There was a lot for an angry leftist performance poet to be angry about as he took the stage for the first time three decades ago in Harlow New Town. Afghanistan was mired in a complex and messy war, British unemployment was rocketing, and the nation was braced for further economic misery at the hands of a Conservative government.

Nearly 3,000 gigs in 21 countries later and Attila – otherwise known as Southwick’s John Baine – may have much the same source material, but there have been some fundamental changes since he first made his way blinking into the stage lights wearing an Oxfam suit and a Clash badge.

“My capacity to drink beer has increased, but my ability to drink huge amounts of it without a break has diminished, and it definitely leaves me feeling a bit rougher than it used to.”

This week, Attila embarks on a mammoth tour marking 30 years of ranting, rapping and fervent ridicule that will take in Shoreham’s Ropetackle Centre (on Saturday, September 11 with friends John Otway and TV Smith), and that very first venue in Harlow, three decades to the day he played it in 1980.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s been that amount of time at all. I’ve enjoyed it so much that the time has just flown. A lot of the stuff I’ve been writing about – the things that have gone on across the world over that time – are disgusting but personally, I’ve had a really fulfilling and happy life.”

It was one that began in Southwick and set against a backdrop of an intriguing family history; his father, a veteran of the First World War, was born in 1899 and was 25 years older than his mother. He died when John was ten, and today Attila speaks of a close relationship with his mother Muriel.

“I’ve always had a uniquely strong bond with my mum, and after my dad died we went through a lot of difficult times together. She toured the world with me in the ’80s and ’90s – she was in punk rock venues in Germany at the age of 75 – it was fantastic.”

She died earlier this year, just before her 87th birthday, but not before Attila was able to write a moving poem about her life and her history – including her work at Bletchley Park, assisting in cracking the Enigma code – which he read to her as the effects of six Alzheimer’s disease encroached on her short-term memory. He printed a pamphlet of the poem, sold to benefit the Alzheimer’s Society (you can read The Long Goodbye at www.attilathestockbroker.com).

His father was a keen amateur poet and his mother a pianist, organist and singer with the Royal Choral Society and Brighton Festival Chorus, a legacy that would bubble to the surface in their son’s teenage years.

“I just knew from when I was very young that I wanted to do something in words or music – I just knew.”

Many describe the emergence of punk as like someone throwing an enormous cultural switch, but for young Attila the movement felt like a natural extension of the noise of The Velvet Underground and Detroit’s MC5. He was soon playing bass in a punk act.

“Apart from the music I love, the legacy of punk to me is the DIY ethic. I publish all my own books and records, organise all my own gigs and without being big-headed, there are a lot fans all over the place who really appreciate that.”

But it could’ve all been very different. John Baine went to that first fateful gig straight from the office; he’d taken a much-despised job as a bilingual clerk in a City stockbroking company (he has a degree in French). When he was told he had the “manners of Attila The Hun”, a distinctive stage name was born. More than 20 records and six volumes of poetry later, he’s still determined to maintain what he calls “a cottage industry”.

“I’m a control freak. It’s a fair thing to say that most performers aren’t natural organisers. Most people think of the artist as this airy-fairy creature who can’t organise their way out of their own dressing room. I’m not like that – I’m disciplined, and if there’s something I want, I do it.”

For 15 years now, Attila has staged his own festival, Glastonwick (a nod to Glastonbury, of course, where he’s played every year since 1983). The annual collision of poetry and his beloved real ale is but a 20-minute cycle ride from the Southwick home Attila shares with wife Robina, and sees 500 Attila-heads descend on Church Farm, Coombes.

But he’s keen to stress he doesn’t perform solely to the indoctrinated. He’s taken his unique brand of performance poetry to dozens of countries and audiences of every kind, from “freezing punk squats in Germany” to prestigious arts centres, and everything in between, including his mother’s WI group.

“I don’t like preaching to the converted – I love going to new places, like the Oxford Students’ Union, and playing for a mix of people, some of whom don’t necessarily agree with my politics. Otherwise you end up in some little ghetto where you’re only talking to people who agree with you all the time. One of the things I love about my involvement with the Albion is that I meet all kinds of people through the club.”

And so we come to Brighton and Hove Albion, and Attila’s much-cherished post as poet-in-residence and public address system announcer.

“It’s an amazing time to be an Albion fan. After having the ground taken from us in 1997, two years at Gillingham, coming to Withdean in desperation … and that long battle for Falmer, I can’t wait for the next season.

To have that rare breed – a nice capitalist like Tony bloom – invest in the club is fantastic.”

His role with the Albion is clearly something he relishes, but he’s not looking to take the poetic vocation any further up the ceremonial ladder than that.

I ask him to imagine a hypothetical Britain, in which a progressive and unconventional Prime Minister throws caution to the wind and offers him the laureateship … what does he say?

“It would be like being poet-in-residence at [Albion arch-enemies] Crystal Palace!

I think in different ways, the previous incumbents have taken sycophancy to new levels. They can try to disguise it any way they want, but the remit of the thing is to write hymns of praise to institutions which shouldn’t exist. I have no personal animosity to the Royal Family, but I think the institution should be abolished – it’s pointless, so the last thing I’d want to do is be put in a position where, even nominally, I was supposed to be supporting it.”

Which all sounds rather like a “no thanks”. Attila thinks his anti-authoritarian streak has broadened with age. He’s furious about bankers’ bonuses, and the taxpayers’ shoring up of “a collapsing system”.

“For us to have to cut back while they’re still walking away with these bonuses is absolutely contemptible,” he seethes, visibly animated.

“I feel more invigorated and more aware of what’s going on and wanting to comment on it than I did when I started. People say you get more conservative as you get older, but it’s exactly the opposite for me – I’m far worse than I was 30 years ago!”

* Call 01273 464440 for tickets to Atilla’s gig at the Ropetackle Centre, Shoreham, Saturday, September 11. Visit www.attilathestockbroker.com.