Watching The Boy Friend by Sandy Wilson countless times as a young man never failed to fill me with delight and a longing for an age I had never known; it influenced a lot of my work with the band the Temperance Seven.
Wilson made life a little richer in those dark early 50s. Sitting in the gods, in my duffel coat and open-toed, existentialist sandals, a struggling art student, all I knew was that the music filled me with a happiness that had me humming on the bus all the way home to my miserable bedsit in Earl's Court; the bright, witty, gently jazzy music ran through my head as I painted into the night. A happy meeting with a few fellow student musicians who shared my nostalgia resulted in the Temperance Seven. I like to think Wilson would have enjoyed our music as much as I delighted in his.
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