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I was born in the North of England, the son of a tool merchant, with a family business I wasn’t the remotest bit interested in joining. Now, if it had been a band…! I am best known for composing the Cameron Mackintosh-produced West End Musical Moby Dick and for being a member of British acapella band The Flying Pickets, with whom I toured almost everywhere (except the States) for 13 years. I was also lead singer with Rick Wakeman for one album (keyboard player with Yes). 

When I was ten years old, I saw The Beatles, live. She Loves You was at Number One and their follow up, which no one had heard and hadn’t yet been released, was Number One too, on advance sales alone. England and my home town was on fire with them! Incredibly, it was the night that President Kennedy was assassinated.

Blasted back into my bucket seat, riddled with rock and roll, my life has just begun. I’m rafting the white water of adrenaline. John’s right in front of me, wrenching out words like tortured metal and pulling stupid faces. Paul’s on the left, his violin bass pointing up at his eyebrow, which he arches in mock innocence, maliciously stirring the soup of screams. George commutes between the two, his shiny Gretch black as a Cadillac. A big guitar. A big, slow grin. Big hair. Ringo’s on the drum riser behind his grey Ludwig kit, Beatles logo on his bass drum, fringe flopping down every time he hits the snare. Matching hair, matching suits, matching amps – though Paul’s was bigger – Wizard of Oz lighting, electric guitars and the world at their feet.

Starry eyed I crawled from the wreckage, an avalanche of screams ringing in my ears. From Dallas emanated a cavalcade of sirens to freeze time itself to the spot.

Dad picked us up, grave-faced with the news, but who cared? His old world was as dead as a Kennedy. Any philosophy or experience coming from his mouth was instantly extinct. He simply didn’t know, and we did. At the stroke of a Rickenbacker, his lifetime of values became obsolete, dad’s every utterance suddenly utterly worthless. Tools, tradition, British Empire... all the values into which he had been born, all desire to pass them forward like a torch into the unknowing dark corners of the world – f****d, dead as Latin. We were growing up in a society that was tearing up his rulebook with each new Nineteen Sixties day.

Meanwhile, my baby heart was beating in four/four and the future had a soundtrack.

Ten years old. You can see from this pic [above], I already thought I was a Beatle!