Neil Young - Harvest Time (Official Film Clip)

R.I.P Christine McVie. I'd Rather Go Blind (1969)

I Did It Otway.

The night after I got home from London, I had a call from a neighbour Phil. “John Otway is playing in Trowbridge tomorrow night if you fancy going”. “Ok, that sounds like fun, I’ll see you in the pub at 6.30”. The next evening, we caught a taxi from The Crown to the railway station and hopped on the train for the short journey to Trowbridge. The Village Pump is a little folk club in the yard of The Lamb pub which has somehow managed to survive for about fifty years and has hosted some great musicians during that time. This isn’t the first time I have seen Otway perform. I think apart from Van Morrison I have seen him more times than any other act, often by chance, such as tonight. When we arrived, the pub was absolutely packed, not with Otway fans, but with football fans because tonight England were playing USA in the World Cup, and everyone wanted to watch it on the big screen. We managed to get a drink and went outside into the fresh air of the yard. After a few minutes who should also emerge from the pub but John Otway himself. 

We had a little chat and Otway kindly signed a ticket which I had brought along. It was from his 50^th birthday party concert at the London Palladium which me and Kim went to in 2002. We talked about that great concert which Otway remembered vividly. Dr Feelgood were also on the bill that night, and sadly their great guitar player Wilko Johnson died this week. He was great friends with Otway who paid a little tribute to Wilko during his show this evening. Then it was time to take our seats. We found a table at the back, but this club is so tiny everyone gets a great view.

I didn’t write down the set-list, but Otway played two sets of about 45 minutes each with an interval in the middle. As well as the songs, there is also lots of crazy hilarious banter where Otway tells stories about his long career. He began with the first of his two hit singles which was Really Free, and anyone who watched The Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC in the 1970s will never forget his performance of this song, and Cheryl’s Going Home which he also performed in Trowbridge. He also sang his other hit Bunsen Burner which took me right back to that magical night at the Palladium when he sang it for the fans in the pub across the road. Another great song was Beware Of The Flowers which was the flipside of Really Free and I think should have been a huge hit in its own right. Louisa on a horse from his first album with Wild Willy Barrett was another highlight in Trowbridge, as was Josephine, and I Can’t Complain from the equally great Deep and Meaningless album. 

I also enjoyed The Middle of Winter. A personal favourite of mine is the poignant Poetry & Jazz which shows what a great lyric writer Otway can be. Of the more humorous songs, there were I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor sung in the style of Bob Dylan, Crazy Horses by The Osmonds which featured a manic solo on the theremin, Blockbuster by The Sweet, House of the Rising Sun which involved a lot of audience participation. Body Talk where he had microphones all over himself. He finished with the Wild Willy Barrett song Head Butts in which he repeatedly head butted the microphone, which must have hurt. During the interval I bought some Otway Christmas cards at the merchandise stall which were 5 for £2.00 and Otway’s biography called I Did It Otway, Regrets, I’ve Had a Few!. Otway signed it for me. I didn’t realise that the price for the book had been reduced, so when I got my change I said, “I wasn’t expecting that much change”. “You haven’t read the book yet”, Otway replied, which I thought was funny. I got Phil to take a picture of me and Otway. So, thanks to Phil for getting me a ticket, and thanks to the one and only John Otway for a great night in Trowbridge.

Me & Otway.

A Visit To London.

It was pouring with rain on Monday morning as I headed for the railway station to catch the 10.37 train to London. Little did I realise what lay ahead. All went well until the train stopped at Basingstoke. We waited and waited, and the train didn’t move. After about half an hour the conductor made an announcement. “We apologise for the delay which is due to a signal fault”. I had arranged to meet my friends Jacky & Bill at Waterloo Station at 12.44, so I phoned them and said we had a delay.

 Another half an hour went by, and we were still in flaming Basingstoke. Luckily for me I was reading a book about Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hahn which stopped me from getting angry and losing my cool. Finally, they asked us to get off the train and make our way to platform 4 where another train would take us to Waterloo. We eventually arrived at Waterloo two hours late. It was great to see my friends who had waited patiently for me. Then we caught a bus to Dulwich where I was grateful to have two pints of cider and relax. I had enough of travelling for one day, so we just stayed locally that evening and went for a meal in a place called The Great Exhibition which is named after the Great Exhibition which was held in 1851 at the nearby Crystal Palace.

On Tuesday the weather had improved. It was a very pleasant sunny day, so after watching a World Cup game we went for a walk around Dulwich Park. London has some wonderful parks, and the trees look magnificent at this time of year. It was near here in Peckham Rye that William Blake claimed to have seen the Prophet Ezekiel under a bush, and he was probably ten years old when he had a vision of angels in a tree. His biographer, Alexander Gilchrist, told the story: 'sauntering along, the boy looks up and sees a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every branch. Returned home he related the incident, and only through his mother's intercession escaped a thrashing from his honest father, for telling a lie.' A month later, he had another vision of angels walking towards him through the rye.

Sadly, I didn’t see any angels, but I took quite a few photos of the trees. I got Jacky to take my photo under an oak tree that is classed as one of the ‘Great trees of London’. After that we had a look at Dulwich Picture Gallery which was opened to the public in 1817 and houses one of the country's finest collections of Old Masters, especially rich in French, Italian, and Spanish Baroque paintings, and in British portraits from Tudor times to the 19th century. I found some of the sculptures in the grounds quite fascinating as well. On the way back home, we passed an old burial ground where the village stocks stood in the middle ages. That evening we went to the local pub and then went home to watch another World Cup game.

On Wednesday morning I said cheerio to Jacky and Bill after my too short visit and caught the 175 bus back to Waterloo. I had plenty of time before my train, so had a look at the National Windrush Monument, which was unveiled in June 2022 by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. The monument memorialises the British West Indian immigrants who came to the United Kingdom on board HMT Empire Windrush in 1948, who subsequently became known as the Windrush generation. The inscription accompanying the monument includes a poem "You Called..and we came" written by Professor Laura Serrant OBE. I must say that it is a wonderful and moving tribute to the people who came to this country after the war to help rebuild Britain. It just seems a shame that it took so long for them to be recognised. Then I caught the 12.20 train home, and was grateful that this return journey was relatively uneventful.

ALIS LESLEY - So Afraid (1957) Unissued Recording

Living.

I went to the Odeon cinema in Trowbridge with my friends Dave and Kate last night for the second time this year. The previous occasion was to see Belfast. I made the effort last night because I wanted to see the new film starring Bill Nighy called Living. Bill has been my favourite British actor for a long time, even more so since I discovered that he is a huge Van Morrison fan. I met Bill one night at Nell’s club in London when he was sitting next to me at a Van gig. In real life his demeanor is just as self-effacing, honest, and polite as you see him in interviews on the television. When I met him, he was there as a music fan, not as a famous actor. Another reason I wanted to see this particular film is that the screenplay is written by the great Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. I have enjoyed reading several of his books over the last few years. Like Bill, I know that Kazuo is also a great music fan. I imagine that when they met, the talk would have been more about music rather than acting and writing.

Living is adapted from a 1952 film called Ikiru by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, which in turn was inspired by a 1886 Russian story The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. I think Kurosawa has been a major influence on the writings of Kazuo Ishiguro because I can detect very similar themes in this film to his great novel Remains of the Day. The film is set in London in the 1950s. Bill plays a bureaucrat called Mr Williams who works in the stultifying atmosphere of County Hall which seems to be designed to stop anything being achieved. Nobody accepts responsibility, and everything is pushed from one department to another. Mr Williams reminded me slightly of the butler Stevens in Remains of the Day. 

Bill Nighy & Aimee Lou Ward.

One day Mr Williams has some dramatic news which causes him to reassess his life. I won’t tell you any more about the plot because I hope you will see the film for yourself. I must say though that I also thought Aimee Lou Wood was brilliant as young Margaret who helps Mr Williams discover the secret of how to be happy. I hadn’t heard of the director Oliver Hermanus before, but he has done an excellent job in capturing the mood of 50s London. The cinema-photography and lighting are also wonderful, as is the soundtrack by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch which includes music by Sibelius, jazz by Vic Damone, and another string to Bill Nighy’s bow is that he is a great singer, as shown in his performance of The Rowan Tree which must have been difficult because he also had to appear drunk and emotional whilst singing. That song is also performed in the closing credits by Lisa Knapp who I mentioned in my previous post about her husband Gerry Diver.

Kazuo, Bill, & Oliver.

Despite the grim subject matter of the film, I left the cinema feeling very uplifted because the message is so life-affirming and positive. When the awards season gets underway before too long, I want to see prizes for best actor, best supporting actress, and best screenplay. Thank you very much.

Lisa Knapp: The Rowan Tree, from the film 'Living'.