THEY say if you can remember the sixties, you were probably not there.
Dennis Siggery, 75, certainly was there and as his biography, Age Is Just A Number explains, he remembers everything from that decade.
It tells of a young Dennis growing up as a working class boy from Reading’s east end, being bullied over his dyslexia and stammer and working a series of jobs from butcher to scaffolder.
It also recalls Dennis’ love of music, numerous fights as a Mod, owning a luxury home, running a successful business, walking out of a marriage and ending up in a one-bedroom flat in Wokingham.
When he turned 50, a time when many men are settling into slippers and a comforting middle-age spread, Dennis learned to play guitar and formed a band. Since then, he has recorded more than 30 albums which sell all over the world. He is preparing to go on a European tour next year.
“People ask me if I should be doing this at my age and I tell them age is just a number,” he laughs.
“You have to do what you have to do whatever age you are. When I did my first gig aged 50, I thought about where I’d be performing at 80, and I’m looking forward to that gig.”
Being a teenager in Reading at the start of the 1960s, Dennis was an easy target for bullies mocking his stammer.
“You quickly learn how to fight,” he explained.
“I found reading difficult but back then nobody really knew or talked about dyslexia but it was something else people made fun of. I did a lot of fighting especially when I became a Mod.
“My friends and I couldn’t afford our own mopeds so we drove around in an old car looking for Rockers to fight with.
“We always looked our best, smart and clean.”
If the 60s was the decade of free love and drugs, Dennis admits to freely helping himself to both: “I remember 1966 being a particularly busy year with women,” he smiles.
As he approached his 50th birthday, the successful businessman and father of two had a dramatic life-changing moment. It led to him to walking out of his marriage and job and deciding to become a musician.
“Many people live a so called normal life but after they die, who remembers them?” he asks.
“I will live on through my music. It’s hard to describe what genre it is, so I say it is a mixture of blues and rock. I know that somewhere in the world someone is playing one of my songs and listening to one of my albums and they’ll continue to do that long after I’m gone.
“The fact that I couldn’t play the guitar when I started wasn’t a problem. I just bought a book and taught myself.
“I also now play the harmonica.”
Dennis’ stammer does not affect him when he sings which is why, when his two daughters were married, he sang for them at their weddings rather than deliver a traditional speech.
“I was really nervous about standing up in front of a crowd and trying to make a speech, so I asked if I could sing instead because music is about telling stories. Everyone loved it,” he recalls.
As he heads into his 76th year, Dennis has no desire to slow down: “I wrote the book during lockdown and now that’s done, it’s back to music.
“There is always something I want to do and if people question it, I tell them age is just a number.”
Age Is Just A Number by Dennis Siggery and Henry Smithson is available on Amazon as an e-book £2.99, or a paperback £6.99.
