14 Oct 2025
We ask a different figure from the local community to choose 10 questions to answer from a list of 50. This week: Edmund Hornsby, co-founder of The Pioneer Club’s Common People and It’s A Sin, and a celebrated DJ known as Ed the Saint who has played the likes of The Garage in Highbury and Islington, Reading Alleycat, Camden Palace and The Barfly.
Where do you walk when you want to think?
There are several places in St Albans where I’ll enjoy a walk. During the pandemic I covered most of the area!
My favourite (until sadly it had a barbed wire fence put up on either side of the path) was the Ver Colne Valley Walk from either Butterfield or Cottonmill Lane. That was a wonderfully relaxing walk.
These days, I’ll loop round the Alban Way and into the Nunnery or head up to Gorhambury. We’re very lucky!
Where do you go to listen to music?
There are very few places I don’t listen to music – If I leave the house, I’ll have headphones!
The car is a great place too. It’s not unknown for me to wander around St Albans far longer than I would otherwise in order to listen to more music!
Let’s say car for anything I need to hear very very loud… or the Pioneer Club – which really has an incredible sound system!
If you could travel back in time and offer your younger self some advice, what would it be?
Take a year out between secondary school and university and mature a little.
I was so obsessed with trying to work for the NME or going to gigs that I didn’t focus on anything else. I think a little life experience would’ve helped a lot!
CD, vinyl, download or streaming?
Vinyl for anything ‘60s/’70s, once you get to the ‘80s it very much depends on the version of the record…
repressings and remasters can be so mixed in terms of quality!
Now that streaming has embraced lossless I’m far less concerned about that over CD, but there’s just something about vinyl from before records were digital that you can’t beat.
Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s going on’ on vinyl. Wow.
DJ wise I’ve always tried to make sure whatever I played was a high quality version – so I can see advantages in them all (I don’t miss the old ‘crowd jumps up and down, vinyl skips’ days!)
(Unsubtle plug here for It’s A Sin – the alternative to 8’0s nights at the Pioneer on Saturday 18th October! Itsasinclub.co.uk!)
What TV did you watch as a child?
Doctor Who and basically any science fiction that was on. Star Fleet (the Japanese marionette show), Terrahawks, Battlestar Galactica (I was obsessed with the bubble gum cards of the show and the robot dog ‘Muffit’), Buck Rogers, Captain Zep, Hitchikers… if it was sci-fi I watched it!
Comedy shows were (and are) my very close second love on TV, my Grandmother had worked at the BBC and brought home vinyl records of shows from well before my time like Not Only But Also, Hancock’s Half Hour, Beyond the Fringe and I’d listen to those over and over again. It stuck with me.
If you could have a conversation with someone who had died who would it be?
My father most probably. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but I’d very much like to see him again.
Do you play any musical instruments?
I play bass, I’ve been playing for (yikes) 30+ or so years now.
I’ve been in various indie bands over the years, but these days I’m in a band called ‘Camden Paris Parsons’.
We’ve recorded a couple of albums, most recently travelling to Memphis to record at some unbelievable studios including Muscle Shoals, Fame and Sun. Best of all we got to be the first band to record at the newly reopened Ardent Studios (famous for REM’s Green amongst many others!).
Which day of your life would you most like to relive?
The day my son was born.
Scratch that, the day after my son was born once we’d slept!
How long would you survive a zombie apocalypse?
Would very much depend on how much notice I had it was coming.
We’re well prepped at home for when it starts, obviously, who isn’t, but you know, there’s always the chance you’re out and about in town and get bitten randomly because you’ve got headphones on and don’t hear the screams.
What is your most-missed St Albans shop, pub, café or restaurant?
It’s an even tie between a restaurant on Hollywell Hill called ‘Singhli’ (which served Indian street food) and Relish, a burger bar next to the Alban Arena my family missed so much when it moved we used to drive to the other branch in Potters Bar!
Catch Ed the Saint at It’s A Sin – the alternative to ‘80s nights – St Albans Pioneer Club on Saturday 18th October (Tickets: itsasinclub.co.uk) and Common People Vs. Get Free – ‘90s and ‘00s Nights – Pioneer Club on Saturday, 15th November (Tickets: https://wegottickets.com/event/670572)!
