THE GUITAR / PART 2
return to part one
I hitchhiked to Wellington the day after arriving in New Zealand. I was keen to get to Christchurch and meet up with the guy I had skied with in Kitzbuhel eighteen months before. When you get to Wellington you have to take a four hour ferry ride to get to the South Island. I was told that there was a ferry that went directly to Christchurch. It was an overnight sailing and I think it took 7 or 8 hours.
I settled in with a beer and a sandwich and just looked around. Across the lounge I spotted a guy who had a guitar case with him. I wandered over, introduced myself and began a friendship that lasted forty five years. John Hayday was an Englishman who had wandered the world singing, working at everything imaginable and we connected straightaway. We pulled out the guitars and started through some of our repertoire of songs. I was a strummer. He was a picker. I learned that he had played with the likes of Davey Graham and Martin Carthy and that he had travelled around England and Europe busking with his best mate Ralph McTell.
I had a longish talk with McTell last year when he did a concert in Christchurch. I told him that John had introduced his music to New Zealand. That first meeting on the coastal ferry John played ‘ The Streets of London ‘ and ‘ From Clare To Here ‘. Ralph is now 81 years old. He told me that he practices four hours every day and he certainly gave us a wonderful evening from his songbook. I was singing folk songs by guys like Eric Anderson, Phil Ochs, Tom Rush and Gordon Lightfoot in those days. I was intrigued with John’s material and he was blown away, especially by Lightfoot. We got off the boat as dawn was breaking, tired, but keen to keep in touch. We hung out all of 1968 always singing, playing records and jamming with whoever was around. John was a grafter. He couldn’t read music and had to disect a song and piece it back together before he performed it in public. He worked on Lightfoot’s ‘ If You Could Read My Mind ‘ for three months before he was satisfied. He nailed one of the best songs, in my opinion, that has ever been written.
There was lots of music played in 1968. The folk club in Christchurch was vibrant. I made lots of friends and grew my songbook. When I travelled to Whangarei to take up my teaching job I met up with some terrific musicians. Paul Marks had been a star in Melbourne’s jazz/skiffle era and I found him living off grid in the boondocks. We met another Aussie who was uber skilful ( Paul Brand ) and the three of us put on a serious concert in Whangarei. We had a lot of fun even though the audience was sparse at best.
Stephanie and I flew to Sydney Australia in late December 1969 and made our way to Geelong where my troubadour mate Bernie Evans was living. Within weeks we established a folk club and developed quite a following. Fine musicians came down from Melbourne. One girl was memorable as she had devoured Joni Mitchell’s album, BLUE, which had just been released. She played a dulcimer to get the Joni sound. None of us knew at that time that Joni had weak hands and developed many weird, but effective, open tunings with her guitar. Stephanie and I sang a few songs together ( Dylan’s ENDLESS HIGHWAY and Ian Tyson’s FOUR STRONG WINDS which was made popular by Neil Young.) and we sounded pretty good.
We ended up living in Alice Springs for six months in 1970. We set up a folk club in a coffee house where the owner Bob South used to like putting whiskey in the coffee. There was a collection of itinerants who could contribute. Some unknown guy thought it would be an idea to record an album out in the desert. It was a clear night and the big Aussie sky was awash with more stars that I knew existed. He set up a generator and we all did our thing. Sadly he didn’t have a cord long enough to get far enough away from the hum of the generator. Life in Alice Springs….
When we got to England I got familiar with a couple of folk music clubs, but my interest was waning and now as I mentioned above somewhere I have a guitar that sits forlorn in a closet.Music in general and the guitar in particular has been a dear friend for over seven decades. It gave me an entree into various scenes all over the world. I have sold my albums, given my songbook to my recently deceased mate Bernie Evans and retired my guitar to the closet.
In late 1968 I applied for six teaching jobs. I was offered a position with each application. The one I accepted was at Kamo High School in Whangarei, Northland. The trip north was memorable. Dave Montgomery and I hitchhiked north from Christchurch. We spent a night in Nelson, a night with Dave’s parents in Wellington and arrived in Whagarei a couple of days later. We went on a road trip to Cape Reinga with Bill Gruer in his model A Ford. We met the potters mentioned elsewhere, came across renowned folksinger Paul Marks living a subsistence life in the bush with his family, and met Freddie Gore, a jazz musician who had played in Stan Kenton’s orchestra. He built a replica Norman castle near Kerikeri. A wild collection of characters.
The school was quite ordinary. Many Maori students and run by outdated managers. I quickly found my friends. Clive Williams the art teacher and Dave Monro the science teacher. We became fast friends. Clive introduced me to Stephanie Tiffen and six months later he was the best man at our wedding. Dave and his family have been friends for over 50 years.
My move felt complete. I integrated well enough and discovered that New Zealand was an easy place to live and work. Fifteen months after coming to NZ on a whim, I was a qualified secondary school teacher and a married man. Canada drifted to the back in my mind despite letters, phone calls and occasional visits from old friends. I was home.
I hitchhiked to Wellington the day after arriving in New Zealand. I was keen to get to Christchurch and meet up with the guy I had skied with in Kitzbuhel eighteen months before. When you get to Wellington you have to take a four hour ferry ride to get to the South Island. I was told that there was a ferry that went directly to Christchurch. It was an overnight sailing and I think it took 7 or 8 hours.
I settled in with a beer and a sandwich and just looked around. Across the lounge I spotted a guy who had a guitar case with him. I wandered over, introduced myself and began a friendship that lasted forty five years. John Hayday was an Englishman who had wandered the world singing, working at everything imaginable and we connected straightaway. We pulled out the guitars and started through some of our repertoire of songs. I was a strummer. He was a picker. I learned that he had played with the likes of Davey Graham and Martin Carthy and that he had travelled around England and Europe busking with his best mate Ralph McTell.
I had a longish talk with McTell last year when he did a concert in Christchurch. I told him that John had introduced his music to New Zealand. That first meeting on the coastal ferry John played ‘ The Streets of London ‘ and ‘ From Clare To Here ‘. Ralph is now 81 years old. He told me that he practices four hours every day and he certainly gave us a wonderful evening from his songbook. I was singing folk songs by guys like Eric Anderson, Phil Ochs, Tom Rush and Gordon Lightfoot in those days. I was intrigued with John’s material and he was blown away, especially by Lightfoot. We got off the boat as dawn was breaking, tired, but keen to keep in touch. We hung out all of 1968 always singing, playing records and jamming with whoever was around. John was a grafter. He couldn’t read music and had to disect a song and piece it back together before he performed it in public. He worked on Lightfoot’s ‘ If You Could Read My Mind ‘ for three months before he was satisfied. He nailed one of the best songs, in my opinion, that has ever been written.
There was lots of music played in 1968. The folk club in Christchurch was vibrant. I made lots of friends and grew my songbook. When I travelled to Whangarei to take up my teaching job I met up with some terrific musicians. Paul Marks had been a star in Melbourne’s jazz/skiffle era and I found him living off grid in the boondocks. We met another Aussie who was uber skilful ( Paul Brand ) and the three of us put on a serious concert in Whangarei. We had a lot of fun even though the audience was sparse at best.
Stephanie and I flew to Sydney Australia in late December 1969 and made our way to Geelong where my troubadour mate Bernie Evans was living. Within weeks we established a folk club and developed quite a following. Fine musicians came down from Melbourne. One girl was memorable as she had devoured Joni Mitchell’s album, BLUE, which had just been released. She played a dulcimer to get the Joni sound. None of us knew at that time that Joni had weak hands and developed many weird, but effective, open tunings with her guitar. Stephanie and I sang a few songs together ( Dylan’s ENDLESS HIGHWAY and Ian Tyson’s FOUR STRONG WINDS which was made popular by Neil Young.) and we sounded pretty good.
We ended up living in Alice Springs for six months in 1970. We set up a folk club in a coffee house where the owner Bob South used to like putting whiskey in the coffee. There was a collection of itinerants who could contribute. Some unknown guy thought it would be an idea to record an album out in the desert. It was a clear night and the big Aussie sky was awash with more stars that I knew existed. He set up a generator and we all did our thing. Sadly he didn’t have a cord long enough to get far enough away from the hum of the generator. Life in Alice Springs….
When we got to England I got familiar with a couple of folk music clubs, but my interest was waning and now as I mentioned above somewhere I have a guitar that sits forlorn in a closet.Music in general and the guitar in particular has been a dear friend for over seven decades. It gave me an entree into various scenes all over the world. I have sold my albums, given my songbook to my recently deceased mate Bernie Evans and retired my guitar to the closet.
In late 1968 I applied for six teaching jobs. I was offered a position with each application. The one I accepted was at Kamo High School in Whangarei, Northland. The trip north was memorable. Dave Montgomery and I hitchhiked north from Christchurch. We spent a night in Nelson, a night with Dave’s parents in Wellington and arrived in Whagarei a couple of days later. We went on a road trip to Cape Reinga with Bill Gruer in his model A Ford. We met the potters mentioned elsewhere, came across renowned folksinger Paul Marks living a subsistence life in the bush with his family, and met Freddie Gore, a jazz musician who had played in Stan Kenton’s orchestra. He built a replica Norman castle near Kerikeri. A wild collection of characters.
The school was quite ordinary. Many Maori students and run by outdated managers. I quickly found my friends. Clive Williams the art teacher and Dave Monro the science teacher. We became fast friends. Clive introduced me to Stephanie Tiffen and six months later he was the best man at our wedding. Dave and his family have been friends for over 50 years.
My move felt complete. I integrated well enough and discovered that New Zealand was an easy place to live and work. Fifteen months after coming to NZ on a whim, I was a qualified secondary school teacher and a married man. Canada drifted to the back in my mind despite letters, phone calls and occasional visits from old friends. I was home.