…THE HOME I GREW UP IN WAS VERY SMALL. It had three tiny bedrooms and was in the Cardiff suburb of Ely. I was the youngest of 13 children, and eight of us shared one box room and small bedroom. They were so small there was no space for a wardrobe. You hung your clothes on the back of the door.
…WE ALL SANG IN THE HOUSE. We all had good voices in my family and I was singing from an early age. Although I was born in 1948, there are 25 years between me and my eldest brother, and so the house was full of records from the 1930s to the 1960s.
I grew up listening to a wider range of music than my contemporaries. People like the great early country singer Jimmie Rodgers, Joe Turner, the Big Bopper and Little Richard.
…ONE OF MY FIRST BANDS WAS CALLED THE DENIMS. I wasn’t wearing the denim that became my later look then, so what a coincidence that was! We played school halls and weddings. We never made any records, but we did at play the famous 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho where Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard had performed a decade earlier. This was in about 1964. We were on for an hour and a half and got paid £4.
…DOING LOTS OF JOBS BEFORE I TURNED PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN. I left school at 15 and worked on building sites and in warehouses, did window cleaning and was an apprentice upholsterer, which I liked because I was learning a trade. I’d be doing that during the day and the gigs at night. Hard work, but you get back what you put in. Finally, in 1969, I was able to pack it all in and concentrate on music full-time.
EVERY SECOND COUNTS: TIPS TO WIN THE RACE AGAINST TIME
Do you want to save 1.5 seconds every day of your life? According to the dishwasher expert at the consumer organisation Choice, there’s no need to insert the dishwashing tablet into the compartment inside the door.
May Fiction
An escaped slave's perspective renews Huckleberry Finn and the seconds tick down to nuclear Armageddon in Miriam Sallon’s top literary picks this month
Wine Not
In a time of warning studies about alcohol consumption, Paola Westbeek looks at non-alcoholic wines, how they taste and if they pair with food
Train Booking Hacks
With the cost of train travel seemingly always rising, Andy Webb gives some tips to save on ticket prices
JOURNEY TO SALTEN, NORWAY, UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN
Here, far from the crowds, in opal clarity, from May to September, the sun knows no rest. As soon as it’s about to set, it rises again
My Britain: Cheltenham
A YEAR IN CHELTENHAM sees a jazz festival, a science festival, a classical music festival and a literature festival. Few towns with 120,000 residents can boast such a huge cultural output!
GET A GREEN(ER) THUMB
Whether you love digging in the dirt, planting seeds and reaping the bounty that bursts forth, or find the whole idea of gardening intimidating, this spring offers the promise of a fresh start.
Under The GRANDFLUENCE Suzi Grant
After working in TV and radio as an author and nutritionist, Suzi Grant started a blog alternativeageing.net) and an Instagram account alternativeageing). She talks to Ian Chaddock about positive ageing”
Sam Quek: If I Ruled The World
Sam Quek MBE is an Olympic gold medalwinning hockey player, team captain on A Question of Sport and host of podcast series Amazing Starts Here
Stand Tall, Ladies
Shorter men may be having their moment, but where are the tall women?
