As any of the regular readers of the blog will have noticed, I’m somewhat of a music geek. Music, lyrics and gig-going have been the steady pulse underlying my life since my teens. As a kid, I didn’t really display any musical talent, spending years not very effectively learning the flute. I suppose that the music lessons pre-empted the main years of my geekery, and, not being a John Galway or having even heard of Jethro Tull, I never really drew the link between the discipline of learning an instrument with the enjoyment of listening to my parent’s vinyl records.

So, my love of music has always been exclusively from the angle of being a consumer, and as a teen getting into REM and then backwards from there into the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith, and forwards into the Eels, Madder Rose, Elastica, Liz Green and Landshapes. Music has provided a soundtrack to my experience and my life.

Two albums I remember hearing a lot growing up were ‘All around my hat’ and ‘Commoner’s Crown’ by Steeleye Span (Commoner’s Crown got its name from an amazing sculpture of a crown formed from hundreds of tiny figures by Shirtsleeves Studio which also graces album cover). My mum had a particular fondness for their electric folk music and, as I started to get into music and buy my own CDs I picked up more of their back catalogue and was delighted to find out that not only were they still going, but that they were still good!

In the mid-nineties Steeleye had navigated a 1980s lull (the decade wasn’t especially kind or fertile for many of the bands and artists that had made their name in the 60s and 70s). They’d evolved a revitalised line-up to celebrate their 20th anniversary and, with added impetus, had got their ducks lined up for a 25th anniversary tour and new album that wasn’t simply an exercise in nostalgia, but which pulled the band in new and interesting directions.

My mum and I booked tickets to see Steeleye play at Warwick Uni and were blown away by the talent and strength of their line-up (with 4 vocalists all capable of singing lead) and musicians all comfortable in their skins and masters of their craft. It was fun to share that interest with my mum and it seems to have become a generational Sexton trait, my son having WhatsApped me recently to show off his Spotify Wrapped summary (he’s got deeply into folk music in the last few years and, in 2025, was the person who listened to Steeleye Span second most in the whole world on Spotify… prompting me to wonder who on earth had listened to them more (it wasn’t me)).

So, three generations of our family have now become deep fans of the band, and my son and I both managed to catch the band on their 55th Anniversary tour, older, and again with an evolving line-up, but excellent as ever. (The boy saw them up North, we caught them in Newport, as this photo of me and Andy Glanfield meeting Maddy documents)

In an interview back in the 90s, Maddy Prior likened the band to a bus, in which people climb on and get off from time to time, and journey with each other for a while. It’s this evolution of a group that I think I’ve found instructive in many different contexts over the years. 

In the IPO I’ve managed the Industrial patent examining team now for over a decade. They’re a tip-top bunch of some of the nicest, cleverest and most dedicated people that I could have had the pleasure of working with. But it’s not a static cohort, I’ve now had dozens of people come through the team, some moving on to work in other technical subject matter, some going off to work in policy or on other projects (and branching off their careers, occasionally even coming back, enriched by the experience). I couldn’t have done it without the role-modelling of the senior members of the team (it was a pleasure to celebrate Matthew and Steve’s 25+year anniversaries earlier in the year and to thank them for all their efforts in showing the new guys how it’s all done, with dedication, humour and care).

I think that having a clear idea of the culture, and being able to articulate that cleanly, is crucial to that longevity and to maintaining an ethos. It’s also key to recognise that each cohort is unique with different internal dynamics and needs and that the landscape is always shifting too. The challenges that we faced 10 years ago are not the same as the ones we face now. As such, keeping yourself in check from jumping to the solutions that have worked for you before, without simply abandoning everything you’ve learned, is a tightrope that you’ll always need to balance on.

I think that’s been part of the success of Steeleye. The strong identity of being folk rock pioneers, coupled with an unparalleled and eclectic list of alumni (including Ashley Hutchings, Martin Carthy, John FItzpatrick, Tim Hart, Bob Johnson, Peter Knight, Gay & Terry Woods, Benji Fitzpatrick and collaborations with David Bowie, Peter Sellers and the Wombles). It’s a bus that allows people to come in, to key into that history, and is flexible enough to enable people to add their own skills and chapter to the story. This has its parallels in my work, in the coaching network and even in the badminton club that I run. 

Which seems a nice way to round off the blog for 2025. Thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely festive season, see you out the other side in 2026.