-shirts around town, haven’t seen much of him over this past year. Deeply saddened by his death R. I. P.
Can’t say anymore than Trev, the bloke was a legend and will be missed.
Can’t believe it got that bad for him-tragic.
i’ll miss picking up our t-shirts,we always had a good time.
Rest in peace my friend
RIP Heb, such a shame and such a waste of such a passionate energy borne from the Walker Punk Scene. We were both Scorpios and so alike we often clashed, but hey that’s Scorpios for ya so whats unusual about that!? Will get the final sting in one day and it sure won’t be in heaven eh?! 😉
we are all gona miss u bud had some gud laughs in the mayfair and trills! the boys will miss u R.I.P
Rock In Peace bud…………
I will always have lots of great memories of Heb “the Peter Pan of Punk” as he used to call himself. We’re all gonna miss you but will always remember you x
Still can`t believe it partner, too hard to take.
R.I.P Heb
worked with him and then employed him , never ever let me down and could work so hard , phoned him on friday to tell him i was back in business and wanted him to do some work for me..dont know why im writng this suppose to say you were agood man and wish you had tried to shout for help will be at funeral to give you my very best hxx
A sad loss.
R.I.P. Heb
knew hebby thru heb from dinnington, kirk palmer, dave burdon and aki etc, never stopped smiling and always had good crack when chatting before gigs and having a pint with him very sad hes left us R.I.P hebby
RIP mate – will miss you at Rebellion.
R.I.P mate, ill be wearing my Coyote Men t-shirt on Monday! Will miss the crack when we met up every now and then.
cheers, Hendy
So tragic. A top man. Dont be too proud to ask for support or help anyone if you ever feel like your in a dark place like Hebby must of been.
RIP Mate
I just cant get me head round what he has done, he always used to tell me that i was stronger than what i was! we used to have such a laugh back at his,(cheesey feet) and playing frisbie with the LP’s that he didnt want! god bless u hebby, miss you loads, hope your at peace up there!!!
Terrible news…. Can’t stop thinking of good times… Spent the funiest times of my life with ya! RIP Heb!
I have known Hebby for 30 years. We had many many great times together to many to mention on here.We also moved over to gateshead at the same time for ‘cheaper’ houses to buy. Living just across the road from Hebby I saw him several times during the week normally in a comatosed state but Hey whats the problem!!! I can’t believe he never rang me to say i’m fucked come help me …but he was as deep as the deep blue sea. I loved him to bits and will miss him so very much. See you all at the West Road Crematorium at 1.30pm on the first February folllowed at The Percy upstairs for drinks and a reminince about our Iconic Punk from Walker ………………. Be At Peace..
Heb your the last person I ever imagined dying young (Peter pan of Punk Right!)
God bless you my old and good chum
Gaz
Heb,
I just can’t believe your gone, less that 2 weeks after we sat on the bus, chatted about that stupid course you had to go on (and were worried about being late for) and laughed about the silly things we did.
Wish you’d said how low you felt 🙁
you’ll be missed my friend but never forgotten.
Maggi
Goodbye to my oldest and best friend – if I’d ever had an older brother I would have wanted it to be you. Known The Heb for 20 wonderful years: from the full on mullet days of the early 90s (I remember the night you decided to give the mullet the chop after half a dozen students in the Riverside bar started singing Achy Breaky Heart when you walked in!) to your more recent darker days. What a waste – as the great man would have put it himself: “Zagwa-un-Bovis!”. Miss ya bro.
“THE ORIGINAL WALKER PUNK”
VERY SAD LOSS
R.I.P HEBBY
CHRIS
R.I.P. Heb.
I’ll miss the tales of you covered in slices of lemon whilst looking for Turbonegro dollar bills in a skip outsdie the gig.
Still raises a smile though.
Take it easy, wherever you are…
Dave
In reply to Sonias earlier post,
Can I confirm that everyone is now meeting afterwards in THE LABOUR CLUB on Leazes Lane and not The Percy.
This is from 2pm – 6pm. Venue has been changed due to large amount attending.
Donations to Marie Curie Cancer Care can be given on Monday instead of Flowers is some people prefer.
r.i.p Heb
I worked with Heb for well over 15 years. Alway found Heb THE LIFE AND SOUL OF THE PARTY. Will miss you mate. Rock out Bud
Terrible news,rest in peace kidda.
I am still in shock over the news. So sad that he didn’t feel he could turn to anyone for help. Heb I will miss you so much
RIP mate
Can’t Believe it!
R.I.P mate
I only worked with you for a short while – but you always made me laugh – and you always helped me out! and I never told anyone you painted your toe nails pink! R.I.P
Well where do I start about Heb? To be honest I still can`t believe I`m sitting here typing this some 55 hours after finding out the tragic news.
As most people know Heb and I had a partnership for a good many years mainly producing Punk Rock shirts.
Heb bless him somehow managed to insult or upset every single band we worked for! Two of my favourites (although I wasn`t too impressed at the time!) are – we were at an aftershow party after the Riverside all day festival around 10 years ago. Menace approached me about doing their shirts. Canny Lads and were all having a chat at the Bar when Heb came tottling over extremely pissed. I said “Heb, these Guys are from Menace”. He just looked, wobbled his Head with tab hanging out his Mouth and said “Ahh, Menace, GLC fucking Punk rock classic but everything else you did was fucking shit”! Everyone at the Bars Jaw dropped, I just cringed! Needless to say they never got back to us with an order! The other was when he went up to the Fat Bald Drummer from Guitar Gangsters and said – “Hello, you look like a Hot Air Balloon”!
I could honestly right a Book on Heb, in fact I could write a full book alone on a trip to Norway to see Turbonegro when he somehow managed
to get banned from the Bar on the DFDS Ferry BEFORE it even LEFT North Shields!!!!!!!!
Another episode that springs to mind is that he got the Bar shut at Nottingham Novotel at 2am in the Morning because he refused to stop singing Shadow by The Lurkers! (Sorry Arfur!) He got some funny looks from the residents that night I can tell you.
I also remember Holidays In The Sun festival in 1997. The editor of this very fanzine got a full Bucket of Water poured over him in Bed after we kicked his Hotel door in for a not very complimentry remark bout us! (Sorry Trev) However we found it even funnier when the Hotel thought he had pissed the Bed and were going to charge him! (Didn`t they know you can`t get Money out of Trev?!)
We sometimes fought like Cat & Dog but we ALWAYS made up. We had a lot in common, both only Children (fuck did it show at times) both loved a lot of the same bands and both loved 70`s Amicus Horror Compendiums. Even though we weren`t politically motivated Guys we did share the same view on a lot of things there too. Plus we both didn`t have a religious Bone in our skinny bodies but I`d love to be proved wrong on one thing there. I`d love it if he was up there in a Bar now arguing with the likes of the Ramones & The Clash etc. Could you imagine Heb up there? “Hey yee, fuckin` Specky ya lanky Twat”! Rocket To Russia & Leave Home were great but fuck me End Of the Century was shit”! “As for yee Strumma, ya want shot with shit for fucking Sandinista”!
If we do meet up again one day I guarantee his first words will be – “Fucking Hell Hendy, where have you been, get the fucking drinks in”!
For fucks sake what have you done? My Heart goes out to his Dad Lenny.
Paul Douglas Hebden, the world will be a much quieter place with out you!
Love
Hendy
only new heb for about 6 year but was a real good mate was only a couple of weeks ago ya had to stop on my couch,you were too pissed to crawl the 50 yards home gonna miss propen the bar up with ya mate
I can’t believe you’ve gone mate.
I knew you for about 7 years when I lived in Ryton and last saw you last year when you landed in my local one night.
I have such fond memories of you from the pubs in Ryton, getting constantly barred and having to go begging the landlord/landlady the next day and apologise to be let back in. I even remember when you went on the wagon and drank soda water for about….a day!
I lent you my Allan Carr book on stopping drinking but you said you were always too pissed to read it!
I also remember your painted toenails and you constantly peeling peanut shells! Oh and your RED Addidas old school trainers that you dyed black!
You went out like a light but you will always shine on in our hearts you crazy diamond!
Still reeling…
I remember going out with Hebby for a “nice quiet night” out at the Jollyfellows when a riot errupted, glasses and pints flying around, people getting smacked all over, people flying over tables, me and Heb just stood at the back drinking and dodging the debris, Hebby chirps up..”I bet a lock in’s out of the question then?”, the coppers came and closed the bar down and we got let out one by one, and you know not one single person had seen a thing. Can anyone remember just how the sign for the Jollyfellows came to be in Hebby’s bedroom??? Fond memories, always a story to tell. Love Rex xx
I spent as much time waitting for heb as i did with him. I remember a night in the riverside with him and hendy, i think it may have been the night he wote about above, they had been selling t shirt and had a big bust up, i could have just banged there heads together. If we where not out he was round my flat till god knows what time, reading the paper and putting the world to rights. with his bottle of brown. We would laugh so much at the legue of getleman and the funnyman. But this man also made the best roast pots ever. will miss phoning and getting, getting his ever so pleasent answer. see you again one day. miss you kathy
wot can i say im gutted had some mint times remeber 1 night when we both shoved tiolet roll between the cheeks of our arses and lit them 1st to pull it out lost he won but told every 1 he sat on a barbie al miss u m8 rip
loved ya heb , only knew yer the 8 years i bin up in NE .
best t shirter in the business.
top bloke, gonna miss ya ,
art
I remember one night after waiting 2 hours for Heb in the Rising Sun thinking shit i’m gannin home when a GLOW arrived in the bar…. Oh yes Heb had only fallen asleep on the sunbed for 6 hours he was aglowing alright the funny thing was though you could see the shiny white skin where the goggles had been…. and the usually greeting of well i’m here now aren’t I………… I’m at a complete loss…. FUCK!!!!!
I cant believe it ,knew him from the town and the old printshop days when Heb and Hendy first got into doing t shirts -about 87 or something mullets and all
Got a nice surpise when I moved to High Spen he was my new postie
Still took the piss out of me ,but hey thats Heb
Dont know what to say
Will try and get there next week Hendy ok
Hi Maureen it was 1984!
Hopefully see you Monday.
I`ve got loads of photos given to me tonight from his Dad. From a Kid to the Barley Mow, Baltic, Mayfair days and so on. Plenty of Swedge, Carl Craig, the two Youngies etc.
I`m hoping to do a collage to put up in the Labour club and then folk can take home what pics they like after everyones looked at them as memories. Mind those pics take me back. Heartbreaking to sift through too.
Hey Hendy
I was absolutely gutted when I found out ,you know ,last time I saw him he had a load of love bites and was worse for wear and he was so funny as you know
God I will miss him ,even tough I didnt see him much ,he was one of a kind
Mo x
I got to know Heb through Sonia back in the early 90s when he was still in love with his long mane and took hours to get ready to go out to the Toon – what a princess he was then!
He was his own individual spirit – always greeting you with a cheerful insult and it was easy to wind away the long hours with him in conversation and wild stories (every sentence he said could probably be ended with a “!”). I spent many a night with him and whoever was around putting back a few or more usually ending with a dodgy piled high Afghan takeout behind the Dog & Parrot while waiting for the last bus to Ryton/Crawcrook. When we would miss it due to too many last orders pints we’d sometimes walk it but you always had to hear about his feet killing him all the way down Scotswood road while he cursed trying to roll tab after tab and explained his next big money making deal! Yes you always knew what he was thinking or his opinions on this or that, he shared them with abandon and exuberance, without malice and everyone knew what they were – an uncommon trait today to wear those on your sleeve so readily. Whether it was the price of his baccy (I was his Drum importer for number of years), “the idiots in England would never know the difference between the NASA blue and his light blue on the Man or Astroman shirts”, his opinions on crusty unwashable punks (or music in general), his latest falling out/ins with Hendy or trying to scam a ride somewhere from me, there was always a story for Heb to weave together. I miss that and I’m kicking myself for not staying touch more after moving. %$#& life is hard without this sort of shit having to happen.
My last memory of Heb I have is when I moved to the US and he helped my pack my shipping container. He wasn’t much bloody help with all the “bad back” jabbering ringing in my ears, but he turned up and was there to help and then it was off to the Jollyfellows to have a few. Come to think of it anything electrical or otherwise that might not “work” in the US was somehow relocated to Run Terrace on the way to the pub.
I’m completely in shock at this news. I was sitting here typing at work wearing a shirt that Heb printed for my mini club back in ’95 that I haven’t worn it in years and this thunderbolt comes.
Heb, I hope you find your peace now. You will be missed and as Hendy put it, the world is sadly a little quieter without you. Mike.
Very very sad news. He was always there if you know what I mean. One thing….pizzas and salad cream, now where did that come from. You’ll be missed xx
Such a shame, wish I had knew him more!
Thinking of all his friends and family. Hope it goes well on Monday.
RIP Heb xx
So very very sad
Still in total shock
RIP Paul
xxx
I’ve just found out and am really shocked by this terrible news. I knew Heb from my times working at Volume in Newcastle: he’d be asking for the newest records MONTHS before they were released or available. We had to be really on the ball for folks like him, and it made the shop all the better.
The last time I saw Heb was in a pub in Ryton. I’d just started seeing a girl from there and we were out on a date. I hadn’t seen him for ages so it was great to bump into him: he’d taken a load of speed and just couldn’t stop talking, and sat with me and this girl ’till closing time. He TOTALLY RUINED my date but it didn’t matter as he was so funny and lovable.
RIP Hebby
Can’t really add anything except my name. Terrible, tragic news. See you all on monday.
only knew heb ashort time,looks like we cooked his last supper as he put it the last time he was in for a drink on the 13th jan.always the last in & the last to leave,won,t have to order as many cases of brown ale now (sadly)
god bless mick & kim
only knew Heb for 15months,he was always the last customer in & the last to leave & looks like we cooked his last supper as requested by him when he was last in on the 13th Jan (did not think my sweet& sour was that bad ).
in this recession its a bit spiteful as we dont need to order as many cases of brown ale now,
only joking mate your loss is a sad one.
mick & kim