The Things I Did for Money

Dave has always been a bit of a scribbler, writing songs for his 1960s and 70s bands. He stepped up a gear in the 1990s, writing songs, poems, sermons and articles. Progress was slow, mainly down to his awful handwriting, but all that changed when he got his first word processor. A few years later he discovered the joys of blogging and much of this book began life in blog form. He is blessed (some may say cursed) with a memory that collects facts and anecdotes like a magnet attracts iron filings.
After he was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2009 he began writing his life story. He had so many blogs, notes and articles to draw from that it was clear that it needed to be split into several parts.
Dave's first three books cover his music story. The first was published in May 2018 and is called ‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’. It covers his early life and ends in 1974. The second volume 'Too Old for Punk' followed in October 2018 and covers the period from 1974-84. The third volume 'Forever Changing' brings the up to date.
All his musical adventures were funded by doing jobs he mostly hated. That’s why the book is called ‘The Things I Did for Money’. His life story may be poor in terms of wealth and fame but rich in events and anecdotes. It paints a vivid picture of the changing nature of the world of work in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21 Centuries.
Dave writes:
‘It seems to me that there are only two or three ways to approach your working life. I’ve heard of people who leave school and go to work in the same job in the same place and do exactly the same job until they retire. That would be my idea of hell. A variant of that is to do the same thing in different places. One of my friends has spent his entire working life as a company auditor, originally in the UK but based in New Zealand for the last 40 years. I’m sure you know many people who have done the same job in different places or for different firms. My career in the bank lasted just over two years. The prospect of doing that job for the rest of my life filled me with despair. What was the alternative? It wasn’t a conscious decision, but looking back I see that instead of doing the same thing in different places I did different things while living in the same place.’