Sounding Good!

I think I paid two pounds for my first guitar. I was a teenager at school, and that equated to a month’s pocket money. Even at that, the 50p per week was only forthcoming if I picked up rubbish from our front lawn. We lived next door to a confectionery shop, and people had a habit of throwing their empty crisp packets or chocolate bar wrappings over the hedge and into our front garden.

That first guitar was no beauty. For some reason, a previous owner had decided to hand-paint it white. But it was enough to get me started, enough to learn some chords, and soon I was hooked. Before long, I had my eyes on an electric guitar. That aspiration was expensive and wasn’t going to happen without some effort. But I learnt that at school I could survive on a packet of crisps at lunchtime, and put the remaining lunch money towards my new goal. But even at that, it was going to take a long time. My mother would have been horrified if she had known that I was sacrificing proper nutrition for a guitar. I never told her about my lunchtimes, but I think she eventually realised that the purchase of an electric guitar would mean a lot to me, and she stepped in and helped. It was on some kind of payment plan, but I was able to acquire my first electric guitar.

Some years later, I heard about a guy called George Lowden, who had opened a workshop in Bangor, County Down, and was hand-building acoustic guitars. A friend of mine had a furniture workshop in the same building, and he introduced me to George, who was turning out some wonderful-sounding guitars. I was so impressed that I placed an order. And soon, I was the proud owner of a 1976 Lowden guitar, hand-built by George himself. Can’t believe that was 50 years ago this year.

After taking my guitar to the Lowden factory for a service just before Christmas 2025, I picked it up on 15 January 2026, and it was returned to me, tweaked and sounding magnificent. But you don’t need to take my word for it because George was intrigued to come across one of his early guitars, and he and technician/guitarist John Bowles, took a special interest in it. After some minor modifications and a new set of strings, they evaluated and recorded its sound for their YouTube Channel, ‘Inside the Craft.’ Watch the video below, and I’ll let you be the judge.

World-renowned guitar maker George Lowden and guitarist John Bowles, discuss and demonstrate my guitar