The suburban landscape of South Birmingham in the 1960s is the canvas and the roots for my music. The brooks and streams I trawled “wellie” deep through the green spaces of parkland and allotments would flow into longer rivers. These eventually lead me away to further shape my music writing songs about people, following footprints and hearing stories that felt like my own. Although nearly fifty years have passed since those halcyon summer days, I still feel the pavement beneath my feet. No matter how remote and distant that “Beatle decade” becomes it hasn’t faded and I can be back there in a thought. The shopkeepers where I ran my errands are long gone. “Flints” Record Store was where most of my pocket money was handed over in return for 45rpm vinyl records whose melody and lyrics inspired the need in me to create my own. The children of Stoneyford Grove, Yardley Wood were the last generation of “kids that they left to play outside”. We explored and imagined, built and dismantled worlds, telling fibs and little white lies in order to buy a few more minutes under the street lights. We joined and were thrown out of each other’s gangs if we forgot a secret sign or password. We fell out and forgave. We are all mostly grandparents now and a recent reunion reminded me that we all remain children waiting to grow up!