Phil Lynott’s words marked a new phase in my life 50 years ago

This is one 50th anniversary I want to celebrate and share. Why? Because a doctor at Charing Cross Hospital had told me in April 1968 that I would be lucky to see the age of 22. Perhaps his words struck a warning or maybe, as my father later observed, “I simply craved a life on the cliff edge to thrive and survive.” What I do know is that end of July 1968 was the start of a life-changing chapter in my young life. I moved from my life on the streets of London to Dublin - replacing blanket with guitar, amphetamines with Guinness and sense of impending doom with new hope.

I had struck up a friendship with Nick, a Lebanese bongo player who suggested that we busk to support our new lives in Dublin. Over the next few days we practised day and night until we were ready for our first performance. We set ourselves on a paved triangle on Grafton Street, opposite St Stephen's Green, which offered a natural stage and a busy crossroad

Money and praise

I think the first song I sang was Hey Joe, quickly followed by ‘Not Fade Away’ and ‘To Love Somebody.’ After our opening songs I dared to survey the scene around us. It was extraordinary. We had drawn a large crowd and people were even getting off the buses to get a closer look at our performance. You can hardly walk the length of yourself in a modern city without encountering your first busker but in those days they were a genuine rarity, especially in Dublin. If they existed at all, they were usually playing a squeezebox or a fiddle. To our knowledge, no-one had ever stood in a Dublin street playing a guitar before, far less a bongo, and we became an immediate sensation and after a 40 minutes session we retired to Bailey’s Bar with more than ￡10 in our pockets. That’s ￡120 in today’s money

That night in Bailey’s we were introduced to two local rock stars – Phil Lynott and Brian Downey who had formed a new band called Thin Lizzy.

‘We saw you guys today, said Phil. ‘You were pretty cool.’

‘Yeah, that was great guys – a fantastic show,’ enthused Brian.

Such praise was just the confidence boost we needed. Had we known that it was coming from the lead singer and drummer of what would soon become one of the world’s biggest bands, our heads may well have burst. I liked Brian immediately. He was warm, chatty and curious while Phil was more aloof. Like me, he was of mixed race – an Irish mother and a father from British Guyana. I think we recognized that in each other.

Each day our performances were getting stronger. To entertain an Irish pedestrian audience you have to offer a combination of musicianship and performance. You learn to project your voice and maximise the acoustic potential of the guitar. I didn’t know it then but this was the best training imaginable for so much of what has followed in my life since. The challenge of entertaining passers-by and retaining their attention for a whole set is an enormous one. Yet, that is precisely what Nicky and I were doing. My voice was getting stronger by the day and our presence seemed to grow with each performance. Our notoriety as performers was getting us noticed. An Irish Times photographer turned up and we featured in the following day’s edition. People would come from miles around to see us perform and each night we had a choice of parties to attend.

That was 50 years ago and almost to the day. Much has happened since of course, but I will always look back on that time in Dublin as the start of my career as a performer. Now I speak but, the confidence to take centre stage and belt it out?

Dublin is where that is rooted. The tragedy is that I outlived Phil Lynott by 32 years.

What the last 50 years has taught me above all else, is this. No matter where you are in your life, your destiny is not carved in stone. Young people, respond so readily to this message and I want to tell my story in this the Year of Young People Scotland 2018 #YoYP2018