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Daily Mirror February 20 1975 The Sweet Life For Gilbert Is Staying Home....
The message is:"Private." The command is "Keep Out." And you had better beware of the dog. This is the St. George’s Hill private estate near Weybridge in Surrey, where tightening your belt means sacking the under gardener. Hiding among the bankers, the brokers and the solicitors like he lonely petunia in an onion patch is the thin pale young Gilbert O’Sullivan. He has warmed the heart of the nation with his sensitive songs about everyday people. As in 'Clair', 'Matrimony' and 'Alone Again.' Star Whether he likes or not, he a star. Gilbert has kept away from the public eye for more than a year, but next month he steps out once more on a concert tour of Britain. But for the moment he’s still in hiding and I am graciously allowed to take tea with him behind laurel hedge that protect him the outside world. Spoons tinkle on floral china and neat slices of carefully buttered toast are piled on a matching plate as Gilbert talks of his very private life. 'Writing song is the most important thing in my life. I spend weeks and weeks alone here, at home writing. I wont open the door to anyone, not even the Prime Minister, when I’m working.' Of course I’m missing out on a lot of other things in life but toy have to forfeit here. I’d rather be unhappy personally for the rest of my life if it meant I was happy musically.' Gilbert, 29 lives alone in his four-bedroom house, He has been there two years but most the house still has to be redecorated. The wallpaper is in the living room he says, reminds of prison bars, but he put up with it. While we talk the doorbell rings. It is a fan from Newcastle. A long way to come? Other girls have come from Denmark and Holland. And the answer is always no. 'Sorry He’s out or 'at a meeting.' Gilbert’s younger brother, Kevin, who lives nearby keeps the fans at bay with autographed pictures and lifts to the nearest railway station. Gilbert is the second eldest of six. His older sister, he says always sided with his mother and paradoxically in the middle of such a big, a happy family Gilbert felt isolated. 'I’m the black sleep of the family,' he insists. Although I know his mother is as proud as punch of him. Gilbert’s closed companion is his television. He keeps it on all day, weather he is on the room or not. Say Gilbert: 'TV is then right company. It doesn’t move, and it doesn’t answer you back.' He says 'I get an awful lot of ideas fro my songs watching TV and reading newspapers. What better way to there?' I suggested real life. Gilbert looks surprised. He says: 'Don’t you realize I can’t walk in around freely in public anymore?' Occasionally, Gilbert is seen out and about with a girl on his arm. But not often, Gilbert only takes a girl out for a tonic. Loner He says: 'Some people might think I’m rude, but my girl friends understand. Nothing means anything to me except writing songs.' Gilbert has always been a loner. He started writing songs huddled over a piano in the garden shed at his home in Swindon, Wiltshire. He was at art collage then. He has kept every scrap of song he has written. He shows me. Files of scribbled notes on tatty pieces of paper, each one titled 'new song' or when he’s really excited with it 'great new song.' 'They are the most valuable things I own.' Says Gilbert. 'They are my security. And I mean that.' A lot of the songs in his new touring show will be from his latest album 'Stranger in my Own Backyard.' And in the own backyard, Gilbert begins clearing the dishes |
