web analytics

Memories

You are currently browsing articles tagged Memories.

Thoroughly persuaded

May 27, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.”

Robert Southey

A little less than two weeks ago I wrote the following on the subject of how I felt about returning (for however brief a visit) to the land of my birth.

“A dear friend here in BC asked me the other day how I felt about going back to the country of my birth. I told him the truth: I am really not at all sure how I feel about it. I am certainly looking forward to seeing family, friends and acquaintances and it will be good to visit some of the old haunts again. Beyond that I currently feel somewhat ambivalent.”

Safe to say that I am now a whole bunch less ambivalent!

Since arriving in the UK just over a week ago I/we have been met with nothing but kindness, generosity, enthusiasm and love. It has been a real joy to revisit old friendships and acquaintances and to rekindle relationships that have been dormant for years or even decades. The whole trip has thus far been an incredibly positive experience.

That said it seems invidious to single out any particular one of these joyful (and I make no apology for the repeated use of that word) experiences – but I do have to make mention of the heart-warming gathering that took place on the first Sunday that I was back in the UK.

Shortly before leaving for Canada four years ago I passed a delightful afternoon in the company of some old musician friends of mine – none of whom I had seen for some considerable time – chewing the fat about the old days in which we had played in a band together and about the theatrical works with which we had been involved.

With this visit to the old country in the offing I once again contacted my guitarist friend and suggested that it would be good to repeat that experience. What he actually did – whilst keeping from me all but the broadest hints – was to arrange a full-scale re-union of all of the old band members and a good number of those who belonged to the youth theatre with which we then worked.

Any fears that I might have had about being able to recognise those whom I had not seen for forty years – some of whom were then only in their late teens – vanished just as soon as I walked in. I was far from alone in showing my delight at seeing again those with whom we had enjoyed such formative experiences all those years ago. The afternoon was quite, quite magical and none of us really wanted to leave at the end of it. The subsequent outpouring of gratitude on email by all concerned clearly illustrated just how much the re-union – and the adventures some four decades back that we were celebrating – had meant to us.

A lovely, lovely occasion – and one which I will never forget.

A heartfelt thank you to all concerned.

Tags: , , , ,

Judy Blue Eyes

March 31, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image from Wikimedia CommonsWhen booking tickets a while back for last night’s Judy Collins concert at the McPherson Theatre in Victoria we were not without qualms. Nagging reminders of the hugely disappointing visit to the same venue by Gordon Lightfoot the year before last persisted. Treasured memories are sometimes best kept in the mind and not revisited in real life.

Such fears were little allayed when Collins took to the stage – accompanied only by her long-time pianist/musical director, Russell Walden – and during the first number her voice cracked several times. She seemed entirely un-phased by such teething problems, however, explaining that she was recovering from illness and implying that all would be well once she had warmed up.

That indeed turned out to be the case and apart from the occasional memory lapse on the lyrical front (the lady is seventy nine for goodness sake!) the remainder of the evening was the stuff of memories itself.

Much as I have always loved many of Judy’s multitude of classic recordings I have always found her a little cool and a touch distant. Two things rapidly became apparent last night – her voice is now warmer and richer than it was of yore (whilst just as affecting) and she has a keen and wicked sense of humour. The form of the evening was a trip through her sixty year music career, spinning hilarious anecdotes about a pantheon of greats – Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Steven Stills, Leonard Cohen and Stephen Sondheim (amongst others) interspersed with memory-inducing renditions of their (and her) songs.

The ninety minute show passed in a flash and included such classics as ‘Both Sides Now‘, ‘Chelsea Morning‘, ‘Mr Tambourine Man‘, ‘Send in the Clowns‘, ‘My Father‘, ‘Suzanne‘, ‘The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress‘ and ‘Amazing Grace‘. I was particularly moved by her rendition of Dylan’s ‘Masters of War‘. This is the stuff on which we (and, quite clearly, the remainder of the packed audience of those also in their second childhoods) had grown up – and it meant something. It was impossible not to be touched.

We learned things that we had not previously known, such as the fact that – had it not been for her cajoling – Leonard Cohen would have remained an obscure poet rather than morphing into the singer/songwriter that he became.

Also most impressive is that even at her age (did I mention that she is seventy nine!) Judy still averages a hundred and twenty live concerts a year!

Inspiring stuff and a fabulous evening!

Tags: , ,

What the hell…

January 1, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

…just happened?

2018 – that’s what!

The Girl and I spent a very low-key Hogmany last night, staying up barely long enough to greet the new year as it poked its head nervously around the door. Who can blame it? After 2018 was dragged from the room, kicking and complaining, punching the air with all of the self-possession of a drunk going down for the third time, 2019 was pushed and prodded into the limelight, most likely feeling anything but ready.

I am reminded of an occasion many years ago at the Edinburgh Festival. The Youth Theatre with which I was heavily involved had taken a show to the Fringe. Fighting – as ever – for any publicity we could get we had taken a late night slot at the Fringe Club to parade our wares. As we waited nervously in the wings – instruments at the ready – we could hear the previous act going down a storm. As soon as they finished there was a mass exodus from the hall, with hundreds of souls pouring out and heading for the bar. Nervously we tiptoed in. Magically the place was still packed to the rafters, with considerably drunk and extremely raucous revelers, all armed to the teeth with heckles! The less said about our performance the better, but as we left one of the young thespists turned to me and said:

“Don’t ever ask us to do that again!”

OK! So this is traditionally the point at which I look back at the outgoing year and summarise what has happened for us. Given that everything at the moment is overshadowed by the scary goings-on in the wider world it must be admitted that – though the year has thrown up more than a few surprises – we have done pretty well for ourselves.

2018 was always going to be the difficult year for us. When we did our retirement projections well before we left the UK we could see that there was going to be a financial dip, caused in part by the fact that my state pension does not kick in until part way through 2019. The collapse of the Sterling/CAD exchange rate that followed the Brexit vote made things worse, though being able to purchase ahead gave us something of a buffer up to this time last year.

It was clear that I was going to need to earn some extra monies to support our adopted lifestyle. By this time last year I had failed to find temporary or part-time work and it was not clear how I was going to do so. I was most fortunate to land the teaching contract that I did, and even more fortunate that I got another one for the autumn (Fall). With luck I may have another for the coming spring. Of course, none of this had been planned at our point of departure and I really had thought that my working days were over.

The Girl has had a difficult year at work as a result of changes to which I alluded in my equivalent report of this time last year. Change is never easy and as a species we tend to handle it poorly. She has persevered – something that is a most admirable strength of hers – and it does seem that the situation with her agency is now greatly improved. Fingers crossed.

She is not, however, one to sit back and to let things come to her. She has thus spent much of this last year planning her slow withdrawal from the world of work as she currently knows it. To this end she is undertaking a year’s course of study which will equip her to set up her own business, which will then gradually supercede her current role.

With regard to matters artistic it has also been a somewhat varied year. I got to teach a term’s worth of drama to a small but keen group of youngsters up here on the peninsula, but it rapidly became clear that there was no easy route to making this into something more permanent. My efforts in the realm of theatre have thus been primarily been devoted to wearing my Board of Directors’ hat for Intrepid Theatre. I have been able to spend a fair amount of time making music and I am hopeful that developments towards the year’s end might result in a further collaboration in the new year.

2018 afforded us little opportunity to travel aside from the excellent short trip that we made to Montreal during the spring. It is our intention that in this regard – as in many others – 2019 will be different.

Tags: , ,

Fringe!

August 20, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from PixabayThis week sees the start of the 32nd Victoria Fringe Festival. Wearing my Intrepid BoD hat I (along with my fellow directors) will be in for a busy couple of weeks.

I naturally associate the month of August with fringe festivals, having been so many times to the Edinburgh Fringe over the years both as a performer and a spectator. Now, the Edinburgh Fringe is enormous and seems these days to be spilling over from four to five weeks. Here in Victoria everything is on a much smaller scale; a mere twelve days and forty seven shows in less than a dozen venues.

I was recently reading in the online edition of the Guardian an article by a journalist who had been sent to Edinburgh with the brief of visiting shows on the fringe that featured nudity – which trait has a long and chequered history. The Victoria Fringe is no stranger to such antics either – but that may be a post for a different day!

The article was only of moderate interest but – as might be expected – attracted a fair bit of Below The Line comment subsequent to publication – as was doubtless the intention. The online correspondence included this offering which rather caught my eye – from a poster going by the sobriquet ‘TheLonelyDivorcee‘:

“I went to the first Isle of Wight festival in 1968 when the headline acts were Jefferson Airplane and Fairport Convention, both of whom were fronted by naked women. Nobody thought it significant or indeed some sort of massive step forward in equality.

That was partly because people were a lot more open minded then, and partly because we were all out of our minds on LSD/Magic Mushrooms. I say ‘minds’ but really we were just a single mind collectively experiencing ourselves and the universe as unified, ecstatic matter.

In fact most people also spent the entire event entirely naked and due to our youth and the drugs, in state of high sexual arousal. As a result many happy unions were formed between men and women.

This occurred despite the complete absence of ‘safe spaces’ and ‘gender neutral zones’.

When I arrived back home to my parents I was completely changed, much to the disgust of my father who, when he was the same age as I was then had become paralysed after being shot down over Bremen during a 1000 bomber raid on the Nazis – note these were real Nazis, not just people who didn’t recycle their rubbish.

I can’t help think my generation has had the best of it. When I look at my Grandson who’s around that age he doesn’t seem to have much fun. OK, he’s got a £150 pair of jeans, an IPhone and a useless degree in drama – with the debt that comes with it – but there’s no culture other than consumer culture and an increasingly authoritarian attitude towards sex and relationships.

I’m in good health, but I reckon I’ve got about 10-15 years before I will return to matter, and frankly I’ll be glad to be gone as I believe we are entering new puritanical age, and that is not for me.”

If I say that this struck a chord the gentle reader may well understand why!

Happy fringing!

Tags: , , , ,

Smokey Joe’s

August 16, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidSpeaking of Scouts (as I was in my last post) brings to mind no end of memories from way back in the 60s and 70s. No surprise there really…

There was (and indeed still is, I see) a Scout campsite but a few miles from where we grew up in (reasonably) leafy Surrey in the UK. We used to go there quite a lot for weekends throughout the year and the site was heavily used even back then. It is now billed as a ‘multi-purpose site’ and is clearly open to all manner of youth and educational organisations, rather than just to scouting boys as it was then.

I have a strong recollection of hiking to the site with a reasonably large group, carrying all of our camping gear along what was even then a busy main road on a trek cart. I don’t know how many of these splendid contrivances yet survive but I would not be surprised if it were no longer legal to take one out on the public highway.

Winter visits to the campsite were particularly interesting. We considered that sleeping in the scout tents of the day was just too brutal when there was a thick frost on the ground, but were fortunate in that the site had a cabin (it now has three!) with a big wood stove in it. Many a happy weekend was spent figuring just how much of a fug could be engendered therein by firing up a big blaze and stoking the stove as furiously as we could. Of course, we then had to try to sleep through the ensuing miasma!

As I recall the place was affectionately and unsurprisingly known as ‘Smokey Joe’s‘.

At that age I naturally simply followed the example of my peers and it didn’t occur to me to wonder as to the origin of that soubriquet until I used it as the title for this post. The InterWebNet is slightly less helpful than usual – with most references being to contemporary food joints, cigar lounges and clothing companies – not to mention the Leiber and Stoller based songbook musical, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe‘.

These references are, however, all too recent.

The Urban Dictionary offers an alternative slang definition which refers to a somewhat ‘colourful’ sexual practice that I certain would have been far too young to have understood at the time.

Probably the closest I can get is the somewhat older phrase ‘Smoking Joe‘ which – long before being applied to the legendary Joe Frazier or being adopted as slang for cigarettes – was used to refer to the steam engines that were developed in the eighteenth century to power the nascent industrial revolution.

That at least seems appropriate.

These atmospheric remembrances are particularly brought to mind just now by the fact that – somewhat later than last year but just as unwelcome – the view from our windows has vanished in a haze of smoke from the various wildfires burning not just in BC but also down through the US as far as California. I gather that this year’s smoky cloud cover is unlikely to last as long as did last year’s, but we still cannot wait to see the back of it.

In a post that already features one great heavyweight, let’s end with another:

“Generally when there’s a lot of smoke… there’s just a whole lot more smoke.”

George Foreman

Tags: , , ,

Such stuff…

March 5, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from Pixabay“We are such stuff as dreams are made on”

William Shakespeare

I have always dreamed vividly!

Such is – I would hazard – true of many people. Indeed, it is likely that the only real variation is in the intensity of the dreams themselves and in how much of them we can remember upon awakening.

Now, I don’t have much truck with the analysis of the meaning of dreams – certainly not in the ‘if you dream of falling/flying/marrying your mother etc that means xxxx‘ or like manner – though I do have a certain amount of time for Jung’s thinking on archetypal symbols. The business of dreaming itself is of considerable interest, however. I am fascinated by the repetition within dreams of images and memes that date back many decades. Why should those particular notions seem so constant when many other similar ones have faded?

I am also curious about the structure of dreams; of the way in which disparate elements conflate and apparently incongruous situations merge into one another. I find myself wondering (as have many others, of course) what mechanism could possibly be responsible for such apparently ‘real’ sequences and as to what purpose they truly serve.

The other night I dreamt that The Girl and I were in Edinburgh at festival time. We have both separately visited Edinburgh (many times in my case) but I have not attended the festival since the mid 90s. In the dream we had entered an old church which was clearly in use as some sort of venue – a common enough experience during festival time – and I was aware that we were on our way to meet other people. Down at the front of the space there was a group of young people and it was clearly they with whom we were to convene.

It rapidly became apparent that they were all once members of the youth theatre that I helped facilitate back in the 70s and 80s in the UK and I realised (as one mysteriously does in dreams) that they now held regular reunions in Edinburgh during festival time. It was good to meet again people that I had not seen for decades and the occasion was a joyous one. What was odd about the encounter (though not so strange in dream terms) was that these young people were all exactly as I remember them… they had not aged at all!

The Girl and I – on the other hand – had certainly done so!

Now that’s somewhat spooky!

 

 

Tags: , ,

…and counting!

January 14, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | 2 comments

Image from WikimediaI was thirteen when the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

As were so many others I was already captivated having heard such extraordinary songs as Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows and Strawberry Fields. Now – on experiencing their first post-touring long-player – I was completely blown away and a lifelong love of the works of Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr was cemented.

My most immediate and startling memory, however, of the post-Pepper-release period was not directly to do with the Beatles or with the record at all. My school at that time held an annual public speaking competition, involvement in which (somewhat strangely in the light of subsequent events) I contrived to avoid throughout my entire career there. This widely disregarded event took place over two days. On the first each of the competitors mounted – one at a time – the stage in School Hall to recite a poem. On the second day they gave a five minute address on some subject either close to their hearts or the choice of which they coldly calculated would most appeal to the judges and/or the forcibly assembled audience.

On day one of the 1967 competition one of the seniors (a popular prefect – words rarely heard together in those days) stood proudly upon the platform and recited – instead of the usual Tennyson, Wordsworth or Coleridge (or if particularly daring, Byron or Keats) – the lyrics to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, a song at that point banned by the straight-laced BBC for being quite obviously about the experience of taking LSD. We plebeians in the stalls gasped and looked shiftily at each other and to the masters present, trying to gauge how they would react to their solemn ritual being thus traduced.

The world – naturally – did not end. The staff simply looked bored and did nothing. The popular prefect did not win the contest. We mere mortals, however, realised that something, somewhere had changed irrevocably – and we were right.

What was most remarkable about Pepper of course (apart from the dazzling imagination and unprecedented soundscape on display) was the sheer variety. From LSD to traffic wardens, from Victorian fairground barkers to Indian gurus… all human life appeared to be represented not merely on Peter Blake’s pop-art cover but also within.

For this reason Paul McCartney’s whimsical musing on just what it might be like to achieve three score years and four seemed hardly out of place at all and those of us who could not begin to imagine ever reaching such a decrepit age simply took it as one more example of a fertile imagination.

This week – you will by now have deduced – I turned sixty four!

 

 

Tags: , , , ,

Looking back…

January 4, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

"Janus"- watercolour (and photograph) by Tony GristHerewith the promised 2017 update!

It feels as though a great many things happened over the last twelve months. The turn of the year feels like a pretty good time not only to take a retrospective glance at where we have got to but also – in an immediately succeeding post – to where we might be headed in 2018.

The Kickass Canada Girl’s job has occupied her greatly throughout the year and though much has been good about it it has not all been plain sailing. As is often the case with one’s employment, situations can change and not always for the better. The Girl is still tip-toeing around this particular evolution endeavouring to to determine exactly how it will effect her. It is very much her nature to start looking for alternatives when things are less than optimal, so keep an eye out for developments in 2018.

One of the great delights of the year was entertaining guests in our lovely home – both those traveling from the UK (two sets) and from elsewhere in BC. Being a new boy on the island I take great pleasure in showing off its delights to other newcomers and with the summer being really rather decent we had a splendid time both in our garden (yard) and out and about around Greater Victoria and the on island. I got to revisit Long Beach and Tofino, which is always a good thing, and we were able to dine out an impressive amount.

Further travel developments found me in December paying my first visit to Mexico. If you have not yet taken the opportunity to have a look at the photos that I posted herewith you would be most welcome so to do. I love the colours and the light, and the whole trip was a delight.

This has also been my first year on the board of Intrepid Theatre. Not only have I met a great many fascinating and inspiring new people but we have also experienced some really good theatre. It has definitely been a positive year on the arts front (as spectators at least) with theatre and music providing many splendid moments of enjoyment, emotion and thoughtfulness.

A major issue hinted at in previous year’s retrospectives has been our long-running legal battle with the vendor and realtor (estate agent) who sold us our house. I am much relieved to report that the matter has finally been settled (in the immediate aftermath of Christmas) though considerably less content to reveal that the settlement was for a significantly smaller sum than we believe it should have been. Having been obliged to sign a confidentiality clause I cannot reveal the terms, but I feel strongly moved to cavil at a legal process that makes it extremely difficult to get a fair settlement without investing a considerable sum of money (with no guarantee at all of any return) to push the matter through the courts. As it is the defendants have paid us a not inconsequential sum whilst still protesting that this does not admit any wrongdoing on their part. I leave the gentle reader to try to reconcile these two apparently antithetical positions.

The monies have, of course, been most welcome in support of what has been perhaps the major happening of the year – the extensive renovation of this house into a potentially exceptional home. Regular readers will have observed the pictures that I posted at the start of the summer, as we had the back of the house torn off and a wonderful new deck built. At the end of October the second phase commenced and The Girl and I became basement dwellers for duration as this extensive project has steadily inched nearer to its conclusion. More on that in the next post.

Well – that is goodbye to 2017. It always felt as though it were a transitional year somehow, and it still does.

2018 though… That’s a different matter!

 

Tags: , ,

…in the air

December 1, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by Tony Hisgett on Wikimedia Commons“The music is in the air. Take as much as you want.”

Edward Elgar

It is highly likely that a fair proportion of the English expat community of Victoria were unknowingly gathered together in one place on Monday evening last.

The Kickass Canada Girl and I were amongst those attending the Royal Theatre for a concert by the Victoria Symphony Orchestra (the first such that I have experienced) featuring a programme which included works by Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Edward Elgar.

In musical terms one cannot get much more ‘English’ than this and the Brits appeared to have turned out in force!

Though I have long been a fan of Vaughan-Williams I was not previously familiar with the F Minor Tuba Concerto – the which work was featured on Monday. In common with most other commentators I do not find the bass tuba particularly suited to being featured as a solo instrument, but the orchestral passages in the piece are marked by the composer’s familiar elegant phrasing and it proved to be most enjoyable as a whole.

Now – I grew up listening to Elgar. As would seem to be the case for many others I came first to the Enigma Variations, falling in love with the Nimrod and sensing that it somehow encapsulates much that is good at the heart of the English pastoral. I discovered the E Minor Cello Concerto somewhat later but the work has grown to have a profound effect on me. The piece – Elgar’s last major work – was composed shortly after the end of the Great War (during which he had written very little) and has been described as a lament for a lost world. To me – and clearly to many others – its elegiac and melancholy mood captures to perfection the sense of tragic loss both of a generation and of the innocence of the ‘golden summer’ that preceded that catastrophic conflict.

The last time I head the Cello Concerto played live was at a concert at one of the schools at which I worked. The cello soloist (still a schoolboy at the time) was Tim Lowe – now a highly respected international performer. His rendition of the work moved me to tears, as did that of English cellist Raphael Wallfisch on Monday last. Wallfisch’s reading is maybe a little more clear-eyed and less sentimental, but the power of the work over those of us who are susceptible (Englishmen mayhap?) is undeniable.

Mind you – the Nimrod also has me blubbing uncontrollably as well. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, except that Elgar clearly tapped into something that speaks eloquently to at least some of us who hail from from that blessed plot.

The first time that one hears a ‘new’ orchestra is always a somewhat nervy experience. I am delighted to report that the Victoria Symphony – under its new director, Christian Kluxen – gave an entirely admirable performance. I very much look forward to hearing them again.

Tags: , ,

Feet of clay

October 25, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by Tabercil on Wikimedia CommonsA sad evening last night…

Way back in the mists of time (actually somewhat earlier this year!) it was announced that the ‘Legendary Gordon Lightfoot’ would be coming to Victoria this fall for a couple of concerts at the McPherson Playhouse.

Wikipedia says of the great man:

“Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music, and has been credited for helping define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada’s greatest songwriter and internationally as a folk-rock legend.”

Now – it is probably fair to say that for many of us who hail from the UK (and elsewhere ‘abroad’) familiarity with both Mr Lightfoot himself and with his oeuvre are somewhat limited. The name I knew, of course, but I could not bring to mind any of his classic songs.

For the Kickass Canada Girl, however, it was a different matter. She grew up on Mr Lightfoot, and his compositions – as for so many Canadians – were woven into the tapestry of her upbringing. Not a second was wasted, therefore, in placing an order for two tickets for the aforementioned show, so that she might revisit old favourites and stir some memories in the process, whilst introducing me to something that I had previously missed.

So where – the gentle reader will doubtless be wondering – does the sadness come in? Well – the Girl and I did something that we virtually never do: we left at the interval!

Mr Lightfoot used to have a beautiful rich haunting baritone voice but sadly – on last night’s evidence at least – it is no more. In a form in which the words are pretty much everything, the strained croak with which we were greeted at the McPherson yesterday struggled to render many of the lyrics intelligible. In addition, Mr Lightfoot’s four-piece band were obviously under instruction not to provide too much competition and were dialed back almost to comatose. Given that none of them provided backing vocals either the man’s voice was left painfully exposed.

Checking his history on the InterWebNet I gather that over the years (Mr Lightfoot is 78!) illness has taken its toll and – though I would be one of the last people to suggest that he should not indulge his love of performing to the many appreciative fans who were clearly willing to overlook such frailties – I can’t help but think that he needs a little help. The Girl and I saw Burt Bacharach some years back at the jazz festival in Perugia. He was 80 at the time and – recognising that his own voice was shot – had surrounded himself with three gorgeous young vocalists (male and female) to handle such ‘chores’ whilst he amused himself (and us!) on the piano. It made for a stunning concert!

In the case of Mr Lightfoot the Girl was – understandably – really quite upset.  When the tenderly preserved memory of something that has played such a key part in one’s life is delivered such a rude awakening it can leave one somewhat shaken.

Tags: , ,

« Older entries § Newer entries »