Tony was one of the great characters of the folk scene - something that is sadly lacking these days.

When drunk or sober, always a great performer, and there are countless anecdotes about his various antics. Dave Burland has a wealth of them.

I always remember, in the 80s when he was in one of his fallow periods, we used to run the infamous and much-lamented Freemasons Tavern club in Coventry. Martin Jenkins had booked Tony, who he knew from the Rubber days when Mart was in Hedgehog Pie. Somebody was despatched to go and pick him up from the station, and when they arrived outside the pub, the passenger door opened and Tony literally poured out onto the pavement in a heap. And this was at 6 o'clock in the evening. Obviously a good bar on the train.
But, and this is important, he did a great evening, although was literally legless by the time the rest of us were getting stuck into the 'stayback' after the club finished.

Drink was a much more important part of the folk scene back then, and probably accounted for the numerous characters there were in those days, and it was not frowned upon in the way it is now, in these po-faced modern days we live in.

Sadly, on the other side of the coin, a lot of good people have been lost to the consequences of the demon-drink. But we had a great time in the process!