"I then had to get my head round the fact that it was over, at that age you're really driven. At this point I'd been doing so much looking ahead and chasing the carrot, with that gone I just floundered. It took me about 18 months to even be fit to do anything, when I was ready I worked in Shops, I worked in offices. Drudgery type jobs for ages.
Trying to make it on civvy street and you realise you can't compete. They were hungry in what they were doing in the same way I was hungry for music. I could not gear myself up to doing overtime in a shop or something like that"

"Neither of us could get jobs, Gordon couldn't even get a teaching post so we just had to get by as we could. I did a lot of painting, well, any art really. Cartooning, which is something I wouldn't normally have done but I tried anything just to slot back in.
By that time computerisation had come in and changed a lot of that and the courses weren't as plentiful as today so it was hard to go and get your skills up so I was unemployed for a hell of a long time. We still behaved as though we were employed, got up at 7am and work away at our projects just hoping that something would come up.
We lived like ordinary working people, the only difference was we weren't getting paid for it"

"I walked in purely to find out about my brother, my parents had died and he had been estranged from them. That was all and the next thing I knew I was being interviewed, it was very unexpected."

"Surreal is the only word I can really use, this only happens to someone else. I was shown the Internet and I thought it was remarkable they could get a picture on it. How did they pack all that in, videos and pictures?
I was looking at them and thinking oh hey that's me! There were all these comments there and I was absolutely floored. Very, very touched also."

"I went in to a library, not having a clue how to access it so needed help and I was listening to Dowie Dens (of Yarrow. Off Stargazer) on the headphones. The next thing I knew the tears were running down my cheeks. It just took me back to that day and so much of it I had to completely block out but I was back with all the guys, Fairport, Dave, Keith (Tippet) they were all lovely guys.
Its heart breaking looking back, there's no body like musicians. Musicians are like family. It was like looking at Jane Eyre with the end with Rochester, disfigured, but it was very emotional"

"It gave me a lovely warm feeling, the kindness and the love that people have. I love musicians I really do"

"I still haven't listened to everything I want to, I've got piles of CDs I'm still desperate to listen to. To me this is period is almost a renaissance. They are still discovering pictures from that period. We are going through a musical one right now. It's amazing to hear what is there. Also to hear the music of the current generation, it just blows me away with what some of these people are doing. It's just fantastic.
I don't even know what I can do in a studio now, I've not boned up on it but I've been told it is unrecognisable to my day. I feel a bit like the noble savage being brought in the studio for the first time, pressing buttons and not knowing what they do. Looking in the mirror for the first time, seeing your reflection and not realising its you"

"The romance has been taken away from it, the experience of arriving at the gig, having a really good gig and then getting up the next morning, you're on that train travelling with your guitar and every day you didn't know what to expect. You'd get the odd lousy gig and that would happen to everyone. Even John Martyn had lousy gigs but you'd get that feeling of being on the move, of the unknown and there was no feeling like it.
It's almost like being a pilot. Gordon was a pilot when he did his national service and when he was grounded he was broken hearted"

"It was very painful at first but I persevered and gradually worked my way back in and suddenly it clicked in to place. So whenever it was dry I'd sit outside and I'd play.
I ended up writing about 50 songs that summer but I've thrown them all away. I just needed them to ease back in to it. I'd been listening to what was out there and knew they wouldn't hold up but those 50 songs pointed me in the direction I needed."