January 1970.
We had booked Diz at the folk club at the Marlborough Hotel in Brighton. He was in pub before we got there. He greeted me. "Hello, dear boy, allow me to buy you both a drink?" We told him what we wanted to drink and he ordered one for himself and one for the barman before patting his pockets and turning to me and saying, "A sub on my fee, dear boy, I appear to have left home without my wallet!"

He had also apparently left home without his guitar, a fact that he did not mention until I announced him. He got up and said, "I wonder if anyone could lend me a guitar? I appear to have left home without mine." There was a rush from all the guitarists there to have the honour of Diz playing their guitar. He looked at them with a dubious, critical eye and then selected one, examined it carefully and then announced, "Ladies & gentlemen, it is a rare treat for me to be able to play a guitar which appears to be constructed from a Jaffa Orange box!" He put the strap over his shoulder, played a searing, dazzling run on it and then continued, "...and Crapatone strings, I notice."


A story from even earlier than this told to me by Jon Isherwood.

Diz told Jon that he has just been offered a cartoon spot each week in The Observer at a salary that he could easily have lived off, never mind the money he earned from music.

"That's fantastic"! says Jon.

"No. no, no, dear boy. Turned it down."

"You turned it down? Whatever for?

"Routine, dear boy, routine. No, no. Fuck routine!"