Earliest Memories - Cricket

Cricket was also big in my life. My transistor radio was my route to not only Jensens dimensions that gave me introductions to influential bands but also allowed me to listed to test cricket from abroad. I remember Colin Cowdrey batting with a broken arm in the Caribbean to save the test but was always totally gripped by test cricket. I played Owzhat which was a cricket game with a hexagonal metal dice which you rolled and scored in a scorebook. Most of all I played in the first team and was very proud of my efforts. I was never the superstar but used to contribute in most games and felt very much a team man

Earliest Memories - News events

I remember the first man on the moon was and that really caught my imagination. My father and I stayed up all night waiting for ‘the first step for mankind’. We had a reel to reel recorder and we have still kept the recording of that night with dad ‘interviewing’ us kids. Its quite moving.

Earliest Memories - Music

Music was something I became increasingly involved in around 1967. It was the period I know now as the most exciting period I have ever known and I frequently play music from this era. I started with the monkees and the Archies. Sugar Sugar was my first record bought. I then loved the Jackson 5 and Kenny Rogers, ‘Don’t take your love to town’ Around now I moved on to Hendrix, ‘Are you experienced’ and Neil Young ‘After the goldrush’. I realised the real music was on albums and singles were just the initial hook. Let it Be was another huge favourite at this time and of course Abbey Road. It was the electric guitar and rock music that was really starting to grab me and soon I was on to Zeppelin, Groundhogs and Deep Purple. Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile and Burning of the midnight Lamp were songs I could really relate to. Foxy Lady was another massive favourite.

Earliest memories - School

My prep school in Derbyshire……... everything was large. It seemed immense and the whole thing was pretty daunting. I remember driving over there in dad’s jaguar and feeling a bit sick as the warm sun came in through the back window and I was rolling around in the vast leathery seats. I met Ken Wareham the headmaster, and was shown around the school.

There was a steel works in the small town of Darley Dale and I remember hearing the hammer in the factory. I was to hear that regularly for the next 6 years. I was homesick but after the first traumatic term started to settle in and actually really enjoyed my years there. I was in the school football and cricket teams with a spell in the hockey team too but rugby didn’t work for me. I shivered on the wing and got bogged down in the gluey pitch. We seemed to have snow and ice then for most of the winter, perhaps it was because we were quite high up near the Peak District. It was hilly too and we seemed to be constantly on walks. Now I love walking but then the walk represented getting me away from my soldiers and music.

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