The guitar that came home

Christmas 1973. Slade are at No.1 with "Merry Xmas Everybody" and a 10 year old me is desperate for a guitar. There's been a very cheap nylon strung one hanging around the house for years and I've been bitten by the bug. Christmas morning, and I must have been a good boy as Santa has left me a Kay E100 and a 5watt amp. I'm in heaven. It sort of looks the same as the one's I've seen on TV. It's got horns! It's electric! It's alive! As the song goes, I played it 'til my fingers bled. 1978. I join my first band and I'm sorry to say that my Kay isn't cutting it any more. I've seen copy guitars that really do look like Fender Strats and I now want one. My bandmate has a friend who wants a guitar. I sell it for £15. I buy a Satellite Strat. I'm off to the races.

Time passes and I've forgotten my Kay. I've joined bands, I've done OK. I've got real Fender Strats and Teles. I've got a Les Paul, I've got a small collection. I'm a jobbing musician. I travel, I gig. Gear comes and goes but I'm good at keeping my guitars. However, I see a documentary about a famous musician and at his home studio he's got a gazillion beautiful instruments, worth thousands, but the interviewer mentions an old one on the wall. It turns out to be his first electric. PING! I wonder whatever happened to mine?  I still keep in contact with my old bandmate and I ask if he remembers it. He sure does and is still in contact with his mate who bought it in '78 (keep up at the back...!) I ask, gently, if I could have it back but his pal says it's now with HIS mother who treasures it as her little boys' first guitar. Ah, that's OK, I say. At least it wasn't thrown away! Someone still gets joy from it.

Fast forward 10 years to two weeks ago. I now teach guitar at a local Arts Centre. There's a lady who has been coming a couple of months who approaches me after a lesson and says she has a guitar I might be interested in. I open the bag. It's my old Kay. It turns out she is the partner of the guy who bought it in 1978. He found out she was having lessons, and just in passing, asked the teachers name and when she said "Jim Maving", he remembered me and told her the story of the guitar. His mother passed this year and he wanted to give it to me.

So, back it came. It had two strings on it. Was pretty gunky! It hadn't really been played for a long time. But, my good friend, Alex Hughes, loves to tinker around with guitars. He a maestro! He stripped, cleaned and reassembled it and has restored it back to it's former glory.

This guitar started it all for me. I've travelled the world, played with great musicians, met fantastic people, had the best laughs, the best times all thanks to this one guitar. I just wish my parents were here to see it come home and to see what their boy did with its' help.