Stop the Cavalry hitmaker Jona Lewie on his royalties… and how he lost £30,000 to Neil Woodford

Jona Lewie, 78, is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known for his 1980 Christmas hit Stop The Cavalry which sold nearly a million copies in the UK and was a top-five hit across Europe.

This year the song is being used by Morrisons supermarket for its TV adverts.

He also wrote the Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs hit Sea Side Shuffle, which got to No 2 in 1972, and enjoyed a solo hit in 1980 with You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties.

He lives in London with his Australian-born partner Julie. Their son, Julian, 25, works as a tennis coach in Australia.

What did your parents teach you about money?

Growing up, we were never loaded but never suffered either.

My housewife mother Isabella, who lived to 89, and my stepfather Calvin, a Brixton town hall executive secretary who lived to 84, taught me to respect money because it can melt like butter if you overspend.

But despite them both experiencing wartime and postwar rationing, by the 1960s my stepdad – who was in the Royal Navy as a young man but just missed out on the Second World War – could afford to buy a new Triumph Herald, a marque of some distinction.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

The music business is very up and down, and even though I had a No 2 hit in 1972, four years later I was struggling financially.

At my lowest point I walked from my bedsit to my local Co-op and nicked a slab of cheese because I was hungry but broke. But I only did it once, in case the police are reading this!

Ever since I've had a fear of falling into debt and losing financial control of my life, so I've watched the pennies.

Have you ever been paid silly money?

Not really, but I was paid pretty well by Ikea to rerecord You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties for a 2010 TV advert.

I also made a fair few quid when a German singer called Bernd Cluver covered Sea Side Shuffle, renamed it Holiday Girl and put it on the B-side of Der Junge mit der Mundharmonika, which in 1973 topped the charts in his homeland, selling a million – those royalties helped me buy my first house.

Of course, when you start earning silly money you start paying silly taxes, and that soon brings you back to earth.

What was the best year of your financial life?

Probably 1981, the year after Stop The Cavalry came out.

The song sold around 900,000 in the UK, and a further three or four million in Europe and Australasia, and reached the top five in several countries; it also topped the charts in France the following summer.

I still get a little thrill when I hear it being played when I go shopping this time of the year – I never guessed it would still be so popular all these years on.

The most expensive thing you bought for fun?

A Fairlight Series III keyboard/synthesizer I bought for around £70,000 in the 1980s.

But it was like driving a new Aston Martin out of a showroom – as soon I did so, it dropped in value by £20,000.

Three years later it had dropped in value even more, to only £15,000 – so in a way it wasn't a great buy.

But, on the other hand, it helped me to make the music I wanted to make at the time.

What was your biggest money mistake?

The £30,000 I lost on a Hargreaves Lansdown investment in the Woodford fund [which collapsed in 2019] – but, of course, investment companies cover themselves by saying investments can go up as well as down.

I've been an Isa man ever since.

Best money decision you have made?

Buying the £1,000 Polymoog synthesizer in London's Denmark St, on which I wrote much of Stop The Cavalry and You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen.

I recorded Stop The Cavalry in my Brixton home studio over a few days, though I later added the brass band music in a professional 24-track recording studio.

I wrote it as an anti-war song but it featured the line 'wish I was at home for Christmas' so the record company released it in early December.

The number of times the song has been streamed goes up every year because it's become so associated with Christmas [it's estimated the song generates more than £100,000 in royalties every year].

The song features in the supermarket chain Morrisons' Christmas advert this year, so in due course it will generate a sync fee [royalty payments].

Will you pass your money down or spend it all?

I think we should be able to hand down any wealth we make to our children.

That's what my partner and I will be doing – it's wrong to penalise wealth and success if it has been built on bloody hard work.

Do you have a pension?

I don't have a private pension and I only get the minimum state pension.

My publishing royalties are my pension.

Do you own any property?

Yes, a triple-fronted house in Streatham, south London, which I bought outright for £125,000.

I also have a small holiday apartment on Australia's Gold Coast which I visit if I'm in need of some winter sunshine.

If you were Chancellor what would you do?

I'd force hugely wealthy multinational companies like Amazon and Google to pay more tax to help fund the NHS.

I don't quite get Rachel Reeves – I think that the best chancellor we've had in recent years was Rishi Sunak.

What is your number one financial priority?

To keep my finances in order so as to avoid the stress that comes with money problems.

I've played a couple of gigs this year and am hoping to tour next year.

jonalewie.com