“Flying model planes and covering the phone with a pillow was all I was capable of at the time”: The unexpected triumph of Mike Oldfield’s Hergest Ridge, an album he didn’t want to make

Mike Oldfielf.

In 1974, Mike Oldfield topped the UK chart with Hergest Ridge, the ambitious follow-up to his unexpectedly successful debut Tubular Bells. It was an album the overwhelmed 21-year-old struggled to make – and yet he delivered a work with astonishing uplifting energy.

How do you follow up one of the most innovative debut albums of all time? That was the challenge a young Mike Oldfield found himself facing in 1973. The debut in question, the now-iconic Tubular Bells, had been released that May via Richard Branson’s fledgling Virgin Records to widespread critical acclaim – and no small amount of commercial success.