He’s six foot four, but spent the first few months living in the smallest room in the house. Simon seems to have understood that if he was going to become a carer for the most stubborn man in rock, he would have to do so with minimal fanfare. His younger son, Simon, moved in to care for him, to this pale yellow house in Westcliff-on-Sea, the one with the telescope on the roof. After he got better, he went into what he likes to call a “senior depression”. We talk through the serving hatch between the living room and kitchen as he makes two cups of milky filter coffee. Folk heroes, in a way: for every Townshend there is your Otway or John Cooper Clarke. He represents a whole world of jobbing musicians of the Seventies and Eighties who now live in modest terraced houses in Brighton, or Bournemouth, or Hove, still playing in bands, weathering the periods of quiet, riding the waves of interest when they come again. Wilko is the kind of figure the British rock press has always favoured above the big draw. He gets on with Van Morrison – though he must be the only person in the world who does. He has shaken Pete Townshend’s hand in the past, he tells me he’s supposed to be touring with the Who next year. He barely knows Status Quo, with whom he has just done an arena tour – though he has a soft spot for their song “Pictures of Matchstick Men” because it was big when he got married 47 years ago. He was a bit of a fish out of water among the other old rockers.
A few weeks back, Wilko and his Mercedes turned up at a music awards ceremony that, he tells me, had particularly naff goody bags. “They call it the Mercedes,” he says, lifting up his T-shirt and showing me a scar a foot long that forks out on either side, just like the logo. Above all, Wilko’s was a story about a man’s ability finally to appreciate his time on earth precisely because he knows it’s going to end. It was a story about the morbid appeal of watching someone fade away in real time: once the stuff of sci-fi films, then of Jade Goody and Clive James, who has described his prolonged farewell as embarrassing. It was a story about someone having faith in science – too much faith, as it turned out – and about a person’s right to die as they want. Wilko’s tale was bigger than a soap opera, though. Science and Technical Research and Development.Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities.Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives.Information and Communications Technology.HR, Training and Organisational Development.Health - Medical and Nursing Management.Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance.Events and Offers Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates. Ideas and Letters A newsletter showcasing the finest writing from the ideas section and the NS archive, covering political ideas, philosophy, criticism and intellectual history - sent every Wednesday. Weekly Highlights A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday. Green Times The New Statesman’s weekly environment email on the politics, business and culture of the climate and nature crises - in your inbox every Thursday. The New Statesman Daily The best of the New Statesman, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. World Review The New Statesman’s global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday.
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