Liverpool was alive with music. There were bands everywhere. On the glorious 12th of July, most streets in Liverpool 8 had their own band on the street corner - everything from a piano, wheeled out of a parlour, to accordions and banjos.

I slept at school. Apart from lunchtimes, when a helpful older boy 'Twee' and a French teacher, taught me to play a few chords on the guitar. The 'folk revival' was in full swing by 1964, kicked into action by Ewan McColl and Bob Dylan.

In 1965, incensed by the madness of the Vietnam War, I helped form a protest band called 'the Swindlefolk', who played fund raisers for refugee relief at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and St. George's Hall. I played 12 string guitar and Jimbe. We made an album for Decca and played gigs all over the U.K. and in West Berlin. We were famously banned from a gig in East Berlin as 'a corrupting subversive Western influence' - what a triumph!

We did the Spinners BBC 1 TV show and the Settlers TV show as support. We played the Sidmouth International Folk Festival and were banned as 'trendies with guitars' (most folk music then being sung accapella). I didn't so much 'leave' school as went 'absent without leave'. My Dad threw me out for staying up all night, playing loud music, drinking and having 'relations' with young women.

I was by then (1968-9) playing with Mark Peters & the Silhouettes with Pete on bass, Peter (vocal), Tiger (keys) and Tony Coates on lead guitar ( he later joined the Merseys, though I think they changed their name for the last few singles. was it Liverpool Express?). I stayed with Swindlefolk, so some nights I did a gig on guitar first with them, then traveled 'over the water' to do a late spot on drums with the Silhouettes. Nuts, but great fun.

I had drum lessons at this time with 'Red Carter' and the mad drummer from Power Station, Ron Parry.

He advised me to learn to read music, so I took piano lessons at the Tobias Mathay School of Music situated 'next door' to the Walker Art Gallery. I financed this by working full time at Beaver Radio in Whitechapel in the record department.

Eventually I got an audition for full time study at the Mathay. The 'professor' of classical guitar at the time was Brendan McCormack. I still couldn't read music properly, so learned two pieces of classical guitar music 'by ear'. Amazingly, I passed the audition.

At the first lesson of the new term Brendan suggested we play some duets 'from music'. After two false starts he merely said, "We've got a lot of work to do." That began a fab three years in which I graduated from 'Three Blind Mice' (he really made me do this), to Grade 8 Classical guitar and a teaching diploma. My contemporaries there included 'Alby' from Power Station and Ron Parry the aforementioned drummer, as well as every other Liverpool muso who had been caught 'signing on'. The head of flute tuition was Atara Ben Tovim.

I paid my way through college by playing Holy Angels Club, Kirby, as 'resident' drummer, accompanying Tom O' Connor (on guitar! He also occasionally told jokes), as well as Jim Gretty and Karl Denver.

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