Identity

As a teenager, John’s character and musical creativity were strongly influenced by his attempts to gain access and acceptance within a culture of rock ‘n roll, set within a largely blue collar teenage population in Liverpool’s inner city.  He was determined to shed a background in the leafy boulevards and manicured parks of Woolton by adopting a smokescreen of rebelliousness, sarcastic wit and belligerence. He desperately needed to have a grounding to support his vulnerable self-esteem. It was in rock ‘n roll that he found an identity which was to be crucial and life-saving. John’s life support of music and writing was also to be supplemented by the cultural impact of the city and port of Liverpool. John desperately needed and wanted the raucousness, spontaneous humour and vibrancy that could be found in Liverpool’s blue collar life.

In these teenage years, his early trips into inner-city Liverpool found John intrigued and in awe of the locals with their sharpness, wit and streetwise dialogue. He adopted a Scouse accent, which came into conflict with John’s surrogate mother from the age of five, Aunt Mimi, and the conditioning of John towards King, Country, Empire and the linguistic fabric of these in the shape of ‘BBC English’. John’s conservative upbringing by his aunt left him ill-equipped for validation within the local rock ‘n roll community, and to win acceptance by his peers he proceeded to adopt an exaggerated toughness that he never fully abandoned.