A recent article in the Times written by Chris Ayres is the co-author, with Ozzy Osbourne, of the international bestseller I Am Ozzy

Four men were responsible: Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Terence “Geezer” Butler and Bill Ward. All had grown up amid the postwar “bomb building sites” of Aston, Birmingham, and left school with virtually no qualifications. Before forming Black Sabbath and recording their eponymous LP — by no accident, the release date was Friday the 13th — Osbourne had worked at the Digbeth slaughterhouse, where he killed up to 200 cows a day, while Iommi, now considered one of the great rock guitarists of all time, had been a welder, losing two of his fingertips in an accident with a sheet metal press. To get around his disability, he made prosthetics using an old Fairy Liquid bottle.

Read the full article here