Following the sad news of the death of Ozzy Osbourne, the Mirror takes a look at the ‘short, sharp’ prison stint that would ultimately change the course of the rock god’s life
Rock icon Ozzy Osbourne led a famously eventful life, with plenty of ups and downs along the way – including a spell behind bars that changed the course of his life.
Although he would one day live in a sprawling LA mansion, Ozzy came from humble origins and endured a troubled childhood. He was badly bullied at school, where his then-undiagnosed dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) made learning a chore.
However, the self-professed class clown harboured dreams far beyond the gates of his secondary modern in Aston, Birmingham. At the age of 14, he became drawn to the idea of breaking into the music industry, and would later credit The Beatles’ 1963 hit She Loves You as providing a ray of inspiration.
In a 2008 interview with Esquire, the Prince of Darkness recalled: “When I heard ‘She Loves You’, my world went up like a shooting star. It was a divine experience. The planets changed. I used to fantasise that Paul McCartney would marry my sister.”
Mere weeks before his death aged 76, the legendary Black Sabbath frontman, who lived with Parkinson’s Disease in his final years, came full circle when he headlined a huge show in Birmingham’s Villa Park, titled Back To The Beginning.
But its a triumphant end he never could have imagined back when he was locked behind bars…
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After dropping out of school at the age of 15, the future felt far from certain for the young Brummie, who cycled through various ill-suited jobs from construction site labourer to apprentice toolmaker.
At the age of 17, Ozzy worked in a slaughterhouse before turning to crime and burgling a clothes shop. Although he’d shown no aptitude for manual labour, Ozzy’s skills as a crook were even less impressive. As well as stealing baby clothes and shirts, Ozzy also tried to take a TV, but it fell on him. Although he’d made sure to wear gloves, these didn’t cover his thumbs, meaning the would-be criminal had left prints everywhere.
It wasn’t long before police officers came knocking, sarcastically telling the youngster: “Not exactly Einstein, are we?” Jobless Ozzy was unable to pay the £40 fine, and his toolmaker father, John, refused, hoping this brush with the law would teach his wayward son an important lesson.
Ozzy went on to spend six weeks behind the walls of HM Prison Birmingham, a Category B men’s facility formerly known as Winson Green Prison. Although his sentence wasn’t lengthy, it was enough to prompt the youth to rethink his life.
In a 2014 interview with The Big Issue, Ozzy shared: “I tried to find things I was good at. I tried a bit of burglary, but I was no good at that. F****** useless. I didn’t do any major burglary jobs. It was less than three weeks before I got caught. My dad said to me, that was very stupid. And I did feel very stupid. I didn’t pay my fine, and I got put in jail for a few weeks. That was a short, sharp lesson. It certainly curbed my career in burglary.”
His release proved to be a turning point. Dad John, known affectionately as ‘Jack’, took out a loan to buy Ozzy a PA, a gift that ultimately proved to be the making of the talented musician.
According to Ozzy: “Someone recently asked me what the best gift I ever got was, and it suddenly dawned on me that if my father hadn’t bought me a microphone when I was 18, I definitely wouldn’t be here now. He saw that I was really interested in popular music. My bedroom wall was covered in pictures of The Beatles. Anything with the word ‘Beatles’ on it was on my wall.
“So he bought me a microphone, and it was shortly after that that I met the guys who would become Sabbath. It was the fact that I had my own microphone and PA system that got me in the band. If I hadn’t had them, I would never have got the gig.”
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