Product details
- ISBN 9781068710377
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 16 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Hawkwood Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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I acquired my first guitar at the tender age of five. From that moment on, I knew that one day I would become a famous ‘pop star’. I even had the name of my band, ‘Phil Star and The Falling Stars’. But… childhood dreams don’t always come true; things don’t always work out as planned. In this lifelong search for stardom, life has taken me along many routes, every one enjoyable and each with a mass of tales worth telling. However impossible some of these tales may sound, I assure you that every single one of them is as true as I remember. Sometimes my chronology isn’t quite accurate; sometimes names and places have genuinely been forgotten and substituted, but they are all true. One of the main reasons for committing this particular period in time to paper before any other is that most of the guys who feature still get together and re-tell the stories over a few pints, quite a few, actually. The tears of laughter that these retellings create, decades later, plus the countless number of times that someone has said, ‘You ought to write a book’, has inspired me to do just that.
From the age of thirteen I had been playing in a semi-professional band, turning ‘pro’ almost as soon as I left school. This particular episode takes place between 1973 and 1979, mainly in the north-east of England. The shipbuilding had all but disappeared, but from Newcastle in the north to Darlington in the south, this area had become the clubland entertainment capital of the world: There were more working men’s clubs per square mile here than anywhere else on the planet. During this period I played with the two bands that feature in the following stories, namely, ‘Trigger’ and ‘Childs Play’. Both outfits were ‘cabaret’ bands, complete with pink catsuits, cleverly segued medleys of Beach-Boys hits, some slightly more than risqué stage comedy and a healthy contempt for bingo, committees, concert secretaries and anyone who didn’t think that the band was wonderful.
The main characters are Tony Grant, drums and vocals; Paul Farnell, bass guitar and vocals; Keith Andrews, keyboards and vocals plus yours truly on guitar and vocals for Childs Play. ‘Liccul’ Geoff Hayward, guitar and vocals with Tony, Paul and me for Trigger.
Link: https://youtu.be/ylIgoHM6Noo
Philip Barrett was born at home in Rochdale 1957. He frequently ‘strummed’ his ‘bing-bing’ – a small coal shovel by the fire and sang along to the hits of the day. On his 5th birthday, Elsie & Bill bought him a real bing-bing and a short time later sent him every Saturday to guitar lessons.
Age 8, he started learning the violin at school, at age 11 it was tuned percussion and when he was 12 yrs old, Elsie & Bill bought him an old upright piano from the Salvation Army. The piano was a fiver – but an extra fiver was required to coax Jesu’s finest soldiers to carry it upstairs in the council flat where the Barrett’s lived. Music has always been his life. Playing live gigs at home & abroad, playing on countless recording sessions, arranging and producing in recording studios.
He relocated to Denmark at the end of the seventies and became a successful record-producer and was awarded silver, gold, platinum and multiple-platinum discs for his work on over a hundred projects. Phil returned to the UK in 1990 and started an entertainment agency. He also became a serial entrepreneur and was awarded Mensa Businessman of the Year in 1996. Now retired due to Parkinsons, Phil still plays whenever he can.
At the time of writing this, Phil has already started on Volume 2 of his lifetime in music: ‘The Boy That Left The Band.’
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