Thursday 27 July 2017

Walter Tottle - the gang back together


Just very briefly, for an hour outside a Costas in Ipswich, we got the band back together. After a day of classes at Woodbridge library, with Hev in tow having a Saturday out in Ipswich, I managed to meet up with Nick & Kev for the first time in over a decade.

The last time Walter Tottle, our childhood band, met up was at a school reunion in Market Harborough in 2003, when I joined the band on stage for a rendition of Pump It Up, and they entertained us with the hits of 1978. It was fantastic to meet up again at the weekend and discover that they're still playing.


Kev plays with a punk band, with a pirate theme, and Nick plays with Kev's wife in a folky double act. And they have between them a far better memory of our teenage years than I ever had. In our brief time together I learned that, in the photo above, that's not a real Gibson after all, but it's still the guitar Kev was so proud of that he ran all the way to my house to show it to me and dropped it on the way. I was reminded of the story of the talent contest when we got to the stage only for Kev to find his guitar case was locked and he'd left the key at home so he had to sprint all the way back to get it, while we waited for him. On stage. Quite how I've forgotten things like this I can't imagine.



Ironically it was my third weekend in a row in East Anglia, after playing Latitude the previous weekend and worked in Norwich the Saturday before that. Hopefully we'll meet again for longer, soon, and not leave decades in between meetings.


Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video 


Socks Do Shakespeare at The Camden Fringe, August 16 & 17 - Book now! 

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