FEATURE:
The Home in Which I Live
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
The Transformation from Cathy to Kate Bush
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WHEN writing about Kate Bush’s…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush standing outside of her family home at East Wickham Farm, Welling
early life and the first songs she composed, I have taken us inside the walls of East Wickham Farm. I have written a bit about her home recently as I have looked back at her debut album, The Kick Inside, and penned some features around that. Released on 17th February, 1978 when Kate Bush was nineteen, it has just turned forty-seven. It still sounds amazingly relevant, urgent and astonishing. Keeping on revealing layers and new gems. There is a certain amount of destiny and inevitability when we think about the crystallisation of Bush’s ambitions to be a songwriter. Her transformation and blossoming. Born Catherine Bush, that name was shortened to Cathy. Her brothers Paddy and John (Jay). I often wonder what it would be like having Catherine Bush or Cathy Bush recording music and releasing it under that name. We know her as Kate Bush. However, in the 1960s and early-1970s, she was still very much the girl she was born. Someone finding their way into music. Experimenting and honing her passion. The stability and influence of her home. Her mother Hannah and father Robert were married in Epsom during World War II. Born Hannah Daly, the farmer’s daughter from County Waterford, Ireland married her love in Surrey. They moved to the nearby Welling in Kent, where Catherine Bush and her family resided for many years. Catherine Bush was born in Bexleyheath on 30th July, 1958. Her father studied for a mathematics degree. As WWII broke out, his path changed and he eventually became a doctor. It is amazing to think about the struggles and warfare breaking out when Kate Bush’s parents married! Hannah was a nurse at Epsom Long Grove Hospital. That medical profession bond between her parents. I think this care for humans and compassion was evident at East Wickham Farm. A lot of the perspectives in Kate Bush writing enforced by her parents’ professions. Kate Bush considering going into psychology at one point when she was a girl (or maybe psychiatry).
I have recently published a feature looking inside Kate Bush’s childhood home and some of the music posters that would have been attached to her bedroom walls. I wanted to take a different approach here. I did not know that Dr. Robert Bush sold the publishing rights for one of his songs to buy an engagement ring for Hannah! It was after Kate Bush’s two brothers were born that the family located to Welling. Maybe needing somewhere bigger and more settled then where they started out, it was a perfect nest and haven for creativity for Kate Bush. Her earliest years surrounded by art and culture. Two parents who were working in medicine/hospitals and also loved music. Apart from her dad writing music and teaching her piano, her mother, a skilled folk dancer by all accounts, would also have given her daughter this impetus to explore dance and music. Welling was just far enough away from London but also close enough to intrigue and entice a girl who aspired to go beyond the walls of her family home. The seventeenth-century farmhouse the Bush family moved to offered sanctuary and inspiration. The outbuildings and a barn (as Rob Jovanovic writes in his Kate Bush biography, it was quite mouse-infested!). An outdoor swimming pool that replaced a pond. The beautiful and spacious garden would have given Catherine/Cathy/Kate Bush this combination of peace and influence. Able to relax but also find wonder in the flowers and shrubbery around her. I look at some of the photos from the Cathy book (her brother John’s photos of his sister from her earliest years) and can imagine what it was like being there! The kitchen was the heart of the home. Family and friends sat around the table debating for hours. When Catherine was born, she was protected by her parents, older brothers and her paternal grandfather (who resided there until the 1960s).
Even if Bush was raised in a Catholic household and went to a Catholic school, it did not really make much of an impact on her. The suffering rife. The fact that she was someone born of love and was attracted to kindness. A religion where a lot of violent imagery is taught, that would not have attracted her at all. Bush was in this comforting bosom. Music was all around her. No doubt moved and intrigued by her mother’s dancing and connection to Ireland, this exposure to various cultures and artforms directly influenced Bush’s music. I have talked about this before, but one of the most striking images from those early years is Bush’s dad playing piano and teaching his daughter. Teaching her how to play in C, she would spend a lot of times in the barn at East Wickham Farm playing the harmonium. An instrument that was subject to the interest of mice and was probably not at its best, Bush was studious and attentive. Dedicating many hours to playing. Bush mastered the basics of a keyboard and would be heard belting out hymns. She loved their melodies and harmonies. She figured that a chord was made up of three or more notes and by changing one of these notes, you could create a whole new chord. Bush probably wrote her first song aged eleven. Her father was always willing to listen to his daughter play. His playing gave her enthusiasm and something to aspire to. She would soon overtake her dad’s playing ability. Bush was so prolific and was compelled to write so many songs. Not just her mother and father providing this motivation. Her brothers’ interest in music and poetry was important to their sister. Not just traditional Folk or Rock of the day. Some more esoteric and unusual sounds undoubtably can account for the original nature of Bush’s music. How she started out writing in such a different way to her peers due to the music she was introduced to by her brothers. I do love that Bush’s parents listened to her sing and hear her compositions. Even if they thought that their daughter’s voice was terrible to start with, they sent Cathy for some vocal training and she soon strengthened her vocals and improved her range. Her parents were open and honest, though they were also encouraging. I don’t know how many parents of the 1960s would support their child’s dreams of going into music. Bands like The Beatles breaking through when Cathy was very small. It would have seemed like another world. A very scary one too!
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
In future features, I am going to go and focus on Kate Bush’s career in the 1980s and 1990s as I have focused a lot on her earliest work. I have also spent some time in 2005. I wanted to take another trip back to East Wickham Farm. One of my favourite images connected to Kate Bush is imagining all the sights and sounds through East Wickham Farm. I might not visit this subject for a while. Building from a feature I published last year, I wanted to once more be within the walls and in the grounds of East Wickham Farm. More than that, I was interested to talk about Kate Bush’s parents and brothers. The love and support that was there in the family home. The way they encouraged this girl who clearly had desires to turn her fascination around music into a career. There is no telling how important those early years were. Not only in driving Kate Bush to music. The mix of the orthodox and unorthodox sounds. If she only listened to the popular music of the 1960s and 1970s, would she have written and sung in a different way? Would she have lasted as long and been as revered? Perhaps not. It was the eclectic nature of the culture she grew up around that helped shape her into this singular artist. Someone whose voice, both literal and lyrics, created different worlds and emotions. So much more interesting and original compared to her peers. The fact her parents worked in the medical profession and they showed so much love and faith. That can be heard in her lyrics. The positive nature. The fascination with people but the affection and trust she has in them. A gentle but strong spirit. I am bidding farewell to East Wickham Farm for a little bit now, though I am sure that I will return to it…
AT some point next year.