I’d left school by the time I was 16.
I went to an academy because my brother went to one and I thought I’d be letting the family down if I didn’t go, but they taught me nothing. I was really interested in art and music, but they wouldn’t let me near the piano. So I left at 15 and got an apprenticeship at 16 at the National Engineering Laboratory in East Kilbride with a view to becoming an engineer. Because that was a proper job. My dad was a van driver all his life, so it was instilled in my brother and I that we get proper jobs; a trade, a skill. So it was music at the weekends and filing, turning and milling during the week.
I was especially into bands like the Small Faces, The Beatles, cool young mods. I wasn’t writing songs yet, but I’d had a guitar since I was 10. I was kind
