November 2013 – Page 2 – Writer-insighter

I’ve just finished the first live music broadcast on the Lifeboat Party today when I had Jack Pescod and Hannah Vogt in to play. She played the violin, so that was no problem apart from pronouncing her name properly. Vocked, apparently. German. Don’t mention the war. I did, but I think I got away with it.

He said he was bringing a piano in. How we roared! Until he turned up with an electric piano in a case, with a stand and a collection of tangled leads but not one that would feed directly into the mixing desk, so we had to mic it up which picked up the noise of his hands on the keyboard and blah. But the music was sublime. I thought so anyway. Hope the listeners did.

The duo – is that the right word? It doesn’t sound right, although they do – are performing at Butley Priory, home to Frances Shelley who was on the show recently. I’m doing some lyrics for her. Did I mention that? Didn’t I? Oh sorry. I’m doing some lyrics for her, for her third CD. The one of hers I played today was from her second album, the beautiful All I Want from the album Wilderness Rhapsodies.

I love the little piano line. It reminds me of Listen With Mother, not exactly but to me there’s an element of some half-forgotten children’s story, from the times when little boys wore shorts and knee length socks at this time of year.

The show finished at one pm. At five past we had a phone call at the studio. Is the Carl Bennett show still on? Have I missed it?

Don’t know who it was. But whoever, you can hear still hear it on the Listen Again thing. I hope you like it, whoever you are.

A little bleary this morning after a nearly five hour phone call with my oldest friend of all. We met when I was 16. We went to school together. We lost touch for about five years, a long time back, just moving around, then we got back in contact. There is a good thing about an unlimited talk contract on a mobile. There is something much better about having a friend you can tell everything, who can hold you as well as scold you. Who is always, always there.

This has been a difficult year on so many different levels. But I have been blessed this year, discovering things about myself. Some were things I didn’t want to learn. And one of the most important things I had not learned is that friends are there and when you ask them to, most people will help if they can.

I learned you have to be strong enough to ask for help too. Which is a sad and interesting dynamic in itself, because often when you really need help you aren’t strong enough to ask for it or to accept it when it’s there. So as Paul Simon put it, we talked about the old times and we drank ourselves some beers. Or now we’re who we are and the age we are, we drank a bottle of wine together, 220 miles apart. We weren’t crazy though, then or now. Just happy to be talking to each other in a place where time didn’t happen, where even if it did, this huge thing, that wasn’t going to change or go away, ever.

My friend’s job is sensitive. The things she deals with every day are horrible and they happen to lots of people, far more than people like to admit. She’s not a spy or a secret agent or anything like that but in her job using Facebook would be instant career suicide. So she won’t see this. Her children will. And they know how it is anyway.

Thank-you, my most brilliant friend, in a year which has sparkled with brilliant friends, not just you, but the Brilliant Three as well who this dark summer have kept me mostly upright, who have picked me up, who have been on their own different penances and pilgrimages, who sometimes I was able to help a bit, too. Thank-you, my friends. Thank-you so much.

Month: November 2013

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