I’ve been asked to relate my musical interludes.. so here I am.. in a nutshell..
First introduction to music was as a drummer in a Sunday School skiffle band around 1960. (I was allowed to play a snare drum with high hat cymbal).
Started learning guitar at age 14 taking lessons on a Saturday afternoon on an old Spanish guitar with action best likened to an egg slicer… even practised when on the loo!! played till my fingers bled, (put plasters on but they fell off, and carried on playing on the sores ouch!) First guitar heroes: Django, Bert Weedon & Hank Marvin. Electric Guitar & amp purchased with help from my dear old Dad, bless his memory, and funded from my wages as a butchers delivery boy. Needless to say studies at Audenshaw Grammar School were being severely compromised by this time as I became aware of girls as well as my hunger for music which was akin to religious fervour.
Played with numerous bubbling under rock bands in the ’60s, until taking a greater interest in folk music. I spent a lot of time in the summer playing on beaches & around bus shelters in Cornwall, there were lots of folkies down there at the time!!
I sort of gave up thru the ’70s being involved in the business of being a family man, but by 1979 was persuaded, not with any duress, to join a folk band “Gradely Folk” in my hometown then Mossley. We started a folk club at the Butchers Arms, which ran for about 12 years, and hosted many big names, too many to mention.
About this time I was invited to join the Saddleworth Morris Men as a musician and began to learn the Squeezebox. I spent more than 10 very happy years with the team on tours and Rushcarts, making many friends from all around the nation & beyond. Even fortunate enough to “jockey” the 1986 Rushcart in Saddleworth, one of the happiest days of my life, augmented by news of the impending arrival of my youngest daughter Lucy, born April 1987….