I was pretty young when I was born to my Welsh mother, Blodwen Naomi Morris, and my Edinburger father, John Horatio St. George Ross Bruce. (No, I'm not joking.)
It was only one minute after midnight on 21st January 1956, in the Rottenrow Maternity hospital, Glasgow.
After that I started getting older. I'll give you a brief synopsis of life as I've known it ever since.
It was the days before nursery schools, etc. were fashionable or affordable to the average working class family. So, I was five years old when I first sampled life beyond apron strings. I attended Calderwood Primary School, which was just around the corner from our three room semi-detached bungalow in Rutherglen.
I was an average daydreaming pupil, immersed in a class load of over-achievers. A bad start really.
My best subject was art.
I had a burning desire to play piano which was never satisfied. Had my parents realised that I was to become an entertainer, I'm sure some encouragement would have been forthcoming. It was inconceivable that I would go in that direction, being so painfully shy.
Following in the footsteps of both of my much older brothers, I went on to Rutherglen Academy. It had a good reputation and was steeped in the arts. Norman Buchan m.p. ran "The Ballads Club" there. It played a huge part in "The Folk Revival". Many benefited from attending, including my brother, Fraser.
In turn, he brought folk music into our house. Names like Alex Campbell, Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Leadbelly, etc. graced a modest L.P. collection. My interest in such stuff was nominal. I was listening to The Beatles and their contemporaries.
However, some of that folk stuff did seep through. Then Fras' newly acquired guitar and Fairport Convention album, 'Liege and Lief' inflated my enthusiasm 'n' fold.
I was hooked.
By the time I left school, with my nine '0' levels, (English, Maths, Arithmetic, Statistics, Physics, Chemistry, Tech. Drawing, Applied Mechanics and Art) I was still buying chart albums but they were definitely folk or acoustically orientated. Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, Steeleye Span, Fairport, The Strawbs, McGuinness Flint, etc. ("No huge surprises there!" I hear you say.)
By the time I started experimenting, musically, with one or two other singers or players, I was deeply ensconced in a Yarrow Shipbuilders apprenticeship. And, I might say, hating every blessed minute of it.
Playing music professionally had never been an option. So I plodded on with the shipyard job. Then Fraser, who had been playing professionally for a few years suggested that we team up. I jumped at it and was immediately elevated to the dizzy heights of 'top of the bill' in the local folk clubs.
It kept me sane but nearly killed me. Too many drinks, smokes and long nights.
(I did give up smoking twenty years ago (20/11/79, 11.00a.m..)
I was being greatly encouraged. It seemed that people were really getting into my singing. I was 'chuffed' to bits.
I dabbled, ever so slightly, in songwriting. Believing that there was some mystery to the art, I was not inclined to believe in my efforts. I would be asking 'proper' musicians to help me put real tunes to my lyrics. I was surprised when they said, "What's wrong with the ones you've made up?"
Glimmers of hope.
I even managed to record one of my songs "Edinburgh", a brief look to my childhood holidays spent in Auld Reekie, on Mrs. Bruce's Boys vol. 2. Older brothers are not easy to manipulate.
On its release I was pleasantly surprised that it was my song that received most of the airplay.
I was a songwriter.
Just about this time, Fraser's business began to take off. We decided to call it a day.
Another contributing factor to that decision was my nervous breakdown.....not fun.

At its worst I was sitting in my chair, in the living room, frightened to move in case I had a heart attack.
It's like an extreme hypochondria which many people joke about. Let me tell you, in case you don't already know, it is not funny. My mother and my new boss in Yarrows, were totally unsympathetic. "Laziness" was their conclusion.
I was spiralling downhill fast.
It was not until I found my near suffocated mother, in the front room, sprawled over the settee, that we realised the root of the problem.