Week one of production

I drove to Woy Woy with Spike's eldest daughter Laura and friends and spent the first week shooting some pick-ups and new interviews. I met Beverly Spiers, a friend of Spike's for 30 years, who told most entertaining and hilarious stories of her time with him. She was a wild-life carer and Spike used to go to her property to escape the 'noise' and flurry of his parent's house in Woy Woy and to take long walks in the bush. He liked to feed her brood of injured and tame wallabies, possums and birds. She showed me her open air bath that Spike also loved. He was forever in search of solitude, absolute quiet and nature and Beverly's place gave him all these things. During my week in Woy Woy, I also caught up on the news about this year's Spikefest - and met a musician, Glenn Cardier, who had toured with Spike for six months in the 70s. His stories of travelling and working with Spike revealed yet another side to this complex and multi-faceted man that I had not heard before. I spent a whole day with Spike's brother Desmond, and a day with Laura, who read me a collection of letters Spike had written to her over the years. These made us laugh and cry, often at the same time.