Guitar Gods in Beds. (Bedfordshire: A Heavenly County). Mike Buchanan
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got three daughters, by three women. I never married any of them. The first woman was Carmel, and our daughter is Charmaine, who is now 36. I see Charmaine from time to time; she lives in Newcastle now.
First of all we lived in various flats in Bedford, then Harrold. Now there’s a funny story here. I suspected that Carmel had started an affair with another man while she was living with me. Over some weeks she’d kept denying she was seeing anyone else, but I wasn’t stupid, I knew. While I was looking after Charmaine, Carmel would go out for the evening, supposedly with her friend Judy. Judy would pick Carmel up in her car, but then drop her off down the road somewhere. A mate of mine called Charmaine’s new boyfriend ‘Judy in disguise with glasses’.
One night, when I was again looking after Charmaine, Carmel said she was going out with Judy again to a party. I asked where the party was, and she told me Great Barford. So after she left, I phoned my brother Brian up and promised him as much beer as he wanted if he’d come over to babysit right away. I put some party clothes on, leathers over them, and rode my bike to Great Barford. I soon found where the party was, loads of cars outside one house. I took my leathers off, tidied myself up, and knocked on the door. Someone opened it, and I pushed a bottle of wine in their hand and marched through the door with a cheery, ‘Good evening, I’m Paul.’
I walked slowly around the house and soon came across Carmel and her new boyfriend on the sofa, kissing and cuddling, and oblivious to everyone else. I sat down beside them, had a few drinks, and it was 20 minutes before they realised who was sitting next to them. Their faces were a picture. I asked them if they wanted me to fetch them a drink, and they both looked terrified.
So off I went, and rode back home. Now it was a freezing night. The boyfriend dropped Carmel off nearby, and she walked to the door. But I’d locked it, so she had to call the boyfriend to pick her up. This was before the era of mobile phones. I later told her she had to give the bloke up, or I’d leave her. She wouldn’t give him up, so I left her.
I then slept on various friends’ floors for a time and lived over the hairdresser’s shop here in Sharnbrook. Basically, I dossed around for a time. A friend of mine, a girl, went travelling around the world, and I looked after her house in Commercial Road in Bedford. She then told me one of her friends, Annabelle, was also going to stay in the house. She’s the one you fancied, the blonde-haired one in the photo. Annabelle became my girlfriend, and she found us a granny flat in Pavenham.
Annabelle in due course gave birth to my second daughter, Georgia, who is now 17. After three or four years we had to leave Pavenham, then we had a flat in Bedford. After a time Annabelle got on my nerves so much I couldn’t take any more, so I left and bought my own flat in Milton Ernest. They live in Bath now, and Georgia doesn’t speak to me.
Not long after I met Annette, who in due course gave birth to my third daughter, Lucy, who is now 13. After I lived with Annette for three or four years, that relationship became unbearable and I had to leave. I was heartbroken at leaving Lucy, but that’s how it was. They live in Felmersham now, just down the road, and I see a lot of Lucy.
Then I had a relationship with another woman. I can’t name her because of the slander and libel laws. Let’s just say she was a fuckin’ mad argumentative alcoholic, and demonic when drunk. I spent more nights in the bed at the police station than in her bed, as she’d call them to pick me up when she was drunk.
I didn’t bother getting married. I didn’t think I’d be able to honour a marriage any more than I could, or would want to, hold down a regular job. I didn’t plan to have children. Their mothers, as they usually do, planned that for me. That’s fair enough as long as they don’t expect me to be responsible, in the sort of way that they ought to be, for having done that. I don’t mind helping out.
I’ve known my wife Elaine since she was a little kid. I went out with her elder sister Julie when I was about 16, and her family lived in Harrold. Elaine was a little stick insect of a girl, about 12 at the time. I always liked Elaine. I’d seen her in various places about town over the years. We always had very pleasant conversations, but she was bringing her own family up. She was, and is, a maths teacher, and she was taught to sing very well, by a proper singing coach. She and her husband had two sons, who both became King’s College choristers. William, who is now 26, studied law, but decided to teach piano instead. Henry, who is now 21 or 22, is a cellist, pianist, and clarinet player, and conducts orchestras. They’ve both travelled around the world in connection with their music, and they’re superb musicians. I get on well with both of them, no problem. Henry recently became the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Lib Dems, in Bedford and Kempston.
In 2001, in the final days of the Ashburnham Road flat, Elaine asked me to record some backing music for a track. She was coming round to my flat more and more, but it wasn’t really for singing. She wanted to start something up with me. Her relationship with her husband had pretty well finished by this time anyway, and she was in the throes of divorce.
When Elaine’s divorce came through, with the proceeds of the property sale she bought a place in Bletsoe, The Old Post Office, and I moved in with her then. We later moved to this house on the High Street, Sharnbrook, in August 2007.
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