Ught pop was a d a skiffle show’
what’s wrong with the music!’ He said o I took nothing.” ks for the USA with ung children Sam and
our government only £4,000 in cash out of h, it was £4K per was to buy a big US hey left and pick it
nths travelling across ie landed a job on Francisco. ey let you play what entually he was o much punk. “Plus x Pistols and Steve t the station name ry cleaner’.” anager Robert d The Deaf Club – in the deaf community for funds. ll every weekend, packed it out.all the local bands played – the Dead Kennedys, X, the Mutants. Everyone was pogoing like crazy, and the deaf people loved the atmosphere.they couldn’t hear it, obviously, which was sometimes an advantage.”
After 18 successful months a rival punk promoter “tipped off the fire department and they closed us down”.
Thewalkers had been living in their motorhome throughout, parking in Golden Gate Park. “There was a lot of strain. I was working illegally. I had no regular income and it became too great.”
When they split, they sold the motorhome, splitting the money, and
“she suggested I should look after Sam, who was five, and she’d look after Beth. When I Djed at Geary Temple, if I couldn’t get a babysitter, I used to set up a bed for him under my DJ desk, or he’d sleep in my old white Chevy estate.”
A friend persuaded Johnnie to try his luck in Arlington,virginia. But the promise of a radio DJ job fell through.
“Things got tougher,” he says. “California was liberal, they had afterschool clubs so I could work. Not in Virginia.we ended up living in the car for three days. I’d get us yogurt for breakfast from the 7-Eleven.
“I was so worried Sam would be taken into care, I told him, ‘Don’t tell them at school’.that night he was eating his KFC and he said, ‘Dad, teacher says there are places we can get a bed for the night and it wouldn’t cost us any money...”
They lived with local band Tru Fax
And The Insaniacs and Walker landed a radio slot but decided Sam needed to come home. By 1982, he was back on local radio in England, returning to Radio 1 in 1987 and moving to Radio 2 in 1997.
Back home he married producer Tiggy Walker, but three months later in 2003, he was diagnosed with non-hodgkin lymphoma.tiggy, now 58, nursed him through his cancer battle, only to be diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years later.
“We cried, but then saw the funny side,” she said. “Johnnie joked,‘we’re an equal opportunities marriage’.” She got the all-clear in 2015.
“I’ve had a wonderful life,” says Johnnie. “Tiggy makes me laugh and she’s a fabulous cook.we have a great life in the country, in Dorset, and two or three days a week in London. My work/life balance is good.
“As long as the brain works, the voice is good...”
● Sounds Of The 70s Live is at Southend Cliffs Pavilion,westcliff-on-sea, on Thursday, with dates until autumn. Tickets: livenation.co.uk