Poly Styrene (1957-2011)
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| Born | 4 July 1957 |
| Died | 25 April 2011 |
Born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said in Bromley to a single mother - her father being a Somali dock worker.
Styrene started her seminal band, X-Ray Spex, after seeing the Sex Pistols performing to a largely empty ballroom on the Pier in 1976. Being described as unconventional, even for a punk, Styrene displayed her own difference from others in her dress style. She was initiated into the Hare Krishner Movement in 1983 and recorded a number of her later solo projects at their recording studio.
A lifelong vegetarian, Poly occupied 40 North Street until her death in the St Michael's Hospice from metastatic breast cancer on the 25th of April 2011.
In 2021, a group of local music fans, 1066 Blue Plaques, set up a Crowdfunder for a plaque on the house where she lived. They erected it on the 45th anniversary of that Pistols gig (and what would have been Styrene's 64th birthday - the 3rd of July).
