A couple of hours ago i found myself in Kentish Town for the first time in - 20 odd yrs? standing outside a house in Leighton Rd trying to remember if it was the one we used to live in back in 81-82, vaguely wondering if it was as wonderful & dreadful as my memory tells me it was. Nostalgia? Longing? So...... I got home & thought I'd do an internet search to see..........

I am honestly sadder than i would have believed possible.

You know, sometimes you meet someone that really counts, that acts as, I dunno, a kind of catalyst and because your dreams & aspirations are totally coincident, it changes the course of your life. Of course u do.

Stu was one of those people. 19 yrs old & already with a history. To say he was unique is really an understatement and I'm not sure I really "got" everything he was about, but for maybe 3 years we were brothers, sharing pretty much everything. Including living in the back of a beat up Ford Transit for the whole of one particularly cold winter. There's nothing like waking up with icicles on the end of yr nose - or in Stu's case on the end of his roll up - for motivation. Actually there's too many memories coming back now... enuf said!!!

And of course there was "Charge" These days I dunno if it was brilliant or awful, but the times we had were both of those things.

On reflection maybe brilliant just shades it!

Of course good things never last, and by the time we were in KT the focus was gone & it was time to move on. Shame we never said goodbye in any meaningful way, but hey! who knew we'd never cross paths again? (Actually we both did)

Shit - u know at the time I couldn't believe the bugger made it past 20. Now I'm shocked & saddened cos he didn't live for ever. ...

... I'll just remember him as someone who was in a select group of erm... well one, who really influenced the course my life took. I mean, I knew I wanted to be in a band but I hadn't a clue how. Ha ha! actually Stu hadn't a clue how either BUT HE WAS DOING IT ANYWAY!! which was absolutely typical.

He was also, probably more so than a musician in my opinion, an absolutely awesome poet (I seem to remember him telling me that himself - several times).

Dave Griffiths, September, 2005
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