Now living the other side of the world, near Sydney, Leo Sayer has certainly not forgotten his Sussex origins. Later this year he returns to refresh those memories.
Gerard Hugh Sayer, nicknamed ‘Leo’ by Adam Faith’s wife Jackie because his mane of curls reminded her of Leo the Lion, has decided to put his life on paper.
‘Just a Boy’, when it’s finished, will retrace his steps from birth at Southlands Hospital to his life in Australia. “I’ve just reached the Millennium,” he says.
Born to an Irish mother and English father, Leo Sayer’s childhood home was on the south side of the Upper Shoreham Road, the A27, in one of two semi-detached houses.
“If you walked down that road you came to the shops on the corner, and further down there was Buckingham Park on the other side of the road,” he says.
“It was a great place to live as a child – my brother and I had the whole hospital grounds to play in. My dad was managing engineer of the hospital, keeping the hot water pipes and boiler going, and we played all over the grounds. You can’t do that now.
“I was very lucky to be in Shoreham. You’ve got the beach, the River Adur, the port, the airport – so much going on. The way the Adur snakes up past Lancing College, up into Beeding and Bramber and Steyning – it’s beautiful. Every time I come back I visit. I’m always looking to see what’s changed – and so much has changed completely.”
The Sayer family of five – Leo was in the middle of his sister, Kathleen, who was three years older, and a brother, Brian, three years younger – were Catholics, with his father, Thomas, converting from Protestantism to join his more devout mother, Teresa. Thomas was from Folkestone, Teresa from just south of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.
“Some people would call our house the Presbytery because the priests would always come round to visit,” he says. “We went to two or three masses a week at St Peter’s Church, on Ship Street. I went to St Peter’s School.
“My brother and I were very rebellious and would bunk off and walk around the town all day. Then we’d lie about going to mass but my mother would find out because we’d get the name of the priest wrong.”
It was his religious roots that got him into singing.
“I was an altar server in the church and I learned to sing because a lovely Irish priest from Limerick, Father Dermott, had a golden voice even when he was speaking.
“I didn’t have the greatest childhood because I was such a little kid and got beaten up all the time. Father Dermott took me under his wing and taught me to sing. I became a soloist at church and sang at convents and priories – cathedrals, even.
“That’s where my voice came from, being a boy soprano and being taught to bring it up from the diaphragm, not from the throat. He gave me all these exercises and encouraged me – he was a wonderful mentor and was the celebrant at my wedding.”
School in Worthing
Little Gerard went to what was then the Blessed Robert Southwell High School, now St Oscar Romero (and named Chatsmore in between), in Worthing.
He was very intelligent – but nerves and dyslexia were too much for him and he failed all of his ‘O’ levels apart from Art.
“I loved English and things but I couldn’t do tests – my paper just had drops of sweat on it and scratchings out. I reacted really badly when the room went quiet for exams.”
He eventually made it to Worthing Arts School – the West Sussex College of Arts & Crafts, opposite the Connaught Theatre – and spent a lot of his time instead at the library, reading.
“I felt I had to educate myself because no one else was going to do it: no one understood those conditions then,” he says.
Still known as Gerard, or Gerry, then, Leo Sayer left art school after two years and apart from the odd bit of harmonica and folk clubs, he wasn’t really doing music because he felt art was his future.
In 1967 he headed for the bright lights of London, finding a garden flat in Ealing and doing graphic design – but before long it was too much for him and he had a bit of a breakdown and returned to Shoreham, where some friends were living on a houseboat called Anzac. He joined them.
“I worked in an Audi factory, moving car parts around, and reconnected with school friends who were now in bands,” he says. When guitarist Max Chetwynd moved in, the band Patches was formed.
Fast track to fame
It all happened from one audition in Brighton, which had been advertised by David Courtney, a drummer in Adam Faith’s band.
“Me and my band Patches won the audition and from then on it all happened so fast,” Leo says.
Courtney took him to see Adam Faith, who was acting in the TV series ‘Budgie’ at the time, and he was signed up immediately. The first record, ‘Living in America’, sold about 50 copies.
“I think my mum and dad bought most of them,” says Leo.
But it was Adam Faith’s ‘hutzpah’ that saw them through, Leo believes – and it wasn’t long before they were recording at Richard Branson’s mansion in Oxfordshire.
Living in Sussex at the time was a certain Roger Daltrey, of Who fame, and a mutual friend suggested Leo use his studio. On hearing his work, Daltrey asked Leo to write an album for him – ‘Daltrey’ – and its success, particularly of the single ‘Giving it all away’, cemented Leo’s career. In that song was the line ‘I was just a boy’, a recurring theme still.
“It all happened very quickly,” says Leo. “I came on stage as Pierrot – I wanted to keep reinventing myself. I didn’t want to have the same style for each album and the fans liked that there were so many different aspects of Leo. That’s what’s given me the longevity.”
Down Under
The move to Australia came about in 2005, when Leo was starting to feel like he was being forced to live in the past.
“I always got a really warm reception in England, but I felt like I was going nowhere. Where in Australia I was being offered a new album, new musicians to tour with and other opportunities – in England the work wasn’t there other than celebrating the sixties and seventies and making my hair bigger!
“It was tiresome and I was being invited to live in the past, not the present. I needed a kick up the arse to give me a challenge and Australia was certainly that.”
He and partner Donnatella left the UK in 2005 and after some years in Sydney, they now live in a village halfway between there and the capital, Canberra, in the Southern Highlands.
“I’d been here 46 times before I moved here,” he says. “It was the first question they asked me when I applied to emigrate. They said I should live here and I said well, I’m trying to!
“The vistas of Australia are huge. It’s such a contrast with England. The distances are incredible. Where we live is about 600 metres above sea level – it’s like the Cairngorms, with fir trees.”
The quiet is helping him with his book, which is coming along with the help, from the grave, of his parents.
“Throughout my career I wrote postcards to them,” he says, “from wherever I was touring. And they kept all of them, 800 or so. We found two chests, one of postcards, the other of press cuttings, and it’s all helped me to write the book.”
The Covid lockdowns in Leo’s village of 400 people have made Leo feel like he’s retired, he says.
But while really enjoying it in some ways, enough’s enough, and now it’s time to get back to work. And with 37 dates in the diary for his UK and Ireland tour, he’s certainly doing that.
“Worthing will be fun, it will be lovely to be back,” he says.
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