Page 6 - C:\Users\ikm\OneDrive\Documents\Flip PDF\BiTS_08_AUGUST_2020\

THE BiTS INTERVIEW: George Shovlin

BiTS: Let’s make a start, if we may. I gather that you had a career as a teacher before you became a
musician, or were they simultaneous?
GS: No, I was a teacher for over 30 years. Loved it and when I got involved in music, well I’ve been
involved in music since I was very young, but

music was always a hobby—something which I
loved. I loved the blues but I also loved teaching
and I was quite passionate about teaching and I
had a young family so I wasn’t in a situation
where I could even consider the possibility of
being professional musically. It never occurred
because I was just so passionate about teaching.

All throughout my teaching life, I’ve been
involved in music and that’s it. I’ve got no
regrets, absolutely none because I finished
teaching in 2005, I continued working in
education for another five or six years, but I

still miss it. I still miss teaching. I’m not sure I
could do it anymore, but music has always been
there as well.
BiTS: What was your subject, George?
GS: Maths.
BiTS: Okay, that’s something that I’ve never
been able to cope with. I’ve always been

dreadful at maths.
GS: I would never have described myself as a
mathematician, but I would certainly describe
myself as a maths teacher because, from the very start, it sounds rather trite this, but I wanted to
teach, but I wanted to teach the people who I was brought up with. I’m from Sunderland. It’s a

working—class background and I also wanted to make maths accessible because quite a lot of the
time, maths is given a bad press by maths teachers [chuckling]. I loved teaching. I put a lot into it,
and I got a lot back out of it as well.
BiTS: Tell me, was there music in your house when you were growing up? What attracted you to
music?
GS: When I was growing up, I was born in 1947, so when I first started becoming aware of the
world, it was the very early 50’s. That’s pre—rock and roll, but I have two older brothers. One who

spent some time in Germany doing his national service and he, for example, brought Elvis Presley’s
album back to Britain, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. My other brother, he was more into jazz, Oscar Peterson
and even an old British orchestra leader, Peter York, and they were sounds at home. I really started
to take a note of music as an entity, something which wasn’t just in the background. That was the
start.

BiTS: What started you playing guitar then?
GS: One of my brothers got a guitar from a friend when I was about eight and my mum wouldn’t let
me play with it because it was his guitar and she didn’t want me to break it, so I was told not to use