Paradise and Thorns

"Ashley Hutchings is the single most important figure in English folk-rock" - Bob Dylan (2015). In 1987 Ashley Hutchings released By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down and Wept, an album that told a very personal love story. It was unusual in that the story was not told from a 'looking back' perspective, Ashley had written the songs, the poems and letters as the story itself was unfolding. Only later did he realise that all those fragments could come together to tell some of the story. But it was an unfinished symphony - there was more to tell and there was no real end as Hutchings was to discover many years later when he finally re-established contact with the heroine of the tale.