I went to the University of East Anglia (UEA) to study philosophy in 1977: I’d been listening to jazz rock music and started to write some tunes; by the second year I’d met Phil Smith (sax) and Marc Fox (percussion), and together with Jon Franks (drums) and Ron (bass) we put together a band. I got an H&H amplifier and Korg MS10 mono synth on HP, and found someone to lend me a Fender Rhodes. We did parties, the OU over a summer and country fairs, as well as a recording, often augmented with Roger Jackson on poly synth (later to work with Robyn Hitchcock).

The other main band at UEA at the time were The Higsons, led by 'Switch' (Charlie Higson), they were much more in yer face than we were, and didn't think much of what we did. (Later had a few beers with Higson, Paul Whitehouse and TRB drummer Steve Laurie in the artists bar at the Edinburgh Festival when I was with Tom Robinson: they had written the material for Harry Enfield who was playing the main Assembly Rooms hall.)

I shall always be grateful to my friend Katie Venner for organising us and subsequently ensuring I was gainfully employed when we move to London.

We played a few gigs in London, and I did various jobs, becoming a TEFL teacher as well as playing solo gigs in bars and pubs.

Phil and Marc got together with three school mates from Croydon to form Haircut 100 and did really well with their first album. Leader Nick Hayward wasn’t interested in a keyboard player until the B side of their last 12-inch. When he left, Marc became the singer, and with some compositions (including one of mine - Where Do You Run To Now) worked on in rehearsal, a second album Paint and Paint was released and we toured in the UK, Israel and the UK. The album and tour featured Marc Fox (vocals and percussion), Graham Jones (guitar), Les Nemes (bass), Phil Smith (sax), Blair Cunningham (drums - later of The Pretenders), Guy Barker (trumpet) and Pete Beachil (trombone). The album bombed (it didn’t even get a CD release later on), even though I still think it’s a good album. I was very privileged to work with such a great bunch of musicians.

There are You Tube clips of Haircut 100 at the Marquee for the LWT TV programme Live In London: Too Up Too Down, Infatuation and Hidden Years. It has to be said that Marc was not a great singer, and the vocals were particularly bad that night due to the onstage sound, so we went to a studio the following day to edit the mix and patch the lead vocal channel on the film, which was then rushed to the TV company. But, for whatever reason, they broadcast the original, and to my mind this was the kiss of death to what was a really great line-up with as good an album as anyone else around at the time.

Click on the image to listen to my composition "Where Do You Run To Now?", verse lyrics by Marc Fox.

Marc later worked in A&R and I did a little work with him; Phil did a variety of work, and we worked together again with an artist called Owen Paul who was championed by the Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell (unofficially): again, he had a minor hit but no more than that.

With French and Regal, I later worked again with the extremely talented bass player Les Nemes.