Mother-son relationship, relative values.

PHIL AND KATE DEWHURST

“I suppose lending your son more than £10,000 would seem like a lot, but it’s not to me… my reward is seeing the faces of the people who enjoy his music, that is pay back enough.”

Phil Dewhurst, 26, is a professional musician. To date he has sold over 10,000 albums and his career is going from strength to strength. Phil lives with his parents, his two greatest fans, in a small house in Corfe Mullen, near Bournemouth. Kate Dewhurst is a retired book keeper and Phil’s Mother. Her retirement project and hobby is to encourage, support and help fund her son’s career.

PHIL: I always knew I wanted to be a musician. I was brought up in Priors Marston in Warwickshire, the home of British folk music. As a child I would hear the likes of John Martyn and Fairport Convention drifting over the rolling fields of the Warwickshire countryside and into my bedroom window. The music fired my imagination, it was so new and strange and exotic, like something form another world, something I had never heard before. It was this that really sowed the earliest seeds for my fascination with music and folk music remains a big inspiration to me.
I have two older siblings. My sister Lindsey who is 14 years older, moved to America when I was five and my brother moved out when I was six. Up until then my sister was more of a nanny to me than a sibling, she would help look after me with my mum, so really I was an only child. Being only one of me meant that I was given more encouragement than most of my peers. I went to my grandparent’s house a lot and that’s where I found music. My first and fondest memory was sitting next to my grandmother, singing as she played her Hemingway 1968 piano.
My brother is one of the best microlight pilots in the world and he is as much of an artist in his craft as I am in mine. He couldn’t have been so successful without my parents backing. I am very lucky and I guess I have always taken it for granted. My parents allowed me to try all sorts of instruments as a child, the violin, trumpet, flute and piano, but when they bought me my first guitar I knew it was going to be my future. At first I would experiment for hours in my bedroom and it was confusing. But soon it became natural, as natural as drinking a glass of water, or breathing. I wrote my first song at fourteen. I came downstairs to my mum in the kitchen and I sat on the work top and played it to her. I was often playing her songs by Syd Barrett or Dylan and she thought it was another cover. When I told her I had written it she was staggered and astonished, she told me it could be a number one hit. I guess having been brought up listening to the best song writers out there, I had a good grounding. My parents come to almost every one of my gigs. They are my roadies, fan club and accountants rolled into one. Without their support, it would have been a lot more difficult to follow my career.

KATE: I suppose lending your son more than £10,000 would seem like a lot, but it’s not to me. I know ultimately that we may not get our money back, but my reward is seeing the faces of the people who enjoy his music, that is pay back enough.
I have never been one of those mums who want their sons to follow a career they don’t enjoy. I have always encouraged my children to follow their dreams and I think it will ultimately mean they succeed. This has proven true with all of my children. I first saw that Phil was talented when he sang in a school play at the age of seven. He played a singing Santa from space and all the mums rushed up to me at the end telling me what a wonderful voice he had. And when he was eight years old his violin teacher said he was ‘full of musicality’. I had taken it for granted up until then and blamed my thought that he was special on motherly tunnel vision.
When he was in his first band he needed somewhere to rehearse so we converted our garage into a recording studio. He recorded his first album in the spare room, so the studio also gave him somewhere to record in. He spent days putting egg boxes and carpets on the walls, but the neighbours would still come knocking at our door saying that the noise from the garage made their ornaments vibrate off the shelf.
My husband and I have let him live with us to allow more money to be put into his career and he’s twenty six now. I think it’s normal for sons to still be at home at that age. We get along so well. He is great company. We sometimes rub each other up the wrong way, but rarely. If he worked in an office all day and came home drunk after spending all night in the pub it wouldn’t be the same and he wouldn’t be my son. It’s great fun that he is a musician, I get to re-live my youth again. I love supporting him, my husband and I see it as our hobby and our retirement project.