BUSH’S MINSTREL
WHITTAKER, Roger, and Natalie WHITTAKER.
So far, so good. The autobiography of a wandering Minstrel.
London, Colombus Books, 1986.
8vo, pp. [4], 283, [1]; half-tone photographic plates; a fine copy in the publisher’s blue and black patterned boards, lettered in silver, melinex wrapper (chipped at head and foot of spine), a musical extract in silver on the endpapers.
Limited edition, copy no. 9 (of an unspecified number), in a special binding, inscribed ‘To Mom & Dad with all our love Roger x’.
The Kenyan-born singer-songwriter Roger Whittaker (1936–2023) began to record songs while a student at Bangor University, and achieved a large international following in the late 1960s and 70s, and a considerable fan-base in Germany in the 70s and 80s, where he released 25 albums and earned a Goldene Stimmgabel. George H. W. Bush was among his supporters, and Whittaker performed at his home.
The inscription here is a poignant one. Roger had a troubled relationship with his father, who never forgave him for abandoning a medical career for music, refused to attend his concerts, and did not appear in Roger’s episode of This is your life in 1982. This copy, which was retained by the family, was likely never delivered; and in 1989 Roger’s parents were the victims of a robbery in Nairobi in which his father was killed.
