Way back in 1964, my mother bought me a no-name acoustic (steel strung) for my birthday ... it cost R8.50 from Bothners in Durban ... I played it till my fingers were raw! ... by the time I could play "House of the rising sun" all the way through, no-one in my family wanted to hear it anymore .... "not that bloody song again" they would say!
I moved on to a 12 string Framus with a soundhole pickup, and eventually a solid Framus strat copy, which got broken on the way home from a gig when our dopy drummer fell on it in the back of the Kombi!
I've since had a les paul custom, an SG, and a telecaster, and currently have about 8 axes (the ultimate being a Heritage les Paul, hand-made by the good old boys at the old Gibson factory in Kalamzoo Michigan) but my go-to guitar is a SX tele copy in American swamp ash .... I just love it!

Greetings fellow muso's,
I'm a 66 year old ex Durban guitar player, who now lives in Australia's Kimberley Region.
Back in the 60's I attended Mansfield High and formed a group with other guys from the school, we called ourselves Painted Mind and played gigs around Durban and 'Toti.
Later on we split and 2 of the guys formed Scratby Hud, and we formed Spirit and Flesh.
We played around the time of the Third Eye, Leemen Ltd, the Flames, and the scene was really going off especially the Tiles Club.
I have a few guitars, incuding a Heritage USA les paul, a couple of SX telecasters, an Aria les paul, a Squire Affinity strat, and a couple of other strat type guitars, most of which I've modified a bit.
I still write songs, and play occasionally with a couple of other old farts locally.
I left Durban in the 1970's and lived in London for a while before emigrating to Australia.
So it's a warm hello to all you out there ... maybe a couple of you will remember those days if you're old enough!