that I now bitterly regret), but most of the boys I knew played the guitar, so I used to learn from them. I moved to Leeds in 1982 to go to University here and much to my delight, discovered people sitting down and playing jigs and reels in pubs. There was a very vibrant Irish music culture in Leeds at the time, and a whole group of fantastic players, so I bought myself
a mandolin and started to join in. It’s great to see that a lot of the crowd from this time, who still remain my friends today, have gone on to do great things musically – Karen Twe ed, Tom Napper, Alistair Russell, Troy Donockley etc. I feel blessed to have been a part of it all.
I also ran the University Folk Club at this time, and used to write a new song
every week so that I could perform it on the Wednesday evening! Gradual ly, I started performing properly, and got invited to support some really great people around this time – John Martyn, Christy Moore (who changed the strings on my guitar for me!), Roy Harper, Dick Gaughan, Nico etc – so I just sort of went on from there. I won a songwriting competition at
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