"He talked & played songs to illustrate how his life's traumas had influenced his songwriting - a promisingly cosy start in Glossop was soon shattered by the death of his younger brother, followed by his father's motorbike accident which left him paralysed for 4 years before his death when Darren was only 10.

That day, he tells us, he was late for school. It was C of E, all God & prayer, he was paraded in front of the class for being late .. He turned his back on religion, life, & family; rejected everything, eventually joined the Royal Navy. "1982, aged 18, I was caught up in all that shit, the Falklands War. I got a medal, & loads of free drinks to numb the pain."

Around this time he wrote his first poem; he felt he had stories to tell, feelings to express; he left the Navy, got a guitar, went to college, got into music & songwriting . "I've never sent a demo off to a record company! The pleasure for me is the relationship between me as a person who needs to express themselves, and those who want to hear my stories. I also got a great deal of satisfaction from setting gigs up for other people, I found myself running a venue, I must have put on over 2,000 gigs in ten years. for bands, musicians, poets. Steve Coogan didn't have an intelligent audience for his material til I gave him a gig! He'd do his Woody Allen impressions, I'd give him his bus fare! I got to see Steve, & Caroline Ahearne, starting off then doing so well. They started out at nights like this, with people swapping songs, observations on life. I have a great belief in nights like these.."

About songwriting: "Last month, Greg Oldfield was talking about how you worry if you've used the same chords twice, you worry about your lyrics. I recently played a Disability Arts gig, it was a daunting experience - I had to type all my lyrics out & had a signer animating my lyrics on stage with me. But this is what I want to do, share my songs with people. I've said I started writing in 82, with all the shit of the Falklands war, then a couple of years ago I had a nervous breakdown, found myself in hospital. These are two very extreme influences on my writing, & my need to express myself .."

"Are there any 18 year olds here?" I couldn't help shouting out "yes!" just to raise a laugh.. "Its happened throughout history, people with money send out 18 year old kids to kill each other. This is a song I wrote, 'Cartoons In Wartime' - its not the best song I ever wrote, but its one of the first songs I ever wrote."

It's got good words, & he sings & plays guitar well - & it doesn't make you squirm. This is important! It doesn't matter how worthy the sentiments are, a song is only a good song if it can be performed without you squirming in your seat; you know what I mean. & if you don't, you should. A good song gives a twist to its subject matter, he sings about war "its a book, a film, a game in the playground." Leaving the Falklands thing behind he says "I could go on about it all night, I probably do when I'm pissed!"

I ask what music he listened to, & he says "A lot of Paul Weller, he was important to me around '82, but when I was a kid I hung around with a couple of mates who were punks - we went out one night with a can of spray paint, one of them wrote 'The Jam', the other wrote 'PiL' & I wrote 'E.L.O.' - they didn't speak to me for weeks!"

"I got into this poetry thing, we ran a night called 'Stand And Deliver' - there was a group of us that turned up once a fortnight, played to about 40 people - I did my first gig supporting Adrian Mitchell! I was shit! That's when I started getting gigs for other people. In '87 I promoted something called The North-West Songwriters & Poets Festival, a 3-day gig. We got John Cooper Clarke to turn out for us, he only fell of the stage a couple of times & we managed to hold him up whilst he did his hour & a half. He opened my eyes to the power of words, & seeing he had a popular audience made me believe hey - you can go out & do what you do. I was also very influenced by Attilla The Stockbroker, he's coming to Widnes soon. He's brilliant! People like that, & Henry Normal who went on to write for The Royle Family & Steve Coogan - we used to go out & do little gigs together, he won a BAFTA award."

"I get a big buzz out of promoting, keeping things going, I've worked with so many people, Bill Nelson, Glen Tillbrook, Martyn Stephenson, met some great people. I've also met some arseholes as well! We set up in a dead-end, town, Ashton-under-Lyme, a backstreet pub - when I first walked in there, someone was asleep on the pool table! It started off as a bit of a dream." (The Witchwood has been a well established venue for years & is still going - Ed.)

"I wanted to do something with music, that made a difference to people's lives. That's not bullshit. Music in communities, in Widnes, Halifax, Bolton, Wigan, Stockport - all these little towns, gigs like this. They make a difference. I used to do a lot of gigs with bands, the alternative cabaret circuit - I had to survive in a pub full of people, they're all pissed, a band's been on pumping out 5K's worth of noise, a comedian's been on making them laugh, then I come on with my acoustic guitar! I found myself going back to The Jam, the punk style, I had to write more material. Here's a song from this era, 'Buskers' - its celebrating shoplifting."

Darren plays a punky Billy Bragg-like song. A twist is that the store detective is just the same as me & you, she wants to get out & listen to the buskers too. See, this is what I like about his songs, they're not whiney & whingey, they've got point, & despite his traumas, Darren Poyzer puts everything over in a vigorous & positive light. And he's got some good tunes!

He's talked about promoting, performing, writing, depression, with great honesty & finishes off with a song called 'Nothing TV', joined by Jamie Parkes on violin. Its a good song, a touch of The Velvet Underground here. but Northern, warm, human, fragile. A few questions are asked, "Have you ever wanted to front a band?" Darren says "Yes, in my dreams. We played Wembley!" Someone shouts "I played Wembley! Same dream!" Quick as a flash, Mr Poyzer says "Yeah, but in my dream you were the support act!"