TONY STRATTON-SMITH: Genesis went down to Luxford House, my home in Crowborough, Surrey, where they rehearsed for most of the summer. It was a lovely old Tudor house, which was in the centre spread of Van Der Graaf's Pawn Hearts album cover and there was a joke about the house being haunted, the sort of house with sixteenth century timbers that appeared to have very good vibes for musicians. Many have worked and stayed there - Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, Van Der Graaf, Bert Jansch, Bob Johnson, Mike Nesmith.

MIKE: I reckon Nursery Cryme is one of the hardest albums, the first time that we had written without Ant, which I think was quite a change for us.

STEVE: For me, it was a hell of a change, because it was the first time I had made an album that I actually had some sort of control and influence in, so for me, it was like a big 'up', my big break. I was learning at the same time as I was trying to put something in. Things never used to come naturally into someone's piece of music and I started coming out with original ideas, like playing a solo. Instead of playing the chords on a heavy beat, like at the end of 'Fountain of Salmacis', which was just supposed to be orchestral, I started playing a guitar solo over it and it just seemed to happen from that moment.

MIKE: It was a period of getting to know each other in a different writing form. All of us were changing all the time. It was a hard album, but I think that some of the things that came out were good and strong and definitely Strat's house had an influence on us. We were very aware of the fact that we were in the country.

PHIL: I'm sure the house was haunted. There were some weird vibes. There was a picture with eyes that followed you everywhere and other strange things. But by that time I was hip to what the band was doing and I enjoyed it.

TONY: It slowly dawned on me that Nursery Cryme really was no improvement on Trespass and I accepted it as one of those things. I just felt that having lost Ant, we were losing quite a large force in the group and we were just too young and immature really to be able to cope with that drastic change very quickly. I think that Musical Box and Salmacis are the two songs that sort of carry that album and they were hangovers from the Ant days.