Live to work, or work to live

I discovered the joy of making music at about the same time as I started work and except for a six year from 1984 until 1990 when I "retired" from making music to concentrate on raising a family and building a career, they've had almost equal importance in my life.
I've had a couple of "pro" music jobs in recent years, touring the UK. One was a theatre tour playing bass in a Patsy Cline tribute show and another was a tour or northern clubs and festivals with Nicki Gillis, an Australian singer/songwriter. It's interesting working with some professional musicians. Playing music is what they do, is all they do, and in some cases it's all they can do.
My working life has been a bit more varied, but for the most part, music has been very important. In fact, if it wasn't for playing music, either for fun or for pay, I wouldn't have stuck at half the jobs I've done.

I used to attend the free festivals in Hyde park in the late sixties. I saw a lot of good bands there, at the old site next to the Serpentine. The last free gig to be held in that location was when the Rolling Stones played in 1969. I went along but was amazed at the number of people there. There were at least twice as many as usual,and I couldn't get near the front. I couldn't even get to the top of the slope to look down on the stage. I remember the event for two reasons.
The first was hearing King Crimson play during the afternoon. I couldn't see them but they sounded special. They were playing at the Marquee the following weekend so I went to see them there. I was blown away and went back the next week to see them again. Stunning. So good that I contemplated throwing my guitar in the bin. I almost gave up playing. Fow a few days anyway.
The second was meeting a girl who became my first serious girlfriend. I was soon besotted with her and would bunk off work to spend the day with her while her parents were out at work. Naughty boy!
While it was acknowledged that the bank payed badly, the benefits compensated. For instance, you could get a mortgage at a staff rate. I knew a lot of staff who only stayed for that. Then there was the sick pay. If you were ill, as long as you rang in sick before 9.30 you still got paid. Very generous. Especially for a horny teenager who didn't like his job much. I don't know how many times I rang in (or got my mum to ring in) saying I had flu. It was about one day a fortnight by the time I left.

After I left the frozen food company where I was an invoice clerk, I ended up working at Olympia, a big exhibition complex in West London. I had a job working for the company that did the catering, trying to make sense of the accounts. This company was a subsidiary of J Lyons & Co and were losing money hand over fist, according to the accountants. They appointed me to take the chits issued by the various stores scattered around the vast labyrinth of tunnels under the halls, and make some sense out of them.
On the first day the lad who was to teach me what to do got talking and the subject turned to music. He was a drummer and the end result was that we spent all day and every day talking about music. We never did work out a system to track the goods in and out of the site. They continued to lose money.
My new found friend joined my circle of musos and we formed a band and played a few gigs around West London. When we weren't playing or rehearsing we'd go out and watch a band. There was great music every night of the week. In the list of priorities it was music first, girlfriend second, going out with the lads third and the job a distant fourth.
Even when I moved jobs and changed girlfriends (and got married the first time)my priorities hardly changed. I got tired of the prog rockish music I was making, and having seen King Crimson and realising I could never match their musicality I was ready for a change. I'd played a few folk clubs and liked the portable nature of the music (no amps to lug around) so when I visited a different pub near to where I lived and found a full blown traditional Irish session in full swing I was captivated. My favourite band Fairport Convention had just released "Liege & Lief" and folk rock was born. This was new and exciting. I sat in with the band one evening and stayed for nearly two years. Some weeks we played every night. It was great. My day job at Telfers was stimulating, and my evenings were spent in good company making good music all over West London and occasionally venturing out to the country. We played Cambridge folk festival in 1972, although I was too drunk to remember any details.

Girlfriends came and went, but the music was constant. My then girlfriend (later my first wife) and I moved to Northampton in 1974, almost the first thing I did (once I'd got out of commuting to London every day)was to advertise for musicians to join or form a band. Out of the first abortive rehearsals I teamed up with a guitarist called Jack and we formed a rock group called Left Hand Drive.

I was working as a production planner in a food factory. My job was to liaise with the sales office and the warehouse, checking the order requirements with the stock in hand and planning the production runs, ordering the raw materials and packaging, and checking that production targets were achieved. I sat in an office with half a dozen other staff and I hated it. The sales office I'd come from was busy busy busy, with the phones ringing constantly. The planning office was like a morgue in comparison. Two of my colleagues were rugby players and another was a boastful arsehole. I hated it.
I'd much rather be playing music.
After a few months there was a vacancy for a junior production manager in the factory so I asked for a transfer.
And so I entered the world of food production.