And the Hello and welcome to episode 142 of soda jker on songwriting.

This is Simon, here as always with Brian.

And joining us today is a performer, musician, photographer and author

who first found fame in the early 60s

as a member of the comedy group the scaffold

before going on to a wide and varied career which included two highly regarded solo albums

both of which have become cult classics.

One of those albums, 1974's Delightful McGee, has just been re-released on the Cherry Red

label in a beautiful deluxe box set chock full of extras, and we met with the man for which it was

named to talk about its making and much else besides.

We're delighted to welcome to the show the marvellous Mike McGee McCartney.

We visited Mike a few months back at his lovely home in Hezwall on the Whirl, or over the water as we say in

Liverpool and had a lovely afternoon. Mike is a real character, fantastic company and

a great raconteur as well as you'll hear in a few minutes. Our guest was born Peter Michael McCartney in

Liverpool in 1944 after leaving school the Liverpool Institute for Boys to

be exact he worked as a tailor and an apprentice lady's hairdresser before his artistic leanings led

him to join forces with post office engineer John Gorman and poet Roger McGough in 1962

to form what would become the scaffold.

He changed his surname to Meghier to avoid accusations of nepotism,

given his elder brother Paul's own considerable success with a certain other,

Liverpool, Lippecian Band.

Originally operating as the Liverpool One Fat Lady All Electric show and formed at Liverpool's Hope Hall shortly before it was rechristened as the Eremen theatre.

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