Thanks great article. Some very interesting reader comments too, but this one is a real gem":
"ParcelOfRogue
4 hours ago
19
Mark, if you are reading this, I've never seen you play but, I mainly grew up in Loughton and as a kid played with the sons of Vera Pigram, who was giving you lift every day when you were teaching at Loughton College. She said she liked you. Her kids introduced me to Jethro Tull and I'm still a fan.
Another old friend, Jane ( was in a ceilidh band with - now lives in Luxembourg), also taught there and claims she had to hide you in a cupboard when the Principle came looking for you and you were drunk after a trip to the pub, possibly the Winston Churchill in Debden?
I also had some guitar lessons from Cliff Newall, who you offered the job of Rhythm Guitar to in the early Dire Straits. He turned it down because he had a small mortgage to pay in Buckhurst Hill and the band was not yet really solvent.
Another friend said he knew someone who was studying at Loughton College who used to hear someone playing electric guitar not plugged in, from a Lav cubicle. He later recognised the rif from radio play.. It was Sultans of Swing !!
A guitar luthier told me he did some work for you a few years after you had hit the chart heights and you told him that you had £13m in your current a/c and didn't know what to do with it. I expect you've had more practice at that since.
It is very pleasurable to have these anecdotes centred on someone I have never met or seen perform."
