5. The BeatlesAbbey Road
The Beatles connected with me on so many levels. Rubber Soul was the first album I bought of theirs, it was in stereo but we only had a Dansette, so I got told off by my mum. They came to Plymouth to film the Magical Mystery Tour and it was amazing, The Beatles coming to Cornwall! I bought Abbey Road when it came out. I was still at school and asked the music teacher at the ballet school if I could bring it in – I had wanted to be a dancer, the acting had come along with the ballet as the school had an agent and I started doing radio work, and then bad TV. Bad actor mode! That’s fun, you get to dress up and you get paid! And then you can buy a motorbike when your mum says you can’t, but I couldn’t hold it up properly. I’m lucky to be alive really, I had a couple of prangs – I got stuck between two lorries going in opposite directions, it was horrible. My kids don’t sit down and listen to music, but back then I made the whole class listen to it and afterwards we talked about it. It’s still fantastically avant-garde, it’s mind-boggling. I’m glad I met George Martin one night years ago, I was at a party and he was there, looking incredibly ancient, and I just had to go and say ‘thank you’ because he was such an amazing arranger. The combination of his work and those guys was just magical. There’s so many things I associate in my life with Abbey Road. It’s a very private record for me, I used to listen on headphones and be in my own world and they could take me away. I’m not quite sure I was very happy when I was on my own in London as a child when I think about it actually.
