I live in California now - yep, that’s me on Track 1 of the CD. I met up with Ann and some other old mates from school days a couple of years ago through the Internet and managed to get across for a visit in 2003. I hadn’t realized how low my batteries were but Geordie hospitality and genuine friendship put me back on my feet again. I’m off again this year (2004) for a recharge. You forget what a great place Northumberland is after you’ve been away 30 years or so. One of Ann’s incredible dialect poems about Ashington got under my skin and I really needed to show how proud I was of being a Geordie in the only way I know how - music. Luckily, I managed to badger her into co-writing the lyrics for a Geordie CD. It’s taken over a year (by email and a shared web site) to finish the song-writing and recording. I hope the CD shows how much we both feel about the area where we grew up. (Thanks for your patience Ann and for letting me arrange the songs with so many instruments.)