there, and then there’s the wife and they
say “oh, how did it go today, dear?” And
there’s nothing to say… You know, what – I
played the bass. Like you say to your kids
“how was school?” and they say “What
d’ya mean, how was school? I went didn’t
I?”. Yes, it was good – I can’t remember.
In the village, we run a local band called
Music Box for Ditchlingers. People in
Ditchling, they don’t care a toss about
who you are, because Ditchling’s got a
history of being a bit quirky.
All the great artists that live here and
have lived here, the great painters, the
poets, the calligraphers, musicians,
88
Roland Emmett, Dame Vera – I could
go on and on. I regard Ditchling as
one of those very special places. It’s
something to do with Feng Shui on a
crossroads. A direct line from the Battle
of Hastings and all the Normans ran
west. Some settled – all the deserters.
Some settled in Lewes. Some settled in
Ditchling. Some settled in Winchester
all the way down to Totnes. There’s a
whole line of people with curly hair and
brown eyes and shorter than anyone
else but they all sing and dance. They’re
Iberians. My dad taught me this. And my
mum’s side of the family are Irish so I
have this Irish confusion, you know – I
still think you can see vestiges of it, like
the further north you go the more redheaded people are on the east coast,
and I’m not saying they’re warriors,
but my missus is Welsh so there is the
advantage of being able to set fire to a
haystack and roll it down the hill on to
the Romans.
I’m glad there’s a mixture in this
glorious country of ours, you know. The
so-called immigration problem – it’s
the other way around. There are more
people who are born and bred here
moving abroad than there are people
who weren’t born and bred here coming
in - and look at the diversity we’ve got,
you know? If you are a young family
from Poland they are gonna come here
and they’re gonna thrive, you have to,
and those people that emigrate from
here are taking their pensions with
them and their property that they rent
out, you know. I think we’re lucky that
we haven’t had violent revolutions in
this country.
I’m a Royalist, you know, the fire service,
the police service, the armed services
swear an allegiance to the Crown and
that mustn’t be tampered with. Can you
imagine Boris being a president? I can’t.
I just can’t. Please. He doesn’t even wear
a crash helmet on his bike. He’s mad.
Mad as a brush.
Countries that think they’ve got it right,
they start marching and shouting how
good they are – it happens time and
time again. And I think we’re quite
tolerant religious-wise, you know, like
somehow we’re not fighting too much,
and we’re showing the way forward with
our lack of racism, and it’s right. That’s
the problem with what’s happening in
the Ukraine. It’s racial, you know, and
tribal. We ain’t got that problem. We’ve
got round that one.
So…the name Herbie Flowers?
That was a common nickname when I
was at school or Herbaceous Borders
was another one. My real name’s Brian
but the only person that calls me Brian is
my Auntie May and she’s 94 and lives in
Canada. She says ‘hello Brian’, so I know
it’s her on the telephone at Christmas.
My dad’s a musician, he says it was a
stroke of genius to overlay the bass line
in Walk On The Wild Side with the bass
guitar a tenth above…
I got booked by a record producer to go
and play the bass. Well, the bass to me is
either the double bass, a string bass, the
big one, the upright, (I call it my proper
bass) or a tuba. So I would take all three
instruments on recording sessions. I’d just
bung ‘em in the car, or van, I’d sling it in
89