When I was in my teens I was often accused of being lazy. I worked in my father’s newsagent shop – a business I was eventually supposed to part inherit, but decided I didn’t want it. But it seemed I was rarely in it.
In actual fact, one week out of two I wasn’t in the shop during normal working hours. I was up at four o’clock in the morning, working on the paper rounds, and then from five o’clock in the evening until we shut.
But this wasn’t all I was doing.
No, I was lead guitarist in the best rock band in the area – well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? Apart from the occasional gig, we also practiced three times a week in a hay loft above a barn behind a pub in a sleepy village.
There was no heating in the loft, so in winter it was rather cold. I used to argue I learnt my manic stage antics here as a means of keeping me warm so my shaking fingers could feel the fret board.
And then those awful ladders.
Entry to the loft was via a vertical, fixed ladder and through a small hatch, or opening the hay doors and leaning ladders up to them. Going to and from a gig involved sliding drum kit, heavy speaker cabinets and the rest up and down these ladders.
It was a tiring affair, especially at two o’clock in the morning, in the dark, after a gig. And finished, I’d often get home just in time to open the shop and begin the paper rounds.
Lazy? I don’t think you CAN be lazy over something you love.
© Anthony North, October 2007
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