With the demise of Horizon, thanks to a small piece of subtefuge on the part of Borneo, Martin and myself, we found ourselves looking for a bass player and a drummer to fulfil our idea of a new progressive type of rock band. It was not until late in 1980 (the start of the new school year) that Chris Maitland came to Long Road and the scene was set for a new band in the shape of Orcrist (one of the swords in Lord Of The Rings, for all you hippies!). The band was named by Steve Watling who was later to appear in  "Masque".

At this time Chris did not have a full kit. He had a snare and a hi-hat and a bass drum pedal which he played against the side of an old leather suitcase which he carried the stuff around in. The difference being that he had been playing just these 3 items for about 5 years and he still sounded 100 times better than the other drummers in the school, even without a full kit. Within a few months of coming to Long Road Chris got his first real drum kit (the Hamma by Premier kit he was to use for the next 10 years or so).

During the first incarnation of  "Horizon", his brother Tim Maitland had been roped in to record the band playing through a few of its self penned instrumentals. So it was obvious that - as Tim played bass and we had no bass player - we should get both Maitland's together in a band.

We got together a set of material which included Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", "Xanadu" and "Different Strings" by Rush, "Radar Love", the ubiquitous "Freebird" and a self penned instrumental which - due to the fact I had written it - became known as "Stuart's Song".

The band played at several Lunch-time gigs at Long Road and at student parties around the area. One infamous moment came when, at a gig at the College, immediately following Chris' very popular drum solo we went into Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". Borneo - who had been standing off stage during the solo - flew on stage and gave Robert Plant a run for his money with a truly blood curdling scream. If you wish to hear to what this sounds like just listen to first few seconds of the "Blackfoot - Live" album, it's there in all it's glory! Great Fun.

We were also friendly rivals (musically speaking) of another Long Road band "Strontium" which featured both Dan Soar on bass and Phil Bryant on drums both of whom would crop up later in my musical life in "Burn/Bedlam", small world ain't it!!

The band split up just after the end of school in 1981 when Borneo and Martin left Cambridge to go to University; London and Leeds respectively. Chris went on to join local metallers "The Axe Band" with Tim also joining about a year later. I went on to form "Masque" with Steve Watling.