I was a child growing up in the swinging 60’s bathed in the falling embers of a passing comet that heralded a musical revolution spearheaded by The Beatles.
At 14 I held my first guitar and was shown enough chords to reveal a new world to where I might be heading.
Through the leafy suburban landscapes of south Birmingham my imagination wandered. I followed streams…raided allotments…lay on my back in fields and commanded clouds and time to stand still.
We were a generation of children playing out of sight of parents whose distant calls for supper could be conveniently ignored.
By complete contrast at the age of 17 a new horizon was reached. Just before Easter in 1975 I arrived on the quayside at St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly for a two week break whilst still in my A level year…I never returned to school.
I choose instead to take up the offer of seasonal work in hotels and be surrounded and immersed in a new found freedom amongst a hippy counterculture blowing in off the ocean where music around driftwood fires affordable wine at the beach was reward by even the mention of the word work.
With a guitar as a passport and a heart for my compass I was welcomed wholeheartedly into this community. My songs soon began to arrive as if carried in by the tide.
I found myself performing weekly at The Red Drum Folk Club floor-spotting whilst supporting the visiting paid guest artist. One of these happened to be John Golding who had just founded Cottage Records an emergency folk label.
John invited me to record some of my songs and by the winter of 1975 I had completed my first vinyl album “Longstone Farm” I was up rolling and inspired and two years later just after my 20th birthday had recorded a second album “Butterfly Days”
My winters were spent toiling in the islands flower fields…the hard labour and camaraderie essential to my credibility to be considered almost local.
Today I often draw on emotions and reoccurring themes that still emerge and surface after all this time.
My hiatus in the islands lasted three and a half years but I recognise that part of me never left as I will be forever haunted and enchanted. I return regularly to reconnect with memories and my former self.