Also in October 2007 I was due to be doing another US tour with David Rovics, but I had to cancel it. I have blown out very, very few gigs in my life, and that is the only time I have done so with a tour. If I’m a bit ill, I get there and do my stuff, and up until then the only ones I’d missed were when I was literally flat on my back unable to get up or, as in the great storm of 1987, when I was stuck on a train all night on the way to Bournemouth after a tree fell on the line (I entertained a literally captive audience). But when I cancelled that tour it was the easiest decision in the world.
In May 2004, just after we returned from that second US tour, my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. The whole of the next chapter is the poem I wrote for her in late 2009 as she went though the last stages of that heartbreaking illness: I wrote it quite simply to help her remember who she was, helped by the unbelievably insightful things she said about how her brain felt as the disease progressed. I am happy to say that, published in pamphlet form in 2010, this poem raised over £2000 for the Alzheimer’s Society and was featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ on Mothering Sunday 2011, repeated on ‘Pick of the Week’. (Radio 4 will have me on as long as I’m talking about anything except politics, it seems.) Robina and I resolved that Mum would never go into a home, and she didn’t: with our help, the dedicated support of my stepfather John Stanford and the invaluable assistance of local social services she remained at home until a few days before she died, just over 6 years later.
Of course, I carried on writing and gigging: it’s not just my living, it’s my life. For the first couple of years things weren’t too bad: we managed to get Mum prescribed the drug Aricept very early in the diagnosis, which meant that her mental deterioration was far slower than is so often the case, and with Robina’s support – she stopped coming to gigs with me much of the time, later on almost all the time, so she could be there for my mum – I could carry on touring overseas. But by 2007 things were getting difficult: Mum needed me there regularly to keep her rooted, a long tour outside the UK was out of the question, and hence the decision about the US visit.
In the UK and the more easily accessible parts of mainland Europe things carried on of course, thanks to Robina’s help. In 2008 I published ‘My Poetic Licence’, my sixth book of poems (I’ve missed one out but you’ll hear about it.) 2000 copies arrived at our front door and as I write this in January 2015 there are about 100 left. I did a special ‘best of nearly 30 years’ compilation CD, ‘Spirit of the Age’ to go with it, a limited edition of 1,000: they went ages ago. More and more summer festivals were springing up all over England and Wales, and I was, and still am, doing loads of them: as well as Glastonbury and, of course, Glastonwick, in recent years I’ve done Beautiful Days, Wychwood, Reading, Latitude, Bearded Theory, Shambala, Rebellion, Strummercamp, Strawberry Fair in Cambridge, Musicport in Whitby, the Cathedral Quarter Festival in Belfast, Levellers Day in Burford, Something Else in the Dean, Vale Earth Fair in Guernsey and many more. I get new offers from new festivals every year. Thanks to you all. A special mention for Luke Wright, not just a brilliant performance poet but also organiser of the poetry tent at Latitude – thanks, mate. There’s a burgeoning new spoken word scene happening now among people half my age, led by people like Luke and Kate Tempest, and I’m very happy to see it. For far too long clever people with good words just became comedians, because that’s where the mainstream recognition is, but that’s changing now, and it’s great. And one clever bloke with great words and good politics, who cited an old tape of my ‘Scornflakes’ album as a big inspiration, got a fine band to surround his words and made a huge splash. Step forward Itch from the King Blues. I was delighted to be asked to play fiddle on their 2008 album ‘Save the World, Get the Girl’, we did quite a few gigs together and both Robina and I love the band and were very sad when they split. You’ll be hearing plenty more from Itch though, be sure of that.
In 2010 I celebrated my 30th anniversary at the lovely volunteer run Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham, two miles from our home, with a host of friends. Well done to all those who fought to get the place set up and kitted out: having battled to survive in the early years with very little funding it is now an award-winning local venue with a great, varied programme. I put on gigs there and have helped run a fundraising beer festival for the last five years: there’s a surprise.
That same year Mike at Mad Butcher Records in Germany released ‘Disestablished 1980’, a thirty-year compilation of my songs: in 2012 Barnstormer’s fourth album, ‘Bankers & Looters’ came out, as ever on my Roundhead label in the UK and Mad Butcher Records in Germany. And in December 2013 I published my seventh book of poems, ‘UK Gin Dependence Party and Other Poems’. Womble did the cartoon for the cover, more than thirty years after I first appeared in his fanzine ‘Wake Up’. Cheers, my old mate. So many faces and memories have cropped up again and again in this story of mine: I am privileged and happy to have had such good friends and fellow travellers for so long, people I can share a beer and put the world to rights with. (It doesn’t half need it.)
But quite a few have left us in the course of this book, and the end of the first decade of the new millennium saw the deaths of two really dear to me. Radical poet Adrian Mitchell, whose words I wear on the T shirt on the front cover, words which have inspired me all my adult life, departed on 20th December 2008 aged 76. And on 24 June 2009 my comrade-at-arms through all those early years of ranting verse, Steven ‘Seething’ Wells, died of cancer in America, tragically young at 49. I wrote an obituary in the Independent. Here’s a bit of it.
‘Swells, I always thought you’d pull through. I’d read ‘The English Patient’ - your brilliant, witty, moving piece about your simultaneous battle with cancer and the US healthcare system - in the (Philadelphia) Weekly, swapped emails where you sounded as, well, Swellslike as ever and thought: you’ll make it. This is one roaring, iconoclastic, larger than life, indestructible, stupidly clever, logically illogical everything-demolishing mouth monster who won’t be demolished himself by something as mundane as cancer. But no. Seething Wells is dead. ‘Swells’ and ‘dead’ in the same sentence. We’re all going to die, sure - and our biological health dictates when, not our brain, our spirit, our love of life or our capacity to write verse with the caustic power of concentrated sulphuric acid or prose which immolates crap rock bands, pompous sports stars or anyone else we feel like taking on – but…oh, fuck.’
I had tears in my eyes when I wrote that, and I’ve got tears in my eyes re-writing it now. RIP to a hero of the spoken and written word.
And just before this book went to press in June 2015 we gathered at Harlow Crematorium to say goodbye to Colin ‘Dredd’ Masters, bassist with the Newtown Neurotics, companion through so many adventures in the 1980s. Steve Drewett read a beautiful tribute. Adieu, old friend.
That’s almost it for now. In a moment, you will read the poem I wrote for my mother. But first, here is one for my stepfather, John Stanford.
He married my mum in 1972, when I was just short of 15. I was headstrong, stroppy and alienated, like a teenager from hell: he was a 52 year old bachelor with no experience of family life. We didn’t get on. I left home as soon as I could. To the best of my knowledge he never read or listened to a single thing I have ever written, and until about 1990 I’m certain he thought: it’s impossible to earn a living doing what John does, he must be selling drugs or something. But things were slowly changing. When Mum was in Australia with me in 1993 and a new neighbour, John Hilditch, moved with his family next door and introduced himself, John said:
‘My wife is on tour in Australia with her son. He’s a popstar don’t you know.’ (Sic!)
I didn’t find that out until many years later…
When I married Robina in 2000, he obviously really liked her and came to our wedding. That was a big step forward. Things got tangibly easier. Then Mum got Alzheimers and he did everything he could, despite medical problems of his own. Five years later, aged 89,
he finally broke his hip in a fall: he was in hospital for ages, slowly declining, Mum with Alzheimer’s at home. I’d go and see him regularly. One day I was there just after his local vicar had been. He smiled.
‘Father Phil has just been to see me, John. He says he’s seen you at a pop festival.’ (It was Glastonbury in the 80s.)
‘I never thought your material would appeal to VICARS!’
John left this earth on 30th December 2009. Just before he died, I wrote this poem. Every word is true.
NEVER TOO LATE
My father died when I was ten
and when she’d dried her tears
Mum met you in the choir -
she’d known of you for years.
I was so pleased when she told me
that she would be your wife
and I looked forward happily
to a new man in my life.
But you were the classical singer
who thought rock’n’roll was junk
and I was the Bolan boogie boy
who soon became a punk.
You were the civil servant
for whom everything had its place
and I was the left wing activist
out there and in your face.
Yes, you were the ‘head of the household’
and I was the stroppy kid
We wound each other up for sure
We flipped each other’s lid
But later we both learned so much
and something new began
And here’s a poem I wrote for you
You decent, gentle man.
So I went off to my own life
Left you and Mum to yours
A few words about football
Then the sound of closing doors.
But the passing of so many years
gave us both time to reflect
And slowly, oh, so slowly,
we forged a new respect.
When you were ill the first time
and found it hard to walk
I’d take you to the hospital
and we would sit and talk.
It felt so right and normal
And it was such a shame
that it had taken all this time -
Both stubborn, both to blame.
’Cos you were the ‘head of the household’
and I was the stroppy kid
We wound each other up for sure
We flipped each other’s lid
But later we both learned so much
and something new began
And here’s a poem I wrote for you
You decent, gentle man.
When Mum came down with Alzheimers
Five years you cooked and cared
And we were round there every day
So many thoughts were shared.
Your simple, honest loyalty:
The vows you made, you’d keep.
No longer the big boss man
Me, no longer the black sheep.
Then came that day in hospital
The end was near, we knew
You told me ‘I do love you John’
I said ‘I love you too’.
You held my hand and squeezed it
Our eyes were filled with tears
The first time that we’d said that -
It took thirty-seven years.
’Cos you were the ‘head of the household’
and I was the stroppy kid
We wound each other up for sure
We flipped each other’s lid
But later we both learned so much
and something new began
And here’s a poem I wrote for you
You decent, gentle man.
It’s never too late
never too late
never too late to say you love someone.
And if it wasn’t too late for me and John
Then it’s never too late for anyone.
ELEVEN
THE LONG GOODBYE
This poem was inspired above all by the astonishingly insightful comments my mother would come out with about how her brain felt during her long battle with Alzheimer’s. It’s the story of her life, and is dedicated to all those who have been touched in one way or another by that awful disease.
THE LONG GOODBYE
This is a poem for you, Mum.
It’s about your long, eventful life,
the you that you were
and the you that you are now,
the different you,
the you with Alzheimers.
It’s to help you remember.
And, yes, I knew when I was writing this
that it was to help me, too.
So this is a poem for us, Mum.
You say
‘It’s like wading through treacle
and when I get through the treacle
there’s a mist
which makes me wonder
why I bothered with the treacle.’
But there are places we can go
in the hours we spend together
where there is no treacle
no mist -
where everything is clear.
Back to Gravesend
to the council house
to the stern, Victorian printer father
and the spirited, intelligent little girl
who went to Reading for the holidays
to stay with your ‘maiden aunt’, a teacher
and discovered a new, magical world -
the piano.
Auntie Evelyn paid for your lessons
and your talent blossomed.
Church organist at 16.
And not just in music:
A scholarship to the county grammar school
Matriculation -
and then came the war.
You say
‘It’s as though bits of my mind are still awake,
and bits have gone to sleep
or start imagining things.’
You were sent to Bletchley Park.
You mostly can’t remember what happened yesterday
but you can still describe every corridor at Bletchley,
the walks through the town
and, of course, the hours at the piano
in the music room.
Typing through the night
on one of the Enigma decoding machines
Smoking to stay awake –
you’ve always hated smoking –
and the bustle and uproar
when the nonsense you were typing
suddenly turned to German
and the ‘boffins’ gathered round you, urging you on.
‘Faster! Faster!’
Your three friends:
Jean, Margaret, Win.
Still friends, nearly seventy years later.
When the mist is all around
I say ‘Tell me about Bletchley Park.’
In an instant, I have my Mum back.
You say
‘I am learning the difference
between understanding and memory.
I can still speak, still form sentences,
talk to people,
read the Guardian and enjoy it.
Though I don’t remember what I have read
or what I have said.
In one ear, out the other!
But if my memory is gone, how is it that
I remember
how to understand?’
After Bletchley: London.
Notting Hill.
Working at Bateman’s Opticians
in Kensington High Street.
Singing with the Royal Choral Society
under Malcolm Sergeant
premiering the works of Elgar.
The music appreciation class
where you met my father
twenty five years your senior
living in a hostel
on the run from a brutal marriage.
You brought the suns
hine back into his life
and when the divorce made the national press
as a legal precedent
you didn’t care:
you were one.
Visiting the Isle of Harris
Honeymoon in Switzerland
My father’s love poems to you.
Yes, that’s where I got this from.
You tell me over and over again…
The words from him;
the music from you.
Ok, not exactly in the way you’d have expected -
Rude words!
Loud music!
But you’re used to that now.
(You’ve had more than thirty-five years of it,
after all!)
You say
‘I know the meaning of the phrase
‘a fate worse than death’.’
Come on, Mum.
You’re at home, in your warm, comfortable house in Southwick.
We live just round the corner.
I’m here, my wife Robina’s here, family and friends are here…
You could be in Baghdad or Kabul
Family killed, cowering in a ruined cellar
Not knowing who or where you were…
It’s not that bad!
You say
‘You’re right, John. I mustn’t be so silly.’
Together we smile and sing
‘Always look on the bright side of life!’
I go and make you a cup of tea.
I bring it to you.
You say
‘I know the meaning of the phrase
‘a fate worse than death’.’
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