It goes hard against the sexist, ageist grain of rock’n’roll myth-making, but it’s possible that one of 20th-century pop culture’s most influential figures could be Malcolm McLaren’s grandmother. On his first day at school in north London, the young McLaren disappeared beneath the desk so he could look at the girls’ underwear. Rose Corré Isaacs, his grandmother, was summoned to speak to the teacher; unhealthily fond of her second grandson, viewing his red curls as evidence of the family’s descent from Portuguese Sephardic aristocracy, she was amused rather than outraged. “Boys will be boys,” she cackled.
Twenty-five years later, McLaren had grown up — after a fashion — to be the manager of the Sex Pistols, the underfed, green-toothed punk urchins who famously generated nationwide
