Two men. Two lives. Two deaths. Two stories. Malcolm McLaren, music entrepreneur, punk rock impresario and one-time manager of the notorious Sex Pistols. Lech Kaczynski, lawyer, nationalist, arch-critic of communism and president of Poland. It is doubtful that they ever met. Apart from the coincidence of their untimely deaths in the same week of April, it is improbable that the two men had much in common; it is unlikely, too, given what we know, that they would have got on. But both were seen as members of the “awkward squad”, both took people on a voyage of discovery out of an earlier age that brought them many friends and both will be remembered for what they brought to their task.

The death of Malcolm McLaren on 8 April rekindled memories for many of the here-today, gone-tomorrow punk music of the 1970s. The songs are too numerous, the bands too vicarious, but for many the memories are fond — the rawness, the emotion, the clothes, the hair, the piercings, th