I met Caryn at the Edinburgh Festival 1994. I was at college at the time studying Small Scale Theatre (I wanted to be an actress...Why! I shant go off on a tangent). I had met a great girl at college and I wrote a song for her play so I toured with them. It was multi media so she said "get your flute out too, and play some notes", so I did! The highlight of this tour was the Edinburgh Festival, I loved a chance to travel, and Coventry's beauty and spirit just couldn't hold me down! Now this was no glamourous trip. I journied the seven hundred miles on the floor of the back of a Transit van, on a duvet samwiched by the set, James, and Sarah who was very excitable. When we arrived, it was sleeping bags out and a charge to the nearest sofa to grab the cusions and make a bed on the floor. This was no luxury appartment like in ''Shallow Grave'',..oh no, we were right by the graves... in the basement of a church, and with one set of keys between twelve of us. This was bound to be an interesting gig! Surprisingly, many of my student pals didn't share the same enthusiasm for late night music venues, late night drinking... topped with a little flirting so on and so forth. I inevitably found myself mooching around alone, but not alone...this was my kind of party! I stumbled upon a great little pub by accident, tucked away it was. Infact I noticed it because we had gone swimming in Infirmary Street (These swimming baths were like something out of a Victorian movie but we needed to shower and wash our bums...you get the picture).

So I went back to this pub The Royal Oak one evening and it was lovely, down to earth and the landlady insisted on silence when anyone sang so I did my turn and became a regular. Then one night, this gorgeous hippie bird walked in and started singing and God, did she have a lovely voice. Caryn Simmons was her name and she asked if we could do a song together. We sang an Indigo Girls number and sealed our friendship on a couple of pints of 80. Now without going into my life story, a few years later I was in New Jersey visiting an old mate of mine and I contacted Caryn who was all the way over in the San Juan Island (sounds exotic huh?). Yes she was living on Orcas Island which is off the coast of Washington State. She invited me to journey down to Baja California (look on the map, this is one hell of a journey by land!). So I took a three day train journey across the US and spent Christmas and NewYear with her and her family which is when I did some recording on the album she was working on at the time.

We did some gigs together and some ''open mic nights". We even busked on New Years Eve in L.A. Her family welcomed me with open arms and were very kind to me. Caryn and I on another occasion hitched around Mexico, oh I'm getting all nostalgic...A couple of years ago she invited me to tour some southern states but I had to decline as I was carrying my son Rory at the time. Caryn has played extensively in the Western US, plays the piano and guitar, writes some lovely songs and has a voice that makes you stop dead in your tracks.