I am an enthusiastic but very limited musician. I’ve never learned to read music properly, never had a lesson (too lazy) and I am certainly no virtuoso. But playing music, especially with friends, is important to me. Above all, it provides opportunities for creativity. It would be great to be able to play the guitar better and to have a stronger singing voice, but to be able to play at all is a lot better than nothing. Despite developing arthritis in my fingers I am still playing in an amateur band called One for the Wall.

OftW back story…

One for the Wall grew out a duo formed by two architecture undergraduates at Bristol University in the mid ‘70s. Joanna Elford, a classically-trained singer, and singer-guitarist Bernard Hanaway performed in folk clubs and on local radio. Bernard started writing songs for Jo’s soaring soprano voice. But the duo broke up when he moved to Oxford in 1977. Then, as now, the city had a thriving music scene.

Bern formed a four-piece band that included my former schoolmate Andrew Burnham on bass guitar. I soon joined them on electric and 12-string guitar, then Jo returned to sing with us. It started to come together and I felt excited about Bern’s songs and the sound we were making. After very little practice, we entered the 1978/9 Melody Maker Rock/Folk contest, winning our heat and progressing to the final at Soho’s famously sweaty Marquee Club. The competition was won by Splodgenessabounds, who soon had a UK Top Ten hit with “Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please”. Not to win was disappointing but hardly surprising. Journalist Chris Welch was unable to convince his fellow judges that we were the only proper band to perform that evening!

We carried on anyway

The original band petered out and we formed another quartet. I went to London in 1984 and that was that.

Four decades on, four of the original band’s members are back playing together, despite being scattered across the country. We play new, original material by Bernard, with no cover versions at all.

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Finally, we played a gig! With an album’s worth of new material we played Klub Kakofanney at The Wheatsheaf, Oxford, in January 2020. We were set to return in March when COVID-19 struck.

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Lockdown over, and now joined by new drummer Chris Ford, we completed and self-published our long-postponed debut CD.

The Lover’s Song was launched on 4 December 2020. To save the music press the bother, I reviewed it myself.

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On 3 October 2022 we released a second CD, called Scent of the Moon, performing two sets at the Half Moon Hotel in Herne Hill.

And on 1 March 2024 we launched our third album – Memoryland – in Oxford.

In September 2024 we began to work on a fourth album of original material, enjoying ourselves as much as we ever did.

Here’s one catchy little Beatly track. You can hear more on the band website.