In 1956 popular music did not yet mean rock ’n’ roll. But The Goon Show, which Dad and I listened to, featuring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, did include some early BBC broadcasts of rock performances. One of the show’s resident musicians was Ray Ellington, a young English drummer–vocalist and cabaret artist. With his quartet he sang songs like ‘Rockin’ and Rollin’ Man’, which he composed specially, and rather hastily I think, for the show. I thought it some kind of hybrid jazz: swing music with stupid lyrics. But it felt youthful and rebellious, like The Goon Show itself.
I was regarded by my parents as having little musical talent other than a thin, nasal, soprano voice. I was forbidden to touch Dad’s clarinets or saxophones, only my harmonica.
On my first Isle of Man fishing trip, I had a fiasco with a huge trout and was consoling myself by playing harmonica in the rain. I got lost in the sound of the mouth organ, and then had the most extraordinary, life-changing experience. Suddenly I was hearing music within the music – rich, complex harmonic beauty that had been locked in the sounds I’d been making. The next day I went fly fishing, and this time the murmuring sound of the river opened up a wellspring of music so enormous that I fell in and out of a trance. It was the beginning of my lifelong connection to rivers and the sea – and to what might be described as the music of the spheres.
I was always drawn to the water. A friend at school was a Sea Scout, and at the age of eleven I was impressed by his smart uniform and badges. He took me to meet the troop leader, and I was immediately signed up for a ‘bunkhouse weekend’ in order to acquaint myself with the camp. Dad interviewed one of the leader’s assistants and was very suspicious. He told me the fellow didn’t know which way to fly the Union Flag, and doubted he could ever have been any part of the Navy. When I pressed Dad he said he thought the man was ‘bent’, an expression I didn’t understand.
Dad eventually agreed to let me go for the weekend. The troop’s headquarters were on the River Thames, where a large shed was laid out as a dormitory, and a large rowing boat was moored – an old ship’s lifeboat in which the boys were taken for trips. We arrived on Saturday and spent the afternoon trying to tie nautical knots from a chart, which the two adults present couldn’t manage. After a fry-up lunch the light began to fade and we were hurried to the boat for a short trip on the river.
The tide was high and it wasn’t safe to row, so the men fitted an ancient outboard motor to the stern and fired it up. As we swept past the Old Boathouse at Isleworth once again I began to hear the most extraordinary music, sparked by the whine of the outboard motor and the burbling sound of water against the hull. I heard violins, cellos, horns, harps and voices, which increased in number until I could hear countless threads of an angelic choir; it was a sublime experience. I have never heard such music since, and my personal musical ambition has always been to rediscover that sound and relive its effect on me.
At the very height of my euphoric trance the boat ran up against the muddy shore at the troop’s hut. As it stopped, so did the music. Bereft, I quietly began to weep. One of the men put his coat around me and led me up to the camp, where I was settled by the stove to warm up. I kept asking the other boys if they had heard the angels singing, but none of them even responded.
A few moments later I was standing naked in a cold shower set up behind the bunkhouse. It was almost dark; there was a stark light bulb behind the two men who stood watching me shiver as the freezing water sprayed over me. ‘Now you’re a real Sea Scout,’ they said. ‘This is our initiation ceremony.’ The only thing ceremonial about it was the wanking these two chaps were doing through their trouser pockets. I was freezing, but they wouldn’t let me leave the shower until they had each achieved their surreptitious climax. I felt disgusted, but also annoyed because I knew I could never go back: I would never get my sailor’s uniform.
I remember only one truly terrible row between my parents, and sat terrified in the dining room as cups were smashed in the kitchen; I believe Mum flourished a knife. I intervened, weeping like a child actor, only to be told off by Dad who hated the melodrama to which I was contributing. There were also parties, and Dad invited musicians sometimes; their playing kept me awake and I annoyed and embarrassed Dad by bursting in on them and crying, telling him off in front of his friends for the disturbance; Dad told me off in return, but it was terribly exciting. The smell of cigarettes, beer and scotch floated down the hall.
Maybe to compensate for being kept awake at night by wild parties, I was given a small black bike which I hired every day to my friend David for his paper round. He paid me sixpence a week, but I caught him one day bumping it against a curb violently and ended the arrangement.
Once I had a bike I gave full vent to my local wanderlust; there was hardly a street or alley I didn’t explore in an area over two or three square miles. But I was one of the few boys in the gang with a bike, and my solo excursions deepened my solitary feelings. I often went into a trance-like state when cycling. I was nearly killed by a dustmen’s lorry at the top of my street as I swerved in its path, my head full of angelic voices.
I laboriously learned the tricky harmonica theme of Dixon of Dock Green, played by Tommy Reilly, on my own first chromatic instrument. No one was even slightly impressed by my achievement and I realised I was playing the wrong instrument if I wanted superstardom.
Like many of my peers I spent long, boring hours outside various pubs, a packet of crisps and fizzy drink in my hand, wondering why I was permitted such luxuries only when my parents were getting drunk. I was caught shoplifting once. I had gone into a bookshop for some Observer books I was then collecting. I paid for two, and tried to walk out with six. What’s strange is that I knew I’d be caught. The police were called, and I was questioned before being released.
Dad said nothing about the incident. It was the not unkind warning of the police officer I remember: ‘This is the first time, son. Make it the last – it’s a terrible road you’ve set out on.’ A terrible road? He was a good copper, but I thought it was obvious that I was simply filling the time, bored, up to no good. I began to collect things to settle myself down: model trains, Dinky cars, comics, postage stamps.
I was determinedly non-academic, although I wrote stories constantly and drew hundreds of pictures, mainly of military battles. I became obsessed with drawing plans for a fantasy fleet of huge, double-decked touring buses. My fleet of buses contained schoolrooms, playrooms with electric train sets, swimming pools, cinemas, music rooms, and – as I approached puberty – I added a large vehicle that contained a nudist colony with a cuddling room.
For a few years I attended Sunday school, regularly singing in a church choir. As I fell asleep at night I sang my prayers into the mouth of my hot-water bottle, which I held like a microphone. My parents still resisted the idea that I had any musical talent. No matter, I was already a visionary. A mobile nudist colony with a cuddling room? I’ll bet even Arthur C. Clarke hadn’t come up with that at my age!
Whenever we made a family visit to Horry and Dot’s, I got to see not only my beloved grandparents, but also Aunt Trilby, Dot’s sister. Trilby was single when I met her, and kept a piano in her flat. It was the only one I had a chance to play. Tril read music, and played light classics and popular songs, but never tried to teach me much. Instead she entertained me with palm-readings and interpretations of the tarot, all of which indicated I would be a great success in every way – or at least enjoy a ‘large’ life.
Aunt Trilby provided me with drawing paper and complimented my rapid sketches. After a while I would drift to the piano and, after checking to see that she was engrossed in her knitting or a book, begin to play. The instrument was never quite in tune, but I explored the keyboard until I found whatever combination I was after.
One day I found some chords that made me lightheaded. As I played them my body buzzed all over, and my head filled with the most complex, disturbing orchestral music. The music soared higher and higher until I finally stopped playing, and came back to the everyday world.
‘That was beautiful,’ said Tril, looking up from whatever she was doing. ‘You are a real musician.’
Because