Sussex boy Leo Sayer is back in the old country
Sussex boy Leo Sayer is back in the old country and loving it, with dates including Worthing’s Assembly Hall on October 5.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Brief Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Fantastic
00:06to speak to Sussex boy Leo Sayer, who is back in the old country. You're living in Australia,
00:12you've been living in Australia for nearly 20 years, but you're saying you found a little
00:16bit of Sussex in Australia, haven't you? Yeah, where I live, between Sydney and Canberra,
00:23is a little village called Berimer. They're all Aboriginal names, there's Bowerall down
00:29the road, Robertson, which is more English, Mittagong, which is another Aboriginal name.
00:34It's like a series of little villages in an area called the Southern Highlands. About
00:39an hour and a half drive from Sydney, it's 600 metres high, which is, I've worked out,
00:44is 1,400 feet, 1,400. So that would be the same height as the Cairngorms, like the lower,
00:51you know, around Stirling and all of that, the lower Highlands, you know. So we called
00:56the Southern Highlands. And the air is fantastic. It's so beautiful and fresh. We've got fir
01:02trees all around. And last night, I phoned my wife, Donna Teller, and she told me it
01:07was minus two degrees. You know, being opposite seasons as we are now.
01:12But, despite all that, you're saying there's something Sussex about that.
01:16It's very English. Yeah, the street signs, the layout of the
01:21houses, you know, very, very old fashioned. It was a very, there's a very famous jail there.
01:27And it was also a place of justice. So they, outside of Sydney, about an hour and a half
01:33drive out of Sydney. And when the first colonists came there, they would take the difficult prisoners
01:38over there. So there's no way that they could, if they broke out of jail, they couldn't walk
01:42back to Sydney. So it was a way of kind of safeguarding the baddies. But it's amazing
01:48that all English people live in this village. You know, out of our 400, there must be 200
01:55English people. And they love it because it looks like we've got a village green, we've got,
01:59they call it Market Square. We've got like, you know, a war memorial just opposite us.
02:05We've got beautiful trees, an amazing river called the Windsor Caribbean, which runs through the town.
02:10And it's like that movie, a river runs through it, you know. And it's got a sort of little
02:16piece of England. And it's strange, but everybody there says it's like they're back in Sussex or
02:22Surrey or Hampshire again, or Dorset, you know. And you are playing Sussex on the latest tour.
02:28What does it mean to you to be back in Sussex? So I come from Sussex, Australia to Sussex,
02:34Britain. And it's lovely. I've already been there. Does it still feel like home, Sussex?
02:38Yeah, that's lovely. I mean, I drive those rolling roads. I've just been driving through
02:42Chittingfold and just past Goodwood. And I went down to see my sister, you know, near Newhaven
02:51on the coast. And I saw the channel again and I went, oh God, I know this. So it's so much part
02:57of my life, you know. It's still there. And of course, you know, when you live in exile,
03:01you live far away, like I do in Australia. All you do is think of England very much, you know.
03:07And the heart grows fonder for it. Well, I was going to say, you think of it in a different way
03:12when you're not there. Yeah, totally. And then when you see it again, the heart leaps because
03:17it's everything. You've been imagining this, you know, you've been conjuring it up in your brain.
03:23You've been kind of thinking what this moment will feel like. And it never disappoints.
03:28It's wonderful. So my pattern is I come back here every two years to tour. That's the basis of it.
03:35And I think the last time, yeah, it was two years ago. I was supposed to come last year and do a
03:39few shows, but I got sick. I had a really nasty infection. One of those kind of things like
03:44staphs that you pick up in hospital. And it seemed to just go through my system. And
03:49I had to stay five weeks in a hospital with intravenous.
03:52You're all right now, clearly.
03:54Yeah, I'm good. I'm all right now, as Freeze would say.
03:58No, I'm really good. And my health.
04:01You're showing your vintage by saying that, aren't you?
04:03Yeah. Well, I'm 76 years old and, you know, I'm just amazed that I've still got my hair and my
04:10voice and I've still got my energy. And we played Butlins in Bognor Regis, talking about the south,
04:17you know, the other day. And, God, 3,000 people came into the room to see us. And the reviews
04:23have all been amazing. So I think that, you know, the connection is still there, isn't it? You know,
04:29you never really, you can take the boy from Sussex, but you'll never take Sussex out of the
04:33boy. That's basically my theory.
04:35We're really lovely to speak to you again. Thank you so much.
04:38And I'm coming to Worthing very soon, of course.
04:40Absolutely.
04:40And we're coming to Guildford, coming to Basingstoke, I suppose, which is still close,
04:45you know. And it's just going to be lovely to be back. Bournemouth, of course, as well. So
04:50the tour is everywhere. And it's just, yeah, great to be back.
04:54Fantastic. Lovely to speak to you.
04:56Cheers, man. That's great, Phil.