SOUTH Essex guitarist Wilko Johnson has revealed he was unable to write for a month after arriving at, and reliving, his beloved wife’s death for his autobiography.

The 68-year-old, from Westcliff, is currently touring the country promoting his new book, Looking Back at Me, which chronicles his life growing up on Canvey, finding fame with Dr Feelgood, and being wrongly diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2012.

However, he said retracing the period surrounding his wife Irene’s death from cancer in 2004 put him out of action after forcing him to confront painful feelings he had not faced.

He said: “I got to the sad bit when, in 2004, my wife Irene died of cancer and it was so upsetting.

“Normally when you remember things you remember them in flashes or as one day, but having to look back on something and remember it in sequence and try and recollect what happened, it brings it all back like it was yesterday or today.

“I was so upset I couldn’t write for a month - I would open my laptop and just crack up. In the end I gave myself a good talking to and said ‘Come on, we’ve got to write this thing’ and I carried on.”

The book also traces his travels to Kathmandu in Nepal and through India as a young man, joining Dr Feelgood and – for the first time – his side of the band’s breakup, as well as his subsequent solo career and working with other big names such as Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

He said: “It’s the first true account of it for anyone who’s interested.

“I’ve been going up and down the country doing Q&As and it’s doing rather well, the publishers tell me.

“Whether it’s good or bad, I can’t say, but people have been very kind.”