Richard Wildman writes: I was born in 1953, in Birkenhead---a very odd place then, even odder now. The people next door were Irish descendants of Armada survivors. Their name was Diable, from the Spanish diablo, so the wildmen and the devils lived side by side. The corner shop was run by the Macbeths, and the parish priest was called John Lennon. During the Civil War, a horse and a broken sword had been buried in the sandstone outcrop our terrace was much later built on. No one ever knew why, but there must have been a good reason, because the effort involved was clearly immense.

My earliest memory is of lying in my cot crying because I was frightened by the lead lighting on the windows of the convent over the road, and my sister in big skirts coming to comfort me. Later, I used to spend hours looking out across the Mersey, watching the weather over Liverpool and the ships and ferries cruising up and down the river. Cammell Laird's was at the bottom of our hill, all cranes, tugs, crashing hammers and scraping chains. One day, the Queen Mother came to launch a ship, and we were given the afternoon off school and a flag to wave. I remember a turquoise hat swishing past in a big black car.

I went to a Christian Brothers grammar school, still in the glory days of corporal punishment, then in 1971 fluked a place at Lancaster university to do Russian and Soviet Studies----possibly the most redundant degree in the world these days. Still, Anna Karenina kept me going through some bad times, when my heart was broken by a silly, middle-class (and therefore incomprehensible to me) but very pretty girl from Farnham. It turned out she much preferred my best friend. Oh well, at least I had the guitar for comfort...

I started playing in 1969, with adolescent fervour but no teacher. I'd had piano lessons for a while when I was little, and hated them. With music, if I couldn't work it out or make it up, I wasn't interested. I still feel the same way. I met some decent players at Lancaster, and decided I wanted to pursue music rather than get a job when I finished college. That led to a move to Manchester in 1975, where my pathetic attempts to break into the folk scene were so astoundingly unsuccessful that I pretty quickly gave up. The only good thing that came out of that time was the tuning I made up---FBflatCFGC, a DADGAD derivative---which is the one I use exclusively today. I cannot abide normal tuning.

Another fluke got me a job in London just before Thatcher came to power, and in the early 80s----for people like me, they were the days of east end housing co-ops, City Limits and fearsome political correctness rather than west end wedge cuts, Heaven and trickledown economics----I started a soul band.

I played bass because I could afford to buy one, the saxophone player had owned his instrument for three weeks and thus knew when to blow and when to suck, but the guitarist had a van and a place to rehearse, and we knew a great female singer. With two back-up vocalists, a drummer and a trumpeter, we often had more band members than audience, at least in the early days. We had many experiences---good and not so good, but at least all genuine---during three years of playing the pubs and the alternative cabaret circuit. People always danced: it was fun, at least in retrospect.

The band ended, as bands do, and I began a long relationship with a lovely woman called Heather Rainbow, but in 1999 she was knocked off her bike and killed. The next year, I moved to Cambridge where, after a time, I met AH.

Which brings this story up to date. The blog on this site is just a space for me to think aloud about music in general, and the acoustic guitar in particular. I hope I can make it interesting.

Amanda Hall writes:

I began in a thatched cottage with large spiders in a village in East Anglia in 1956, the youngest of four - a brother and two sisters. Music was around in various and diverse ways. There was a piano that we all played, apart from my dad who preferred the harmonica - maybe because his dad was in the merchant navy. My mum played romantic pieces, classical and popular, my sisters - classical and by the lesson. My brother did stuff by ear - blues mostly - and a friend of his in the 60's with impressive long black hair, used to drift into our house, dismantle the piano to it's bones and play for hours without speaking to anyone. I loved fiddling around for hours doing chord sequences - by ear. I had given a very kind piano teacher a really foul time when I was about seven, which I still feel ashamed about - I think she was called Sarah. My mum loved singing and I often did a contralto hum along to the vacuum, which created fascinating harmonic tensions. My sisters and I all sang too, but not to the vacuum, falling into trio harmonies with fairy tale symmetry. As the shortest I also had - oddly - the lowest voice, but I liked that, as I wanted to be different wherever possible, as different = special and special = noticed - I hoped! Also, as I got into music later it felt more natural impersonating the male singers I liked, it gave me more of a buzz - although I have always liked frocks too.

I picked up a few chords on a tiny Italian ladys guitar from my brother when I was twelve - my chord repertoire hasn't really progressed much since, but the rhythm and speed has got better - I think capos are brilliant. Soon after picking up the guitar I started singing with it, I liked it's portability and would dress up in long skirts and go and strum in fields near the house hoping to be accidentally overheard - quite who by was always a bit hazy and never really came to anything - fortunately. Around 1971 Rachel, my sister and I hung out at Linton Folk Club, doing the odd number - which involved long disagreements about what we were going to sing while we stood on stage.

In the later 70's I went to art school in Cambridge where music faded in my life as I became a bit overwhelmed by reality and men - who could probably sing lower than me, a pity looking back. I then had a long spell in London, migrating spiritually to the People's Republic of Hackney in the early 80's where I dwelt among housing co-ops and squats. Again little time for music, what with fitting in bicycle and plumbing workshops and vigilantly lesbian/ feminist political correction sessions for lax male cohabitants - but oh how we laughed! It was all going horribly wrong - rogue squatters began subsquating the squats - and suddenly there was no one to turn to who was sane or ¨ mature or 'ordinary' - I had met my match - so I ran off to Zimbabwe - naturally!

I returned to Cambridge knowing no one here any more and feeling like a political refugee, but this was 1985 - a turning point. I had an intense urge to make up for lost time musically and to live in straight time, I really hadn't got a clue how the normal world worked. I found musicians to work with, pushing myself through the performance pain barrier, I worked with a great jazz/ blues guitarist called Richard Bartrum as a duo to start with, then we formed a six piece band - swing, rock and blues.

In 1996 I had the good fortune to meet Lester Lloyd - Reason, we formed a duo called Two Let Loose and both got huge amounts of enjoyment out of performing locally and honing our act. Two CD's and six years later we both decided to move on.

Around this time I was getting to know RW. Which brings this story up to date.