My Family
Odds And Ends | Music | Pub | Family
My Wife
I met my lovely wife, Rigmor, (known to one and all as “Rig”) at the Nice Jazz Festival in July 1990. I’d been going to the festival for several years, tagging along with a bunch of about a dozen blokes, mostly from the Bristol area. I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that “a Norwegian bird who lives in Bristol” was coming along this time, but three days after we’d arrived, we found ourselves sharing a lunchtime drinks table outside Mori’s Bar on Rue de France, with my old mates Roger James and Mike Bevan.
As we talked, I learned that Rig was originally from Bergen, on the West coast of Norway, but had lived in the UK since 1964, when she came over as an au pair. Like me, she was divorced, with two children, Kristin (who got married to John in 2002, and is now Mrs. Morris), and Linda, who’s due to marry James Wood in 2004, when she will become a “Norwegian Wood.” Rig had sent Kristin and Linda, both of whom were bilingual, to live with her sister, Sigrunn, and Rig was to join them in September, when the sale of the former matrimonial home went through.  |
Plenty of booze was going down, before, during and after lunch, so the next bit’s a bit hazy, but by mid-afternoon – barely three hours since we’d first really started talking to each other, I’d asked her to marry me, and she’d accepted. I don’t think we really sobered up that day, but the following morning we discovered that we hadn’t changed our minds. On Friday, 13th July, I bought Rig a sapphire engagement ring, and we became officially engaged.
To celebrate the engagement, we had lunch at Queenie’s on the Promenade des Anglais – cep mushroom omelette and chips, with a green salad, washed down with a bottle or two of Chablis. (We’ve celebrated our anniversary each year by having exactly the same meal, first by returning to Queenie’s and latterly, now we’ve stopped going to Nice, at The Brickmakers. The trouble is, we’ve been getting the date wrong every year, thinking it was Bastille Day, the 14th July.)
Originally, we intended putting off getting married for a few years, but after a few months of commuting between Chobham and Bergen, Rig and Linda, shortly to be followed by Coco, Rig’s Burmese cat, moved into my cottage on January 1st 1991. (Kristin had by then moved back to Bristol to finish her studies.) On February 22nd, Rig and I were married at John Street Methodist Church in downtown Manhatten, just a few blocks from the sorely-missed World Trade Center. Apart from the vicar and his wife, the only other person there was my old friend John Penhale, former drummer with The Stormers, now living in New York.
Rig plays piano, guitar, harmonica, and electric bass, (she’s on track one of the album.) Despite managing to exasperate each other quite reguarly, (probably due to booze), we’re even happier now than when we first met, if that’s possible.
My Daughter
Emma Susan Kirtley was born on May16th, 1969 at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Boscombe, a district of Bournemouth. Right from the start, she was a “good” baby, sleeping through the night from an early age, and smiling a lot. For a long time, though, she had hardly any hair, so her mum, Susan, made sure she always had a hat on whenever she went out. (You’d find that a bit hard to believe if you saw the thick mane she’s got now.)
Emma was the first member of our family to get a degree, and that meant a lot to me, as I’d always regretted not taking one myself.
She got a 2.1 in Business Studies at Bournemouth University, and went on to become a “high-powered executive” (my words, not hers!) in a training company. In 1994 she married Gareth, an accountant, (as well as an accomplished golfer and drinker), and on August 30th 2001 their daughter Katie was born, followed on 30th July 2003 by the twins, Oliver and Samuel. Emma and Gareth have a lovely house in Chester.
(Emma would have played “Hill Street Blues” on my album, if she hadn’t been heavily pregnant with the twins at the time.)
My Son
Peter Edward Kirtley was born in Cuckfield, Sussex on April 14th 1972. If his sister had been a “good” baby, Pete had no intention of following suit, and a good night’s sleep, particularly for Susan, became a thing of the past. From an early age, it became clear that he hadn’t inherited my lack of self-confidence, and had the sort of determination that, in later life, would see him through the hard times and setbacks before he became a successful song-writer and record producer. Pete’s production company, Jiant, is based in Guildford, Surrey.
Pete’s married to Tamsin, and they’ve got two children, Josh, born on November 4th 1995, and Holly, born 18th February 2001. Pete produced my album, and Josh plays additional percussion on the first track.
With his partner, Tim Hawes, Pete’s had a number of hits around the world, including Pure and Simple, for which he received an Ivor Novello Award for the biggest selling UK single of 2001, Pure and Simple, co-written with Alison Clarkson. I’ve always liked that tune, and named my album after it.
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