b'Two years after I started making guitarscleared - someone had spotted my unattended professionally, I was making them for everybody Ibriefcase, remembered a rather scruffy looking came in contact with, often to unusual designs thatman (me - what a cheek!) who had left his had been discussed at length with the customer. briefcase behind, and they had decided that it Any design that I wanted to repeat needed to havemight be a bomb. a name, I had used the obvious ones from the mostA young librarian was crouched on the floor, with popular plays, so I shifted my attention to Theone catch of the briefcase open, poking about Tempest to claim the name Prospero for my firstinside it with a ruler. It was a wooden ruler of ever 12-string. The character of the guitar was verycourse, because all trained and qualified librarians unusual, with a particularly short string length andknow that defusing a bomb by poking it with a a cutaway shoulder, both a little radical at the time.plastic ruler would be terribly unsafe. The character Prospero is a Sorcerer, and I made the guitar for the Sorcerer himself, Gordon Giltrap,This is all true - I could not have invented it.so that worked OK, except that when he received it,It was hilarious at the time, but I do have other Gordon says he cried. Gordon does pop up quite amemories about bombs. When I went home to lot in my story, but not usually crying. Birmingham, my friends and I used to visit two The Tempest also provided Caliban - a savagepubs in particular.The Tavern in the Town was and deformed slave, child ofthe blue eyed hagin a basement, and the Mulberry Bush was mostly Sycorax (I think I dated her for a while) - whatsheet glass. We could easily have been there when better name for a rather strange looking instrumentthe IRA bombs exploded.intended for jazz and fast single notes? I think herePart of the naming process is to think what a name the name more or less built the guitar. will sound like when spoken, or what it might beTo get new names and suitable quotes I beganshortened to, just like naming a baby. Sir Toby going to the county library to use their massiveBelch might be a great name, (not for a baby) but Concordance of Shakespeare. On one visit I leftimagine it in conversation; What sort of guitar do the library table to feed the parking meter outside,you play?.Oh, I play a Fylde Sir Toby Belch, you and came back to find that the library had beenwouldnt really be taken seriously would you?Dick GaughanDick is an icon of old school rebellious folk music.Very strong in his guitar playing and his political views, he works his guitars incredibly hard, and they do suffer as a result. The Dick Gaughan fan club commissioned me to repair his old badly damaged Martin guitar without him knowing, they had heard him say that he would only allow me to touch it. They managed to kidnap the guitar and get it to me, and he was exceptionally pleased to get it back, in one piece and back to its intended colour.He dropped by to say thank you with a few bottles, and fell in love with a Leonardo from across the room. It coincided with him receiving a royalty cheque of just the right amount of money, so everybody lived happily ever after. I look forward to Dicks visits, he and I probably wouldnt agree on much if we were on Question Time, but we do manage to put the whole world to rights while he is having a smoke outside my workshop.44'