Trevor Heyliger was a whiney baby. He cried almost incessantly. His parents thought that there was something wrong with him but to be honest, many people still do.

 

They were desperate until one day having reached the end of their tether; one of them tossed a tiny transistor radio into his cot. He stopped crying immediately and whenever he got upset, this would keep him quiet for hours. He claims to remember. Maybe that’s the reason he needs music now. It has always soothed and fascinated; excited and depressed.

 

The 60’s saw many Afro-Caribbean’s “welcomed” to Britain to fill the jobs that nobody else wanted. For his parents, it was an opportunity to build a better life for them and their intended family. This proved to be the case and after a difficult settling in period, Rosena and James Heyliger began to revel in their new and exciting world. They would throw regular parties for their fellow ex pats, new friends and neighbours and at the centre of these was the radiogram.

Trevor recall’s seeing his father stack up the record player with 7 or 8 7inch discs; the “Clack” of each disc as it dropped clumsily onto it’s predecessor and the almost agonising wait as the mechanical arm swept into position to release the glorious sound of The Stones or Desmond Decker and the Aces or The Beetles or Toots and the Maytals.

Both parents played the piano and this added to the cocktail of British Rock & Roll, Pop, Reggae, Ska and Soca music meant that there were many different influencing sounds growing up.

 

 

After a few years and in an effort to further improve their standard of living, Trevor’s parents did the unthinkable. They moved from the relative safety of the multicultural “Meadows” to a rural area where there were no other black families at the time. The 8 year old Trevor saw his popularity plummet rapidly and many beatings ensued.

 

His misery was further compounded when at his new junior school, he first took up the recorder and then the violin.
He recalls fondly, an episode that occurred on the short walk home from school violin practice where three local boys were waiting for him. They seemed aggrieved by something but he politely bid them “Good day” and attempted to complete his journey. Sadly, they had other ideas and by now had become quite agitated. Remembering something his music teacher had told him about music having “Charms to soothe the savage breast”, he set about trying to placate the boys with excerpts from Handel’s Water Music. It failed and he was again beaten severely.

 

That pretty much sums it up. The pursuit of music has at times been costly and painful but it is far too important to give up on.

There have been some successes though, he had one of his songs recorded by soul legend Geno Washington and he also won the Jazz category of the UK Songwriting Contest with a song entitled “Running Back”. There have even been a few glorious moments when fickle, alcohol soaked fans screamed for more as he played bass guitar in some short lived band.

 

He’s almost certain that he’s a songwriter though, even if there is doubt from those around him. That’s why he’s still trying to write the song that he’ll be remembered for…and he’ll probably succeed.