In the beginning...

Blogging isn't like writing a book. Reading a blog isn't the same as reading a book either. Blogs always have the latest post uppermost, so you have to find the first post if you want to start at the beginning of any story.

So how shall I tell my musical story? From the beginning? Or should I just dip in and out as I recall events and episodes?
I already have half a dozen blogs. Why add another? It's because men tend to live compartmentalised lives. I have a part of my life where I work, and another where I play. Another compartment involves my family and in my case another involves my health issues. At various times I've been involved with church, and I've also restored steam locomtives and helped set up a railway museum.

Why the variety? Is it boredom? No patience? Always wanting to see what else is happening? It's said that a woman uses the TV remote to see what's on TV, while a man uses the remote to see WHAT ELSE is on....

So where did my story begin?

For a start I'm not from a musical family. None of my family are at all musical. I never had any great urge to perform or go on the stage, yet a huge part of my life has been devoted to music. My first memories are of growing up on a beach in Cornwall. The post-war building boom had yet to get started and the only place my parents could find to live was a small wooden chalet with no electricity, running water or toilet. Yep, oil lamps and chemical loos.
When I was four we moved into a house and we got a radio. I recall my mother singing Rosemary Clooney's song "This old house", Guy Mitchell's "She wears red feathers and a hula hula skirt", and another called "where will the baby's dimple be?". Television finally arrived in about 1958, but it was a couple of years before we could afford one, so my exposure to music was limited.

However, I do remember the skiffle boom. Suddenly, out of the blue, all the teenage boys on our estate began making guitars and tea chest basses and performing in their front gardens. I was in the third year at primary school (so would have been 8 or 9) when the headmaster brought an older pupil into the classroom to play to us. He had a real guitar and played "O my darling clementine" to us. His name was Gary Rickard and his band The 3 Rs had won a skiffle competition in the county. I wonder what happened to him? By an amazing co-incidence another classmate of mine from Primary School, Dave Jenkins, still lives in Cornwall, plays nice jazzy acoustic guitar and runs the open mike night at the Star Inn in St Just, the last town in England and more than 300 miles from where I sit and write this. I must ask him if he remembers that day back in 1958?

By the time I took my 11 plus and started at the grammar school in Penzance I'd learned the words to a couple of songs. The first was "Only sixteen" which I'd heard on "Thank your lucky stars" sung by Craig Douglas. I'd also heard "FBI" and "Frightened City" by the Shadows. Elvis was in the charts when I was in the hospital having my tonsils removed. The song was "Wooden heart".

Did you see what happened just then? I was able to link an event with a song that was playing on the radio. That simple fact is what makes music memorable.

Another memory that set me apart from the others in my crowd:-
One day my form teacher asked the pupils who their favourite singer was. Hands went up when he asked "Elvis?". Hands went up when he asked "Cliff?" or "Adam (Faith)?"
My hands stayed down. At that time my favourite singer was Helen Shapiro, and this was my favourite song back in 1961.



Fast forward 50 years and I shared a bill with Helen Shapiro at a gospel music concert. Now who'd have thought that?