Rodney “Sodge” Adams at Fifth Column

IT was with a loan of £200 that saw a trend-setting design firm established on the Kilburn High Road.

This was 1976 and the cash helped Rodney “Sodge” Adams and his colleagues found the seminal T-shirt design firm, Fifth Column.

Sodge, who has died aged 68, has seen his work grace thousands of people’s chests. Soon after they established the business, which would also trade above the Kentish Town tube station, they would turn out designs for bands including The Jam, The Clash, X Ray Specs and others.

Rodney – nicknamed Sodge – was born in South Hill Park, South End Green, in 1957. The moniker came from his older brother Bradley, who said when he was born that he looked like a sausage.

His parents Garth and Joan were actors. Garth appeared on the Sunday Night Theatre show and in the Dixon of Dock Green. Joan balanced raising children with acting gigs, and running a successful clothes shop called Darling Daughters in South End Green.

Sodge’s educational experience saw him expelled from The Hall school.

Fifth Column was at one time based above Kentish Town tube station

He went from jobs in kitchens, hospitals and painting and decorating until he landed a role that would carve a creative career: printing T-shirts and posters. His new job coincided with the explosion of the Punk ethos – a DIY trend in design and fashion.

He was joined by colleagues Robin Richards, Chris Townsend and Pedro Santos to found Fifth Column. T-shirts would never be the same again.

The loan got them basic equipment: light boxes, screens, squeegees and inks. The friends would listen to bands at night, and the acts they loved did not have formal merchandising contracts.

It gave Fifth Column an opportunity. Sodge would print up T-shirts the day before a gig, see the band and hand over their products. They’d get in for free, too.

From Kilburn High Road, via Greenland Place, Camden Town, by 1981 Fifth Column had found a home above the Kentish Town tube.

They worked from there for three decades before the business relocated to Tottenham.

Their client base moved from acts such as Madness, The Clash, Gregory Isaacs and The Specials, to causes and charities.

Sodge would create T-shirts for Amnesty International, the Terrence Higgins Trust, Water Aid and Oxfam.

Sodge’s politics went hand in hand with his work. He printed banners for the 1984 Miners’ Strike and the slogan Coal Not Dole, Nicaraguan solidarity, the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Nelson Mandela thanked them for their work. Sodge met his life partner Cat Santos in 1977 and the pair fell in love, bonding over gigs at Camden music venues – The Town and Country Club, Music Machine and Dingwalls.

They lived for a time in a squat in Castle Road and after Cat graduated from art school in 1983, she joined him at Fifth Column. They would have a son, Dan, in 1995. In the 2000s, he had found an interest in Tai Chi. It made a profound impact.

He taught Tai Chi for free at Parliament Hill Lido and Kentish Town Community Centre.

His group on Hampstead Heath, founded during Covid, still meets weekly.

Sodge was a lifelong Chelsea fan and at Stamford Bridge he showed his hippie beliefs by changing the lyrics to a virulent Chelsea song from “F*ck ‘Em All” to “Love ‘Em All”.

Diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2024, he continued to practise his Tai Chi, often with his pet dog watching.

He passed away last month, aged 68.