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RIP Bill Ashton

"Higgles - we're coming to Hitchin today. Are you around?" I usually was around to see Bill Ashton when he and Kay came to visit the market in our little Hertfordshire town. We'd often grab lunch together and he'd catch me up on the news from all our mutual friends.

In one of Bill's favourite Hitchin pubs: Kay, Bill, me, Richard 

And so, I shall miss my good friend Bill Ashton (6 December 1936 to 8 March 2025).  He’s been a part of my life since I first took my baritone sax along to a rehearsal of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NYJO) in 1980. The Cockpit Theatre was a noisy place full of amazing young musicians who together produced outstanding jazz, the like of which I had never experienced, let alone imagined I could be a part of. 

Both Bill and I knew, and acknowledged, that I wasn't the best bari sax player ever to try their hand at NYJO, but I learned so much while being around great musicians and trying to keep up with sax players like Jamie Talbot, David Bishop and Nigel Hitchcock. Bill was always one for pushing standards and making us all work just that bit harder.

My teenage years were full of hours spent on the NYJO bus, travelling around the UK. They were overwhelmingly happy times and I learned a LOT on and off stage.

I stayed in touch with Bill and Kay on and off throughout the years and it's always been a source of amazement that Bill can remember so many names of musicians going back 40 or 50 years. Through the 1980s, once I'd moved on from NYJO and started playing in sessions and a huge range of bands, I regularly bumped into musicians and friends from those early days.

Bill created something so special when he began NYJO and many of us owe him a great deal in terms of musical knowledge and understanding.

And, by the way, no-one else has ever called me "Higgles". Just Bill.

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