Sweet William – ‘A childhood in care and music’

This ‘thing’ has to start somewhere, so where better than Sunday the 22nd of November, 1964 at 1.45pm. My good self, William Douglas Charles Lowdell came into the world on a wave of musical irony, to the sound of ‘Baby Love’ by The Supremes. Well I’m pretty sure it wasn’t playing at the time but I love the idea that if a film was ever made of my life, this would be the musical backdrop to the birth sequence! It was number one in the UK for two weeks from November 15th to the 28th.

I just missed out on Oh pretty Woman by Roy Orbison and Little Red Rooster by The Rolling Stones, both cool tunes but Baby Love will do! I always loved the song growing up, wasn’t sure why, just did. It wasn’t until years later that I found out it was my birth chart song.

I guess my musical journey begins there.

I was a baby … and I was loved, sixth in line out of eight siblings, there were still two more to come in ’66 and ’68. My mother Wendy had been busy so far, four girls from her first marriage to Derek, my older brother, John (later also to be known as Jayl) then I came along.

By 1968, we were  eight in number and our mother loved us all, even with my sketchy memories of the time, I could feel it, being tucked in at night, sitting on my baby brother’s pram and being wheeled into the village to shop, all the ‘normal’ childhood stuff that can be so easily taken for granted.

I can almost remember and hear her voice if I listen carefully in silence, like a slightly muffled old tape recording stored deep in my mind, if only I could actually physically play it once in a while.

We all lived, seemingly happy, in a big house called Runnymede, on the outskirts of the seaside village of Dymchurch, Kent, on the south coast of England. Self-proclaimed ‘Children’s paradise’ if the sign upon entering the village is to be believed. To be honest, to a young kid growing up there, it was!

When the tide was out, the golden, sandy beaches, stretched like some vast desert, as far as the eye could see, with Folkestone and Dover to the east and far round the coast to the south west, the ever reassuring sight of the two Dungeness lighthouses and the more ominous nuclear power station, all of which I was fascinated with as I grew up.

There was a funfair with penny slot machines, a lovely olde world sweet shop run by Mrs Beats and a miniature steam railway that stopped in the village. It was all we needed, all I needed …  Paradise indeed.

I later referenced it all in my song ‘Alphabet’, whilst also lamenting being heartlessly taken away from it all at the age of nine … but I will come to that in due course.