After penning and performing some of the most enduring songs of a generation, Supertramp leader Roger Hodgson stunned his fans when in 1983 he quit the band at the height of their fame.

With a catalogue that included solid gold favourites like Give A Little Bit, The Logical Song, Take The Long Way Home, Breakfast in America and Dreamer, Hodgson could, had he chosen, have gone on to enjoy life as a millionaire rock star.

Instead this south coast boy - he was born and brought up in Portsmouth - kissed goodbye to Thatcher's Britain and the money-generating treadmill that is the recording industry and headed for the hills of northern California.

He told an astonished music press that he wanted to spend more time with his young family, live closer to nature and pursue spiritual values. In the Yuppie-dominated '80s, it was a radical lifestyle choice. Some wrote him off as a whacked-out hippy, others feared that he'd had some kind of breakdown.

In fact Hodgson says he was enjoying a healthier, happier life than that offered by touring with a rock 'n' roll band.

Now, 24 years after he left Supertramp, he is back. After playing at this summer's 40th birthday tribute concert in memory of Princess Diana (one of his biggest fans), he is about to embark on a brief six-date UK tour including a concert at the Bournemouth Pavilion on October 7.

He says it is a joy to return but stresses that he has absolutely no regrets about having been away so long.

"I'm in a beautiful position where my songs have stood the test of time not only for the people who love to listen to them but to me as a performer," he says.

"I'm so grateful for my life. I'm grateful for the success I had in the industry and now I'm in great shape and in a position to give something back. I really believe that the more you're given the more you have to give back. It is in giving that you get your joy. It's so simple."

Hodgson says he was never particularly enamoured with the rock 'n' roll style, and leaving it behind was no hardship either.

"For the last 24 years I've lived up in the mountains of northern California. Frankly I prefer the seclusion. I didn't want to stay connected with a business in which I always felt like a square peg in a round hole.

"Even now that I'm back on the road it's not an industry in which I feel I belong. It's just something I can dip in and out of. I'm a very lucky guy to be able to do that"

Leaving Supertramp - a move that effectively destroyed the band - was a decision he says he had to make.

"Making the last album Famous Last Words was not a good experience for any of us. Everyone seemed to be pulling in different directions and, although it was a hit, I wasn't happy with the result.

"I also realised that from being a single man with nothing to think about but Supertramp for 14 years, I now had a family and two small babies. It was time to make a choice. I could either continue with the band and probably lose my family, certainly lose the experience of watching my kids grow up, or it was time for a change."

The transition from touring musician to clean-living, spiritually-tuned house-husband was not an easy transition.

"It was very hard. My heart was telling me to do it but for a time my head was not at peace with it at all."

With hindsight, he says it was the right decision.

"I'm very happy. It's something I feel very good about."

Financially it's a decision that probably cost him a small fortune but he says he never thought of things in terms of money and the songs have been good to him.

"I've never been hugely rich but I've always been comfortable and luckily with the CD boom the catalogue keeps selling and continues to sell today. It's amazing. There has always been a nice little nest-egg to rely on."

n Roger Hodgson plays the Bournemouth Pavilion on Sunday October 7.