Alex gave me one of my first gigs back in the mid sixties of the last century at a club he was running in Lowestoft. At the time I understood that he was working for Colman's as a research chemist "working out how to make mustard hotter!". The teaching came later.

I repaid the compliment by booking him many times over the years, and was devastated when he died in 1996 at a much too early age. He was a great entertainer, a fine guitarist, pianist and singer.

His arrangements of Charles Causley songs arose after I introduced him to Peter Parkhill, an Australian singer who came over in 1969, bringing with him Mike Ball's arrangements of "Timothy Winters" and "Ballad to Katherine of Aragon". Alex had long connections with Cornwall, and was close to John the Fish and Brenda Wootton, so the idea of a Cornish poet appealed to him.

At one time he, Derek Brimstone and I were all driving the same model of car - the old SAAB 96 V4.

There are moves afoot to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his death in 2006 with gigs in Norwich and Cornwall. Derek Brimstone, Jon Betmead and I are already committed, along with George Norris, Maggie Holland and numerous other folkies of yore.

You might be interested in my site - have a look at the .PDF file of notes to my CD on the "Last Year's Love" page.

Alan