When I finished university I worked for a year in the public library in my home town of Ashford in Kent. Before long I had fallen madly in love with the Children’s Librarian. I was still screwing up my courage to ask her out when I discovered that she already had a boyfriend. With the wind so cruelly knocked out of my sails I had no choice but to wallow in my own self-pity for a while, and compose this song of unrequited love. Now I have never considered myself a songwriter. I’ve written maybe half a dozen songs in my entire life, and to be honest none of them has ever seriously been been designed for public consumption. Except I did once sing this one in public. I suppose it was Spring or Summer 1983, at the Wish It Was A Brewery folk club in Rochester. That was a club I hardly ever went to, and noone there really knew me, and this made it the ideal location to trot out my new composition. I sang it just so I could say “I once sang one of my own songs in public”, and I post it very here much in the same spirit.
Whatever the merits or otherwise of this expression of post-adolescent angst, I have to say that I still find the tune very singable.
The object of my affections, incidentally, went on to have a long and distinguished career with the library service in Kent, and was even awarded an MBE for her work.
Winter in my heart
A Folk Song a Week 