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AS: Oh yes, what happened at the holiday camp, stayed at the holiday camp [laughing].
BiTS: [Laughing] We'll stick with that. Okay, now, when you were working in the
city, were you listening to music at that stage?
AS: I've always loved music, I mean, from a very early age. My father was a very
talented pianist and also a flautist. He also composed music and so I lived in a house
where there was a lot of music and that basically instilled a love of all sorts of music.
I sang from, I don't know, about eight or nine. I sang in various choirs, and I carried
on singing in choirs and choral societies probably for 20 odd years. Something like
that. When I was at school, I sang in about six different choirs at school. I was lucky
enough to sing in a couple of cathedrals, Winchester and Chichester cathedral. We
also sang on television.
BiTS: This sounds like a good choir, Ashwyn.
AS: Yeah, I mean, it was quality. I think I
can say that without being too boastful. I
just loved it, I mean, we always used to
joke that the choir obviously was based
around the school Chapel, and we always
used to joke that the choir was the biggest
bunch of atheists around [chuckles]. But I
just loved singing. I loved the music, and I
still do. I mean, I often say that without
music there is no life. For me, that's
definitely the case.
BiTS: Do you still listen to a lot of different
kinds of music?
AS: Oh, absolutely, yes. Music is always on
in the car and the playlist in the car will
range from Baroque through blues, through 80s, through the ambient trance, big
band from the 40s. Other classical music, I mean just about anything apart from jazz.
BiTS: Oh, that surprises me a bit. Why no jazz?
AS: For me, too much of jazz is lots of wiggly notes and too much showing off. I
don't mind trad jazz, but all the rest of it, no you can keep that.
BiTS: Chuck Berry didn't like it either because he said it was ‘too darn fast’ [chuckles].
AS: Yeah, I guess that's a good way of describing it. When there's so much other
music around, which to me, is so much better, I don't feel too bad about not liking
jazz.
BiTS: Tell me how the blues caught you then.

