While they were getting ready to pose, with Philip tying his shoelace and the kids climbing all over them, I managed to get the exact photo that I wanted without them even being aware that I had started shooting. I made a painting from that picture titled 'The Lynott Family, GlenCorr, Summer '81', and it remains one of my favourite and most emotive paintings and one of the last I ever did of him as he died a few short years later. The painting of Philip at the chessboard was originally titled 'Fatalistic Attitudes' and was for the cover of a solo album of the same name. The album was canceled by the record company who also refused to pay for the artwork. It was probably Philip's finest work, containing as it did the title song and the great classic 'Oldtown'. I remember well walking along the Burrow beach with him while he played the album for me, on a walkman with old fashioned headphones. I was blown away by what I heard and couldn't believe that the record company didn't like it. I realised from our conversation that Philip was up to his neck in trouble. He couldn't take the rejection nor the crap that went with it. The record company wanted 'The Boys are back in Town' part forty while Philip wanted to be a bluesy Jack Kerouc. "Im running on empty", he said "and if they dont like what I'm producing then I've nothing left to give. Im tired and bored with being a macho heavy metal stud". Being an artist myself I knew how impossible it was to compromise or relinquish creative control to become something you're not.

We walked and talked on the beach for about two hours and sat down on the sand dunes right opposite where I live now, looking out at the sea. I sensed a desperate sadness coming from somewhere deep inside him. It felt to me like he was experiencing a great sense of failure. He was totally disillusioned and cynical, especially about the music industry. He was especially hurt by an extremely personal attack made on him by a local singer/songwriter that appeared in the Evening Herald a couple of weeks previously. The person in question had made a biting comment about the record being produced by an egotistic rock star and while never actually mentioning his name it was blindingly obvious that it was Philip that was being referred to.