WISE MAN TO THE NATION

Brrng brring . An answer machine beeps: "x equals minus b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all upon 2a. AND DON'T FORGET!" A human voice cuts in: "Hello?"

"Oh hello, is that Ivor?"

A pause. "Mr Cutler here."

I should be enjoying this. I have been honoured with a rare interview with the legendary Ivor Cutler: poet, writer, musician, cult hero and septuagenarian rock'n'roll icon, and after one sentence I feel like a wee boy who has been cheeky to the headmaster. Perhaps it is more to do with the voice than the requested formality; Mr Cutler speaks with a honeycombed resonance that manages to be both soothing and authoritative. As our conversation thaws, he reveals that he is talking to me from bed, surrounded by piles of books about natural history, and it is impossible not to be charmed by the image. He is no longer the stern schoolmaster and has become the favourite grandfather I was expecting.

The accent actually originates in Ibrox, Glasgow, from the austere twenties and thirties, but seems to belong in a cottage on a secluded Highland Glen. As a Jew, he never felt truly at home in Scotland, and he has lived in London since 1952. "My ancestors came from Eastern Europe because of the pogroms" he explains. "I was seen in Scotland as a person of no consequence. I'm not a middle-of-the-road kind of person, I'm much happier among the people in London because like myself they have run away from their environment to find out what they really were themselves."

Many of Mr Cutler's best-loved books, poems and albums, such as Life in a Scotch Sitting Room Vol. II and Gruts, owe much of their appeal to his uncanny ability to capture the surreal experience of childhood. This ability was undoubtedly honed by three decades spent teaching music and drama to primary school pupils. Was his own childhood a happy one, I enquire?

"How could I tell? I was only a child" he splutters with unarguable logic. "It sounds a bit daft but you're in a very small environment and I found it quite impossible to compare myself with other children."

"Except" he continues, "having been born in what are casually known as the slums, with children running around with their bums hanging out of their trousers, I suppose I was better off than many of them were. My main memories are of unsolicited aggression. I remember sitting with a wee girl beside the road and some fellows came along, picked up some horseshit and threw it at us."

The unique vision and humour of Mr Cutler has won him passionate fans as diverse as John Lennon and philosopher Bertrand Russell. Undoubtedly the most influential however, has been John Peel, for whom he has recorded sessions every year since 1969. This goes some way to explaining Mr Cutler's ongoing status as rock'n'roll's most, ahem, mature icon. A label he is quick to disavow:

"It just happens that some people who enjoy what I do also enjoy rock and roll. I don't think they see me as a rock and roll man because my musical tastes were formed long before rock and roll. Peel has been playing me once or twice a year for about thirty years now so all these kids discover Peel and come upon me in their early teens and they just take me on board." Nevertheless, he was one of the ten 'cult artists' recently chosen to select their favourite records for the EMI 'Songbook' series, and he is now signed to the Creation record label, home of Oasis.

With the post of Poet Laureate still up for grabs, there would surely be no more popular choice for the job than Mr Cutler. I suggest an alternative post of 'Wise Man to the Nation', like a national village elder who could advise us on the vagaries of the world. He chuckles.

"Well, you see, I thought I was stupid up until the age of 42, but suddenly the penny began to drop as I made my reputation on the radio and I realised that I was being assessed intellectually when I'm not an intellectual."

"I couldn't be Poet Laureate because when I work creatively I never know what I'm going to create, I work directly from my unconscious. I'm like a coffee pot and the material just pours out. So if the Queen said write up a poem for so-and-so I'd have to say 'I'm terribly sorry I can't do that, I don't work that way.' They [intellectuals] put me off British poetry because they use craftsmanship, and there's nothing wrong with craftsmanship but it doesn't tell you what's inside the head of the person who's written it."

"When I read my poetry to audiences," he continues, "half are able to empathise from their unconscious and they feel they are communicating with me. The other half just think I'm an idiot. It is much better to be controversial than to have everyone say you are marvellous."

The bond which so many of us feel with Mr Cutler is reciprocated. Sometimes fans will talk to him in the street and if they do not already write poetry, Mr Cutler will invite them home.

"Within an hour I have taught them the technique that I use and they've written three poems. I'll read the third one to them from the other side of the room in my posh voice and they can't believe it. For the first time in their life they are hearing what's inside themself and they go away floating on air. I've done that with 61 people now, only five of them couldn't deal with it, they were too stuck in their usual ways. It's like sowing the seeds for a new generation."

A whole new generation of Ivor Cutlers. The future will truly be a strange and wonderful place.