writing, not drowning

'Only remembered for what we have done'

So, that was January 2016. It will not be missed, unlike the people whose passing it marked. A strange, dark time, during which we seemed to reel from one unbelievable headline to another. There is nothing unbelievable about death; it is inevitable for each of us - but still we reeled. So many cultural icons felled within so few days. I avoided writing; there were words enough in print and in cyberspace and others, I kept thinking, had already found the right words.

My eldest nephew, now in his mid-fifties, had been a fan of David Bowie from the age of 14; he posted his thoughts on Facebook and his words were as eloquent and as moving as those of any of the professional commentators paid to write a eulogy for the broadsheets and elsewhere. But having lost his younger brother, a sister, and his mother within thirteen months of each other in recent years, my nephew is already acquainted with grief. He has the words. Then there were Bowie's own words, in Archive on 4, David Bowie: Verbatim, with the man himself, laughing, joking, and reminiscing about the Marquee, the Ricky Tick in Hounslow, the Craw Daddy in Richmond, Eel Pie Island, all the places that many of us of a certain age had flocked to in the 1960s  . . . for the music. He had been there too.

On the day that Alan Rickman's death was announced, I called a close friend who had once known him well and who had introduced me to him 40 years ago. (I wrote about that meeting here.) And we talked about the strange, difficult emotional hinterland we must occupy when someone to whom we have once been very close dies. (In that coincidental way, Woman's Hour touched on that very subject later in the week.)

And so the announcements continued until yesterday, the last day of the month when we heard, first about Sir Terry Wogan, then Frank Finlay . . . and suddenly it was 1966 again. I was 18, six months pregnant, and sitting in my Dear Old School Friend's father's mini-van; she driving round and round Parliament Square, trying to find the right traffic lane for Westminster Bridge. The Dear Old School Friend had just passed her driving test and we were on our way to the Old Vic, to see what was to become one of the definitive 20th century stagings of Othello: Laurence Olivier in the title role, Maggie Smith as Desdemona - and Frank Finlay as Iago. We arrived with minutes to spare, she hauled me up seemingly endless flights of stone steps to the gods, and we watched the entire performance sitting on hard wooden benches. (I did wonder whether my memory was playing tricks. had there really been wooden benches at the Old Vic in the 1960s? I checked; there had been, indeed, wooden benches in the 1960s.) I also found this page on Frank Finlay's website and could not agree more with Sir Anthony Sher's words about the exceptional acting that we saw that day. How very lucky we were. I told the Dear Daughter yesterday that, at the time, I had hoped that the experience would have some sort of in utero impact on my unborn baby. It must have worked: she has always loved Shakespeare . . .

By mid-morning, yesterday, I found I could listen to no more words on BBC Radio 4. (It might have been listening to Bill Gates's off-putting voice on Desert Island Discs that did it.) I switched to Radio 3 and the day became brighter at once (it was Folk Connections weekend on Radio 3).  I was adding pieces of music to my BBC Playlister, almost without stopping, until this song, which - in every sense - stopped me in my tracks: Only Remembered, words by John Tams. If you have seen War Horse, the song will be familiar and you can see John Tams performing it with the War Horse cast here. However, the version broadcast was this one, by Coope Boyes and Simpson, which I found on the No Glory website and which is where I discovered that Alan Rickman had been an early signatory to the No Glory letter. Alan Rickman and many others whose work - and words - I admire. Everything is connected. Everything and everyone. And we can remember. We do.

On a January Sunday, 60 years ago . . .

 

Richard Burton was in a BBC studio recording his inimitable performance as the narrator of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. It was broadcast on what was then the Third Programme the following evening. At the age of six, however, I knew nothing of Dylan Thomas and no-one in my family listened to the Third Programme.

My introduction to Thomas came five years later at my primary school, thanks to a Welsh student called - yes - Mr Jones, who was completing a teaching practice with our forty-strong form. One wet, chilly afternoon, at the start of an English lesson, Mr Jones announced that he had a treat in store for us. Out of one of the classroom cupboards, he hauled a wind-up gramophone, whose prior use had been confined to providing the music for our weekly country dance classes. (Our form teacher was a very keen member of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.)

Then, from his briefcase, he produced a record . . .

'This,' said Mr Jones, in reverential tones, 'is something remarkable. We are going to listen to Under Milk Wood. Some of the finest words in the English language - and written by a Welshman, Dylan Thomas. The narrator possesses one of the finest voices in the English speaking world and he is a Welshman too, Richard Burton. So, I want you all to sit still, absolutely no fidgeting.'

I can't remember what my classmates did but, from the moment I heard the opening line:

'To begin at the beginning . . .'

delivered in those deep, rich, nut-brown tones, there was not the remotest possibility that I might fidget. I was somewhere else - hovering on the edge of Llareggub, looking down on Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, Captain Cat, Rosie Probert, Mr Mog Edwards, Gossamer Beynon et al. It was the first time that I can recall shivers running down my spine while listening to the spoken word. Mr Jones also had the look of a man for whom, in the words of Louis Macneice, 'time was away and somewhere else'.

But, this being the 1950s and my primary school being run by a head teacher who was feared by all, our literary transports of delight were doomed. Half way through the lesson, our head teacher stormed in, red of face and teeth clenched. She almost wrenched the gramophone arm out of its socket.

'This,' she bellowed at Mr Jones, 'is NOT suitable listening for 11 year-olds. See me in my office at the end of the lesson.'

And that was the end of our introduction to Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood. And it was the end of Mr Jones's teaching practice at our school. But I thought at the time that he had been right  about the words and the voice. Sixty years later, I still think he was right and I have a much-read first edition of Under Milk Wood and a frequently-played copy of the BBC recording to prove it.

So thank you, Mr Jones, for that great gift. And here, to mark the 60th anniversary of Burton and the cast's magnificent recording, the opening of Under Milk Wood. 

You can find the rest of the recording on YouTube. Unless, of course, you have your own much loved and much played copy. 

The heart's memory

Today, on the other side of the country, people are gathering to say farewell to someone who was once the centre of my life. But I decided to stay here in Devon and simply light a candle in his memory.

There was a time when we were as close as it is possible for two people to be; we shared so much and music was at the heart of the sharing. Through him I learned to listen to music in a wholly new way, with the heart and the soul. For him, Sinatra was the singer par excellence and through him I came to understand just what made Sinatra's voice so special. Our Concert Sinatra album has been played repeatedly in recent days . . .

The music in us lives on.

'We're in Milton Keynes and waiting for a miracle . . .'*

*With apologies to Raghu Dixit . . .

I'm going to have to go out of chronological 'what I did on my holidays' order to mention our visit to - er - Milton Keynes at the end of July. That is 'our', in terms of my Friend on the Road and me. We where there to see the Raghu Dixit Project, for which we had waited an entire year because I wasn't able to get away from Devon to see the band when they were in the UK last summer.

It was only last year that I discovered their brilliant music, when the BBC's coverage of Glastonbury included Raghu performing No Man Could Ever Love You. It took no more than the opening bars to have me hooked, lined and sinkered and I wrote about Raghu Dixit here.

I drove across Buckinghamshire - I was staying with my family in the Chilterns; my Friend on the Road caught the train from Euston and we met at the Jaipur in Milton Keynes, to remind ourselves of the time we spent travelling in India four years ago. Recommended by my ex-Royal Greenjackets friend and neighbour, S, who seems to be familiar with everything everywhere in the UK, it is said to be the largest Indian restaurant in  Europe.

But this being just Day Two of the Games (still confused; am I allowed to use this word?), it was unusually quiet for the Jaipur, which is normally heaving with hungry diners. Our excellent vegetarian meal was great value and the staff were delightful. We had a longish chat with one of them about the Games before another gave us directions to Campbell Park, where Raghu was due to appear on the closing night of the annual Milton Keynes International Festival.

So, our first visit to an equally - and eerily - quiet Milton Keynes, at least in its centre, and on to the festival, where we had our first experience of a spiegeltent:

Photo © Jane Parkin

Glastonbury afiçionados  will know exactly what this is: an ornate circular construction - think circus ring - edged with mirror-lined booths:

Photo © Jane Parkin

The lighting is art nouveau:

Photo © Jane Parkin

the ceiling a canopy of red velvet trimmed with gold braid that billows in the wind (this being a farly typical English summer, it billows in the rain too), and an intimate space that lends itself to rather good acoustics. A combination that makes for an intimate setting for music and all rather magical. 

The audience reflected the international aspect of the festival and ranged in age from very young people (as in babes in arms) to, well, let's not be coy about this - pensioners. Within minutes of the band's appearance on stage, everyone was up on their feet, clapping, dancing and generally having a very good time indeed, helped by the fact that Raghu Dixit engaged so directly with the audience, joking wth them, telling stories of his childhood in Mysore and even encouraging a collective attempt at qawwali. Proof, yet again, that music has the power to cross the boundaries of age, culture, nationality and gender. 

By the end of the evening our hands ached from clapping and our jaws from smiling, laughing and occasionally joining in; we had loved every minute and that year of waiting to see a live performance had been so worthwhile. So, an enormous 'thank you' to the Raghu Dixit Project. If you have the opportunity to see the band, do take it; you will not be disappointed.

Ebb and flow, yin and yang, coming and going

I started writing this blogpost on 12 April and it is now the 22nd; blame it on the labyrinthitis, which, really, I could have done without. My GP tells me to expect up to six weeks of vertigo etc etc. Oh joy, oh rapture. She didn't mention that I would also get a streaming cold to add to the mix. Meanwhile, outside it is cold, wet, windy and grey - plus ça change - and it's almost May. Sometimes, I struggle, I really do, to love this country. Anyway, back to where I was ten days ago.

The spring holiday has been something of a bumper time for visitors at 60 Going on 16 Towers. The Dear Family (ie my daughter and her husband) were here until the morning of Easter Monday, leaving just enough time for a swift turnround before my Dear Friends, Mr and Mrs Gaucho, and their Border terrier, arrived from Scotland via the Cotswolds later that afternoon for a few days. They have now headed off to stay with a cousin in South Devon and I've been preparing one of the guest bedrooms ready for the arrival on Saturday of another Dear Friend, the Duchess. 

The Gauchos, the Duchess and I go back a long way. As Mr Gaucho said when we went out to dinner on Wednesday: 'You are my oldest friend . . .' And Mr Gaucho is most certainly my longest-standing male buddy. We first met c1970 at the architectural practice that he had joined as a newly qualified architect. I ran the practice library, ordered drawings, kept the accounts, did the PAYE, and grudgingly made coffee for the all-male architectural team (until I rebelled and the senior partners had to install coffee machines so that the chaps could make their own coffee). The Duchess arrived at the same practice c1972.

Mr Gaucho met the young woman who was to become Mrs Gaucho in the early 1970s and I just knew from the way he spoke about her that something special was happening. Which it was. Later, I was witness at their wedding and a proud godmother to their firstborn - a daughter, now a mother of four herself. 

'I'm trying to remember where and when we first met,' I said to Mrs Gaucho.

'You were standing at the top of the steps to your (basement) flat,' she replied.

That was here. (Not during the siege itself, you understand; that came later and there wasn't any hanging around at the top of the steps when that was going on. It was a matter of ducking one's head down and running as fast as possible, accompanied by a police officer, until one was safely inside the front door.) So we raised  our glasses to decades of a very happy triangular friendship. These don't always work but ours has, brilliantly, and I am proud to count Mrs Gaucho among my closest female friends.

For much of the year, I am entertaining canine guests, whom I love dearly, but conversation is, inevitably, somewhat one-sided. So the arrival of family and friends means proper, grown-up, human coversations about cabbages and kings, as well as the usual catching up.  In the past week or so, we have meandered, among many things, through writing, art, flowers, photography, politics, architecture, favourite blogs, and books, and food - in particular, food writers, most notably, a favourite food writer, Claudia Roden.

Mrs Gaucho, a fine cook herself, and I have both had the privilege of standing in Claudia Roden's kitchen, watching her at work, listening to her flow of stories, learning . . . For me, this was in the mid-1980s, when the company I was then working for published  a selection of recipes from A New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Watching, listening to, learning from and reading Claudia Roden changed the way I cooked and thought about food and Mrs Gaucho said she thought I might enjoy this recent post by Eat Like a Girl, who - almost three decades later - had also been standing in that same kitchen, watching, listening and learning. (I did enjoy it and I thought you might too.) 

Right, I have caught up; it is now - today.

While she was here, Mrs Gaucho and I put our heads together to create the foundations of her blog, something she has been wanting to start for a long time. I'm pleased to report that the running wave is now launched and I am looking forward to regular updates. Mrs Gaucho loves words and images as much as I do (and we like the same music) and I feel sure that you will find the running wave to be a source of delight.

Here's to friendships, tried and true, that stand the test of time. And to Claudia Roden. Why not?