📍Benllech, Anglesey LL74, UK
1955 – 1963“I was born Ian Fraser Kilmister in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, on Christmas Eve 1945. My father, a former RAF chaplain, left when I was a baby, and my mother and grandmother raised me. When I was about ten, my mother remarried, to George Willis, a former footballer, and we moved to a farm at Benllech, a seaside village on the east coast of Anglesey, in North Wales, with sandy beaches and views across the bay to the mountains of Snowdonia. I didn't get on with my stepfather's two older children, and I went to the Welsh-speaking school at Amlwch, Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones, where I was the only English kid among seven hundred Welsh ones, which was not a happy experience, though I found it interesting. They say that's when people started calling me Lemmy, maybe from lend me a quid till Friday, because I was always borrowing money for the slot machines, though I never remembered where the name came from. On Anglesey I discovered rock and roll, horses and girls, especially the ones who came to the island on holiday, and I learned the guitar, partly because I saw that a boy with a guitar got the girls' attention. I left school and moved to Conwy, then to Manchester, playing in bands like the Rockin' Vickers, and later I was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and played bass in Hawkwind. In 1975 I formed Motörhead, and with songs like Ace of Spades, played loud and fast, I became one of the most loved figures in rock and metal. Anglesey remembers the English boy who learned guitar by the sea.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today