Ian Dury was a one of a kind talent

Ian Dury would have been 75 today. Jonathan deBurca Butler looks back on the life of one of the unique talents of the new wave era

THERE was one thing that Ian Dury hated more than anything: Being patronised. So when in 1981 the UN declared the following year would be the Year of the Disabled, the singer-songwriter was infuriated. He decided he would retaliate and came up with the anthem ‘Spasticus Autisticus’.

“I thought about going on tour as Spasticus and The Autistics,” he recalled in an interview some years later, “but [his friend, musician Ed] Speight said, ‘No, it should be Spasticus Autisticus — he’s the freed slave of the disabled’.”