Other folkie beginnings - Home

I came from Essex (go on...go on...have your little joke...) when I wasn't quite a teenager and had definitely never experienced 'folk' music - in fact I was heavily into the Beatles. I had however once seen Morris dancing while on holiday in Paignton, so that might have scarred me in my formative years.

I suffered several years in the cultural desert of Tauranga in the '60's, then went to University and met on my first day a Drapers Scholarship lad from Redcar in Yorkshire, who read me Chaucer and led me to my unknown heritage of traditional English folk music. He also taught me how to drink Bass and sing a shanty in several keys at once. If anyone knows where Don Wright is now, let me know (last known to be running Norfolk Island).

So - I probably got introduced to music, people and history that I never would have done if I'd stayed in Grays and got a job in the council office. Being out here in the antipodes made it all seem so much more important to me.

And that is what will keep me interested for the next 10 years and the rest of my life. It's all about whanau, and folkies in NZ are my whanau at the other end of the earth from my real whanau.

My daughter, now 17, has been dragged to festivals since she was 4. Because of work I considered not going to Te Aroha this Easter - I didn't think she'd mind as none of her Hamilton friends go and she has never seemed interested in the music and doesn't play an instrument any more. "But we can't not go!!!" she wailed..."It wouldn't be Easter without folk festival!!!!!" And so we went - the people are her whanau and the music is our connection with her heritage.