“My grandfather was a travelling tinker in Cork.” — David Essex Quote

My grandfather was a travelling tinker in Cork.

I never planned anything. I never had an image. I was just being me. If it hadn't worked out I would have done anything with freedom. I would have driven a truck across Europe.

I tend to enjoy wherever I am, but in the Seventies I had a hairy time in a town just outside Nashville. Someone from our band had misbehaved and the local sheriff turned up waving a gun, so we had to crawl out of the hotel window to make a dash for it.

I had a furious row with a certain man in charge about the way they wanted to market me in America. They wanted to go very heavily on the teen-idol aspect. I was bemused by that kind of bedroom-poster image, but it was the last thing I wanted to promote.

My mum loved dancing and played the piano and was gregarious. There were Gypsies on her side of the family. Her dad was from Cork and sometimes in summer I'd go there with my mum to meet up with that side of the family and pick fruit and hops.

My grandfather John came from Cork. I have six degrees of separation in Ireland.

When I was 20 years old, I was living in Ireland, going to school in Cork. There was this girl in my film class that I was kind of flirting with. We had this notebook that we passed back and forth. We would write 10 questions and then pass it back while we were supposedly paying attention.

It's so hard to look at someone doing a triple cork when you're 7 years old, and them saying, 'I want to go do that.' It's not really relatable at all. So, if I can somehow make it so kids want to get into snowboarding, that's special.