In 2008, in the final months of her illness Margery Styles decided to commission a piece of music from Mike and me, to commemorate her life, and that of her husband John, who died in 1989. Characteristically, she didn’t mention her bequest to us and, soon after her funeral, we were astonished to have this great opportunity. John and Margery were supporters of jazz and, in particular of our circle of musicians.

In 1985 they started the Smith’s Academy Informer, a quarterly newsletter about the band’s activities. After John’s death Margery continued to run the SAI which is now in its 25th year of publication. Her dedicated work for people with learning difficulties occupied much of her energies in those years after John’s death. In her leisure time she travelled, sometimes on tour with the band, mostly alone or with one of her close friends. She visited many countries on the five continents. For some years she wore a jacket of John’s. She was travelling for both of them (My Lover’s Coat, and My Lover’s Heart). On one of these trips she was able to visit the grave of her Geordie father she had never known. He died in 1942 as a prisoner of war on the infamous Burma railway (Yellow Dog). Margery’s favourite colour was yellow.

In the Autumn of 2009 I was standing in our small yard looking at the last remaining leaf on our fig tree. The leaf being yellow, I thought of Margery and I wrote the song Yellow Fig Leaf. John and Margery met when they were both working for Guinness, and subsequently they ran pubs in various parts of the country. Hence the opening verse of What I Like, a song that aims to express their exuberance, their love of good company, jazz, jokes - the good things of life.

Kate Westbrook.