Guitar Gods in Beds. (Bedfordshire: A Heavenly County). Mike Buchanan

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СКАЧАТЬ and you should have heard the people phoning up for money, his suppliers, who hadn’t been paid. I started off being polite: ‘I’m sorry, there’s been a tragedy. Sid Worth has committed suicide.’ They’d explain they were owed ten thousand pounds, so I’d suggest they speak to Gary. But so many suppliers phoned up in the end, I’d say, ‘He’s brown bread. He’s finished. He’s deceased.’ It got to that.

      By the mid-90s Pete was away a lot on tours in the States, the Far East, and elsewhere. He was playing lead guitar for some big names, like Jim Capaldi. When he was back in the UK he’d play a bit, sometimes with me, mainly recreational for pocket money.

      Over the past ten years our audiences have become significantly older, so now we do ruby weddings, retirement parties and the like. And of course your 50th birthday bash last December at The Red Lion in Stevington. It’s usually for people who have a few bob. They have nice houses and gardens and so on. We’ve done quite a few house parties, which are usually great fun.

      It’s difficult to find good live music locally, especially if you’re over 50. Over the past five years in particular, I find people asking me where I, or Pete and I, play. I explain that the pubs are reluctant to book bands, they’re all little puppets in big brewery chains. The landlords are on a fixed wage, regardless of how well the pubs do. If they work hard and turnover rises, the brewery chain just ups their rent. So I suggest to people that they get a few mates to club together and pay for a gig, maybe in someone’s back garden, and that’s exactly what’s been happening. And that’s great, because you’re playing for people who have actually paid and therefore want to hear the music and enjoy themselves. We get all age groups when we play. If you’re good, people will come to see you.

      In about 2000, after a whole series of relationship catastrophes, I was living alone in a flat in Ashburnham Road in Bedford. Now there are only two pubs where I’d consider drinking in Bedford: The Flowerpot on Tavistock Street and The Ship on St Cuthbert’s Street. Ian Wagstaff – ‘Waggy’ – took over The Flowerpot, Ray Foster The Ship, and they both wanted Pete and I to play. We played a few times for free, with various guest musicians, and it always went down well.

      Then Ray had the idea of paying me to do a regular Thursday event at The Ship, and it went well for a year and a half. But the sheer fuckin’ repetition got to me in the end. It had become like a regular job. I didn’t want to do it, so I took a break. After about a year I went back to it, but it was never the same, as is usually the case second time around. The Ship is a nouveau riche den, really. You don’t agree? Well, they’re all small-time businessmen, investors, and so on.

      Now live music always has a dynamic curve. It’s of its moment. If you set something new up and it works, great. But God only knows what makes it work. Whatever the fuck that is, I don’t know – still.

      It’s something to do with having the right people there. You’ve got to have stars. Not stars in the sense that they’re famous, but they know who they are, in a funny sort of way. And they won’t come if they think the event is going to be shit. But if you get four of five stars together, it will work and there will be a real buzz. Sara Turner’s a star. And the stars inspire other people.

      But if you get someone’s company leaving party and they invite every dull bastard on earth, anyone who is a star will fuck off with another star, and the result is a shit party. That’s exactly what happens. So you need to keep the stars in the party.

      If I have a choice between seeing a live band or getting their DVD out, I’d normally choose the DVD. I want to see bands as I want to see them. There was a woman who lived in Devon when I was playing there who told me she lived next door to John Renbourn. She said she could introduce us, and would I be interested in meeting him? I said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ because if he turned out to be a wanker, which he might be, I wouldn’t want to know that. I’ve heard him play the guitar and I think he’s fantastic. But I don’t want to know him as a person. I think there’s something sacred about great music, but it doesn’t mean the musician is sacred.

      Good live music has to be just there, and just happening. It shouldn’t mean dragging everyone down to the same pub to listen to the same stuff every week. Then it becomes a job, and horrendous.

      Now I do a lot of guitar teaching, mainly with kids, who I get on well with. I’ve got some great testimonials from their parents. People also ask me to do musical arrangements. Pete does the same, but on a grander scale. I’ve always loved the recording side of music, and I’m doing more of that here, in our house in Sharnbrook.

      I’ve got three daughters, by three women. I never married any of them. The first woman was Carmel, and our daughter is Charmaine, who is now 36. I see Charmaine from time to time; she lives in Newcastle now.

      First of all we lived in various flats in Bedford, then Harrold. Now there’s a funny story here. I suspected that Carmel had started an affair with another man while she was living with me. Over some weeks she’d kept denying she was seeing anyone else, but I wasn’t stupid, I knew. While I was looking after Charmaine, Carmel would go out for the evening, supposedly with her friend Judy. Judy would pick Carmel up in her car, but then drop her off down the road somewhere. A mate of mine called Charmaine’s new boyfriend ‘Judy in disguise with glasses’.

      One night, when I was again looking after Charmaine, Carmel said she was going out with Judy again to a party. I asked where the party was, and she told me Great Barford. So after she left, I phoned my brother Brian up and promised him as much beer as he wanted if he’d come over to babysit right away. I put some party clothes on, leathers over them, and rode my bike to Great Barford. I soon found where the party was, loads of cars outside one house. I took my leathers off, tidied myself up, and knocked on the door. Someone opened it, and I pushed a bottle of wine in their hand and marched through the door with a cheery, ‘Good evening, I’m Paul.’

      I walked slowly around the house and soon came across Carmel and her new boyfriend on the sofa, kissing and cuddling, and oblivious to everyone else. I sat down beside them, had a few drinks, and it was 20 minutes before they realised who was sitting next to them. Their faces were a picture. I asked them if they wanted me to fetch them a drink, and they both looked terrified.

      So off I went, and rode back home. Now it was a freezing night. The boyfriend dropped Carmel off nearby, and she walked to the door. But I’d locked it, so she had to call the boyfriend to pick her up. This was before the era of mobile phones. I later told her she had to give the bloke up, or I’d leave her. She wouldn’t give him up, so I left her.

      I then slept on various friends’ floors for a time and lived over the hairdresser’s shop here in Sharnbrook. Basically, I dossed around for a time. A friend of mine, a girl, went travelling around the world, and I looked after her house in Commercial Road in Bedford. She then told me one of her friends, Annabelle, was also going to stay in the house. She’s the one you fancied, the blonde-haired one in the photo. Annabelle became my girlfriend, and she found us a granny flat in Pavenham.

      Annabelle in due course gave birth to my second daughter, Georgia, who is now 17. After three or four years we had to leave Pavenham, then we had a flat in Bedford. After a time Annabelle got on my nerves so much I couldn’t take any more, so I left and bought my own flat in Milton Ernest. They live in Bath now, and Georgia doesn’t speak to me.

      Not long after I met Annette, who in due course gave birth to my third daughter, Lucy, who is now 13. After I lived with Annette for three or four years, that relationship became unbearable and I had to leave. I was heartbroken at leaving Lucy, but that’s how it was. They live in Felmersham now, just down the road, and I see a lot of Lucy.

      Then I had a relationship with another woman. I can’t name her because of the slander and libel laws. Let’s just say she was a fuckin’ СКАЧАТЬ