John and I recorded The Child and The Garden around the time of my 18th birthday in 1980 although I began writing it just before my 17th. It was a time when I felt acutely aware of the passing of childhood and adolescence into adulthood.
The poem, beautifully sung by Hazel Pearce, who also plays violin on this piece, is Night and Day, from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. Yes, I'm afraid I borrowed and corrupted the title of his collection as well as many of the lines in the poem - the latter was definitely a rather arrogant mistake! Talking of mistakes, there are many in this piece, mainly by yours truly but "Child" means such a lot to me that I include it here anyway.
Peter Bagshaw - Guitars, recorder, electric organ, percussion
John Williams - Keyboards, bass guitar, percussion
Hazel Pearce - Vocals, violin
("Child" was recorded at Neil Foreman's "Jet" 4 track recording studio which we first used in April 1977 to record Lakeside, when it was known as "Jet Mobile." By June 1978 it had progressed from being situated in a caravan to a garage!)
