“It was written by the man who is now Sir Patrick Moore, who has become a good friend in recent times.

“In the school library there was this little book called The Earth,” he says. “We were very, very poor,” says May.Īs he explored music, Brian also developed scientific interests. His father’s engineering genius came in handy for repairing and fixing up equipment, as the family was of modest means. A year later, he awoke one morning to find a Spanish guitar “hanging off the end of my bed.” At age 7, he began piano lessons and started playing guitar with enthusiasm. At age 6, Brian learned a few chords on the ukulele from his father, a music enthusiast. The seeds for all of May’s enduring interests came early. (Harold had served as a radio operator during World War II.) In his boyhood home on Walsham Road in Feltham on London’s western side, he was an only child, the offspring of Harold, an electronics engineer and senior draftsman at the Ministry of Aviation, and Ruth.

As with all teenagers beset by angst, it was just a matter of sorting it all out.Ī postwar baby, Brian May was born July 19, 1947. Deep, abiding interests and worldwide success would come on several levels, from both science and music. For a kid who didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, he had quite a future in store.

“I used to think, ‘My God, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to wear, I don’t know who I am,’ ” he says. As a teenager, Brian Harold May was shy, uncertain, insecure.

Queen a night at the opera picture disc