:04:28
I was raised by my auntie.
:04:29
My father and my mother
split when I was about 4.
:04:32
I had spent some time
with my mother up till about 4.
:04:35
Then my father split.
He was a merchant seaman.
:04:36
You can imagine,
it was the 1940s, in the war and all that.
:04:40
And he left,
and I was brought up by an auntie.
:04:44
I had to be solid
because I had a boy to bring up.
:04:48
It was my job to be there.
He never came into an empty house.
:04:53
What he could not make out
was how I knew...
:04:56
when he was up to something.
:04:59
He was inventive
and was always the leader.
:05:02
Every time he sat down,
he never wasted a minute.
:05:05
And it was always either drawing
or writing poetry...
:05:08
or reading. He was a great reader.
:05:11
And he sang himself to sleep every night.
:05:14
And then when I was 16...
:05:15
I re-established a relationship
with my mother for about four years.
:05:18
She taught me music.
She first of all taught me the banjo...
:05:21
and, from that, I progressed to guitar.
:05:23
And then, unfortunately, she was run over
by an off-duty policeman...
:05:26
who was drunk at the time.
:05:32
I lost her twice. Once as a 5-year-old
when I was moved in with my auntie...
:05:36
and once again when I was
re-establishing a relationship with her.
:05:39
That was really a hard time for me...
:05:41
and it just absolutely made me
very, very bitter.
:05:44
The underlying chip on my shoulder
I had as a youth was really big then.
:05:48
It was very traumatic for me.