I moved to Devonport (Auckland) when I was 16 or so after my dad and I had a row and I said I was leaving and he retorted "I'll help you pack!"

Life . . . Anyway, I wandered around as a young chap and one day, carrying a little cloth bag of 45 records (Animals, Beatles, even the Righteous Brothers . .. !!) I saw a bunch of people going into a church hall and followed them. Turned out to be the Devonport Folk Music club (at the bottom of the hill!) and I stayed to listen.

I remember well to this day the shock and vicarious embarassment when one person got up and sang a song without a guitar! I felt so angry that someone would still try and sing even though they had either left their instrument behind or didn't actually know how to play one! My first introduction to acapella/unaccompanied music . . . I didn't know how to play myself yet of course but read on, gentle reader.

Move on to 1969 (I think!?) and the Ngaruawahia Banjopickers' Convention . . . .there I saw Mike Seeger and heard people playing guitars and banjos for the first time and thought to myself "I can do that!" . . . hit a friend up to show me the first chords (A minor and G . . . ) and off I went.

Learnt some really weird songs which I didn't know the tunes for but had the words . . made up the tunes as I went . . .sorry Pat Bowley! . . .finally caught on to the CooCoo bird and Tom Rush and admired a few people from afar like Pitt Ramsay (Thanks, Pitt .. must get together some day - I need lessons!)

After a few more years, had collected a few instruments and had almost matched Steve Gerrish's lovely pile of assorted instruments. . . always envied anyone with a pile of them just lying around, waiting to be touched and tickled.

Shoot through to about 1984 and I am sitting in my picture framing studio in Fort Street, strumming my guitar in a new open G tuning I had fiddled with until it sounded rich, thinking sadly of my friend Chris Wolverstan who had just gone back to England, and wrote my first song ("Here's One For You"). . . it was that easy, folks!

On to many other enterprises such as whipping up the Varsity Folk Club again (there was that episode with Kath Tait... ) and running a very low turnout festival which cost me deep in the purse, as Lord Arlen once remarked to young Matty Groves . . . Many people came and went in the various groups I ran, (Mannekin, Idle Plough, Thursday) and I publically thank all those who enriched my experience of the genre with their talents and support . . .I remember Max Fox, Anne, Bevis England, Tony Ricketts, Christine Loretto, Phillippa Rhodes, Annette Trifonoff, Chris Holland, Gayann and Stephen Phillips, Ruth Somerford, and Alice McLeod among many others.

Now I run the Pure Magic concerts, in tandem with Ian Bartlett and we are are heading for number 4 on Oct 31, 2004. . . I hope these concerts will grow until they spill out into schools and public halls and enlighten, educate and encourage while entertaining for years to come . . . end of blurb, Sieffe.