UNEXPECTED BEGININGS Born ready; ready for a decade later to be christened ‘the swinging 60s’, at a time when Britain was poised for massive sociological change. I arrived at a time when the Conservative government was in the twilight of its thirteen-year rule, soon to be rocked by scandal and controversy. ‘Johnny Remember Me’ by John Leyton rang out from radios and juke boxes across the land, a No 1 soundtrack for my inauspicious debut. It was the year Bob Dylan relocated to New York and visited the gravely ill Woody Guthrie in hospital. Dylan vowed to keep Guthrie’s leftist humanitarian agenda alive. Guthrie was also a major influence in the life of Joe Strummer of The Clash, the only band that mattered to me as I grew up in the 70s. I was born in a working-class area of Greater Manchester, a place called Leigh, in Lancashire, on a council estate called Higher Folds. It was one of those estates almost built away from everyone else, separated by fields, woods meadows and the slag heaps – these were mountainous terrain for a young boy. As I recall this, the estate seemed in black, white and grey, as did the slag heaps. Made of a grey type of shale, it was the unusable material from the local mines. I actually made my entrance on the sofa of our semi-detached council house in Royal Drive on September 17th 1961. The youngest of five children, my brothers (Jimmy and John) and my sisters (Patricia and Irene) had all left home by the time I was born. I was the unexpected child, and I really felt like the unwelcome one; my earliest memories are of feeling like an orphan at times.

UNEXPECTED BEGININGS

Born ready; ready for a decade later to be christened ‘the swinging 60s’, at a time when Britain was poised for massive sociological change. I arrived at a time when the Conservative government was in the twilight of its thirteen-year rule, soon to be rocked by scandal and controversy. ‘Johnny Remember Me’ by John Leyton rang out from radios and juke boxes across the land, a No 1 soundtrack for my inauspicious debut. It was the year Bob Dylan relocated to New York and visited the gravely ill Woody Guthrie in hospital. Dylan vowed to keep Guthrie’s leftist humanitarian agenda alive. Guthrie was also a major influence in the life of Joe Strummer of The Clash, the only band that mattered to me as I grew up in the 70s.

I was born in a working-class area of Greater Manchester, a place called Leigh, in Lancashire, on a council estate called Higher Folds. It was one of those estates almost built away from everyone else, separated by fields, woods meadows and the slag heaps – these were mountainous terrain for a young boy. As I recall this, the estate seemed in black, white and grey, as did the slag heaps. Made of a grey type of shale, it was the unusable material from the local mines. I actually made my entrance on the sofa of our semi-detached council house in Royal Drive on September 17th 1961. The youngest of five children, my brothers (Jimmy and John) and my sisters (Patricia and Irene) had all left home by the time I was born. I was the unexpected child, and I really felt like the unwelcome one; my earliest memories are of feeling like an orphan at times.