Deeply bizarre coincidences saw Marillion singer Fish find his plaice

Laddie’s come a long way from Midlothian. Fish was not born Fish. Derek William Dick was born on April 25, 1958 in Edinburgh and grew up in Dalkeith.

The first big obstacle in his big life was his name: “At school… I used to get upset with Dirty Dick and stuff like that.” 

While working in Fochabers (he was a petrol pump attendant, gardener, forester and quality inspector of water sprinklers before rock took him), a mate was lamenting the amount of time he took in the bath. 

Quoth he: “Are you some sort of fish or something?” The scales fell from Derek’s eyes as he exclaimed: “That’s it!” A reel name at last!

The first band Fish saw live was Yes at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall in 1974, but his own career was nearly a no-no after he failed early auditions due to lack of experience and having “too quiet” a voice.

However, he got his first gig in 1980 fronting Blewitt at the Golden Lion, Galashiels. 

Nervous beforehand, and ill-advisedly wearing white flares (“[not] the attire for singers in a Galashiels pub”), he imbibed several pints and a brace of drams, which got him through the gig but entailed a subsequent visit to the lavatory, where he threw up.

Guitarist Steve Rothery, vocalist Fish and keyboard player Mark Kelly of English progressive rock band Marillion perform on stage at Hammersmith Odeon on April 17th, 1983. (Photo by Pete Still/Redferns)

Mane headliner
In December 1980, he auditioned successfully for Marillion, who played their first gig the following March at the Red Lion, Bicester. In 1982, they released their first single Market Square Heroes and, in 1983, their first album, Script For A Jester’s Tear.

And so they conquered the world, or at least the leafy suburbs of prog. Marillion had 11 Top 40 singles, including Kayleigh, Lavender, and Incommunicado, and five Top 10 albums, including a number one with Misplaced Childhood.

However, in 1988, stressed out by tours and rows, Fish left the band. In the latest Prog magazine, he reveals his thoughts at that time:  “If I don’t leave I’m going to end up sitting in a fucking mansion with two Irish wolfhounds, with a massive cocaine habit and drinking cognac until I was a bright blue flame in a crematorium.”

As it was, he had to suffer his mum bringing in a tabloid paper with the headline “something like ‘Fish leaves Marillion in drink and drugs shame’”. This, he says, was “something concocted by the media”.

Fish was soon back in the swim, though, with his first solo album, Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors, taking him straight back into the top five. Ten more solo albums followed.

These explored contemporary pop, traditional folk and Celtic themes (“When we Scottish people hear the bagpipes, the hackles rise on the back of our necks…”), culminating in 2020’s Weltschmerz, German for “world-weariness”.

In 1996, talk of replacing Phil Collins in Genesis came to nothing. Apart from anything else, “my outspokenness and Scottishness might have been a bit too much. I think that might have been mentioned…”

As well as music, Fish has had a go at acting, appearing in 1994’s Chasing The Deer, a film set during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. 

He could have been in Braveheart, his presence having been sought by director Mel Gibson, but was committed to touring his Suits album.

Criminal act
IN 1998, he appeared in The Bill and, in 2000, in both Rebus and Taggart, though it’s fair to say that everyone in Scotland has appeared in these. In 2001, he auditioned unsuccessfully for the Bond film Die Another Day.

Fish formed his own record company, Dick Bros, after advice from a medium who passed on messages from his grandfather. 

I see. But he has always gone his own way anyway. Now that way has taken him to Berneray and a 35-acre croft with 13 Blackface sheep called Heriot, Brownlie, Schaedler, Stanton, Black, Blackley, Edwards, O’Rourke, Gordon, Cropley, Duncan, Hamilton, and Hazel, which readers will recognise as the full squad of the famous Hibs team of 1972.

(Readers of this series might be forgiven for thinking every major cultural figure in Scotland supported Hibs. However, it’s only fair to point out that a supporter of rivals Hearts played one of the dwarves in the Lord Of The Rings films.)

Though having a happy home and productive garden in East Lothian, Fish and Simone fell in love with Berneray after a Hebridean holiday in 2022.

They adored the peace and quiet, quality of life, friendly locals and their first ceilidh, in a North Uist byre with a sand floor, a band playing Runrig tunes, and “a raffle with f****** farm gates as the prize”.

Then there were the conspicuous coincidences. A female he was talking to turned out to be called… Kayleigh. “Can you believe that? Kayleigh at a ceilidh talking to me, who sang Kayleigh!”

Researching his family tree revealed Scottish island ancestry and, while worrying over all the costs, an unexpected royalties payment arrived – on the anniversary of the death of ex-girlfriend Kay, inspiration for the aforementioned Kayleigh. 

To put the tin lid on it, near their croft is a loch called Tara.  Both Fish and Simone have daughters called Tara.

Going swimmingly
NO wonder Fish was moved to say: “I feel at home, like I belong.” 

That said, the couple have had a lot of work to do and, while he fancies raising hens, Fish is no spring chicken, having reached retirement age this year. 

But the boy’s a grafter and so the dilapidated croft house is being fixed up to serve as a cafe utilising Simone’s culinary skills, while another house is built as their home.

Fruit and veg will be grown. Trees will be planted.

And he’ll still be making music, despite being “f****** bored” talking about it and  acknowledging that, today, there’s “more money in sheep than Spotify”.