The Difference A Day Made
Interview - The Guardian 1997
Ivor talks to Annie Taylor
Now in his mid-seventies, Ivor Cutler, one of Britain
=s best loved humorists and eccentrics, will be reading this week on Radio 3 from his new collection/CD, A Wet Handle, and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on June 23.>
When I was 16, I thought I=d become a doctor, like my dad. When he told me I would have to smash a live frog=s head against a brick wall and dunk it in acid to see it=s spinal cord at work, I realised he didn=t want me to be a doctor ( I was a humanitarian vegetarian at the time). So I went to Rolls Royce where they made spitfires for the Second World War, and became an engineer. I loved it. But I was no good at it. So I trained to be a navigator. Just after I wrote home that I was now Sergeant Cutler, I was called into the CO=s office and told I was a menace and that my plots were dreadful.>
I was grounded and sent back to Civvy Street where I became a teacher and had the time of my life. However, my headmaster said I was no good.>
I desperately wanted to be a painter and started classes at Glasgow School of Art. I=d come across Henry Moore=s work and used to play with the clay to make what seemed to me pretty visceral shapes. But the teacher wanted proper sculpture and tried to get me out.>
I left my homeland and came south, to London, in 1954. Writing then began to manifest itself and I spent three years trailing round Tin Pan Alley, flogging songs. But no-one wanted to sing them. Eventually, in 1957, I said the seven words that changed my life: Perhaps I ought to sing them myself. And that=s the roundabout way it has continued. I now find myself with Creation, the people who do Oasis.=