I had three stages of knowing Wellington Mara. He was my boss for a long time and he was a father figure. And finally, as we got older, he was my friend. ↗
And as I grew older, I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London, and they said, well, no, we won't accept you, because we haven't a clue - you know - of the future of a so-called 'deaf' musician. And I just couldn't quite accept that. ↗
I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about! ↗
To be perfectly honest, I think that as I'm growing older, I'm just growing more impatient. I'll be very happy if at some point people say, 'Michael's grown wiser and softer in his old age.' But we'll have to wait and see what my next project is. ↗
Well my dad was a pretty good player at one stage and my two older brothers played golf as well. So there were always golf clubs flying around the house. ↗