1950

Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes

Then i'd go back home to where my mother would be ironing and listening to Lightnin' Hopkins - 'i got blues in the bottle, but the stopcork in my hand'.

Jackie Leven, The Deep Pool, May 2003

Born on 18 June 1950 in Kirkcaldy, he grew up in Glenrothes and in Prinlaws, the paper-mill village by Leslie. His father was a travelling salesman and later a carpet fitter. His mother came from Blyth in Northumberland and brought her Geordie speech with her to Fife. In the coal shed of their council house she kept a shrine to “Black Sophia”.