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engineering at school or anything. That meant I could only listen to what they were listening to, but

it did mean that at that time, I accidentally discovered that a loudspeaker could work as a
microphone, so even when they turned the radio off, I could hear what they were talking about
downstairs, which wasn’t very good for a young kid. In the end, I got the opportunity to have my
own radio in my room, so I used to listen to the radio, BBC Radio Three and all the European radio
stations and that’s where I heard American music, jazz and blues. That’s where I heard it all. It was

all clandestine and mystifying and really exotic
and different.

BiTS: How did you get the nickname Wizz? Was
it to do with your guitar playing?

WJ: I suppose I completely missed my vocation.
I should have been either a journalist or
something because I loved comics.

BiTS: Oh, right.

WJ: Well, I was into comics and I used to make
my own comics and everything. I used to sit for
hours at night imitating the look of small print. I
spent hours and hours instead of doing my

homework - I’d spend hours doing all that stuff.
I used to make all these books. I listened to
songs on the radio and get the lyrics. If a song
was in the hit parade, I’d get the first line of
each verse and then when it was on again, I’d
get the third line and gradually do that and get
all the lyrics and then I’d write them all in these

songbooks and then I’d do drawing and things. I
remember one day, I had about three volumes of
these books, I took them to school one day, and
this teacher found one. He said my g0d, I can
see you’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of

hours on these books. They’re really excellent. Why don’t you spend some time on your schoolwork
[chuckling]? In fact, one day my desk was plundered, and they all got stolen by some jealous
student. Anyway, the nickname thing was in one of the comics I used to read. Although I’m
theoretically very introverted and shy, I’ve always wanted to show off and the thing is in one of
these boys’ magazines they had a competition one week to send in your nickname and we’ll print
your name. I thought the idea of seeing my name in print, that would be good, so I said to my mum,
what’s my nickname? She said you haven't got a nickname, but you’re always mucking around with

conjuring tricks and magic, or trying to do card tricks, why don’t I call you Wizzy? I said yes,
alright, so I sent my name in to this competition, Wizzy, and then sure enough, two weeks later I
bought the paper, whatever it was - Boys’ World or something - and amongst all the nicknames
listed, there it was Wizzy Jones.

BiTS: Well, I never did. What a wonderful story.

WJ: When I went to school, I just kept up the name because, as I said at the grammar school, there
was a good chance of being beaten up or whatever if you were a bit of a weakling, and the way you