PAUL AND I STARTED more recording with The Hokum Clones at Viper HQ. It had been going so well that we'd hoped to do a full LP for Viper, but they stalled when they got a new manager who was keen to hook bigger fish for her boys. Sadly, they ended up being too raw and meaty for the delicate palate of a conservative music industry that (as we had all accepted by this stage) required less challenging fare to market successfully.

I loved the sessions with Danny and Robby, though. The cream of the tracks ended up on Viper's 21st Century Liverpool Underground compilation, along with tracks from The Big Kids and the original Tramp Attack. We also got The Hokums to put the finishing touch to the third Unearthed: Liverpool Cult Classics volume with their stunning version of ‘Rock Island Line’, the song Leadbelly had popularized and which Lonnie Donegan had brought to the masses during the 1950s skiffle boom. It would in turn influence John Lennon and Paul McCartney's pre-Beatles outfit The Quarrymen and help kick-start the whole Merseybeat era. The Hokums’ version brought the tradition home in fine style and it seemed the perfect epitaph for the Unearthed trilogy: i.e., where it had all started.

I started teaching guitar to young students at St Margaret Mary's Primary School in Huyton's Pilch Lane. Another La's connection was no surprise. The previous guitar teacher there, who was moving away from Liverpool, was a guy called Boo (real name John Byrne) who had gone to school with Lee and was the actual player of the ‘There She Goes’ riff on the official single release: crazy world again! Jeanette had started working at the school doing therapy with the kids. John had said he was leaving and got in touch with me on Jeanette's recommendation. La la land!

It turned out to be fascinating but intense work. I worked with Year 3–6 students, doing half-hour sessions with small groups of between two and six in each class. I began with simple guitar tuning, but gradually got to a stage where they'd grasped the rudiments and I could teach them chords and then songs like Elvis Presley's ‘Suspicious Minds’, Dylan's ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, The Ramones’ ‘Rockaway Beach’ (I was proud of that one) and the inevitable ‘Yellow Submarine’.