Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, Nottingham
As I am away till next Wednesday on a work trip and I wrote about Dad yesterday to celebrate what would be his 86th birthday … I thought I’d leave you with a post about Mum, to even it all up, haha.
So Mum loved the arts.
Actually, it was more than just love, but curiosity.
Not in a suspicious or judgmental way … but from the perspective of wanting to understand more of it.
Not academically, but more about how the artist approached the work and why.
And it is because of this attitude, Mum was as keen to explore the stuff she didn’t know as much as the stuff she did.
One day she saw an ad for an orchestra coming to Nottingham.
Their name was intriguing – suggesting a new approach or experience of music – so she, along with her neighbours, bought tickets to go and see them at the Royal Concert Hall.
So a few months later, three 80 year olds caught the bus into the city and walked into the venue, only to be a little surprised at what they saw.
Because rather than a stage full of orchestral instruments, they were met with huge amplifiers and a massive lighting rig.
It didn’t take them long to discover why …
Because the orchestra they were seeing was the Electric Light Orchestra.
Also known as ELO, the rock band.
And they loved every single second of it,.
The music, the volume, the musicianship, the drama, the lighting, the whole extravaganza.
I still remember the excitement – and laughter – in Mum’s voice as she told me all about it. But there was one thing above all that stood out – and that was her happiness at discovering, experiencing and exploring a new artistic expression.
Because while she liked – and knew – some of the songs, her biggest joy was the surprise of the unexpected.
Where many would be disappointed to not have what they thought they were getting, Mum was elated.
She understood it was a gift.
A way to see more, feel more, experience more and know more than she did before.
Leaving with more than she went in with … musically, creatively and how people interpret and interact with the World.
But that was her …
A human who not loved to learn for the sheer joy of learning, but had a deep interest in what others are interested in. Even if she didn’t particularly like it, understand it or connect to it.
Because to her, knowledge wasn’t power, appreciation was.
Appreciation earned through listening, learning, experiencing and engaging.
An openness to expression and experience …
It’s why that even in her 80’s she was curious to the new.
Not so she could pretend she was young, but to protect her from becoming old.
By that, I mean in terms of her attitude to life rather than reversing her age.
And as I get older, I realise what an amazing role model she was to me.
To be comfortable with the uncomfortable and curious to the new.
Because while Mum was a person of high standards, morals and values … she never let these become barriers to exploring or welcoming the people and subjects that lived outside of them. Not so she could judge, but so she could grow.
We could do with more people like my Mum these days.
Across all areas of life. From politics to advertising.
Because we see so many people aggressively trying to live in the bubble of their making.
Actively standing in the way of new ideas and ideals … fighting hard to defend what they have or control what they don’t.
Believing they know enough and are enough so stay within the walls of their blinkered, privileged, superficial echo chamber.
Seeing anything different or new as – at best – hard work or, at worst, the enemy.
Living by headlines, not experience, curiosity and understanding.
So while Mum most definitely had her quirks, I’m increasingly grateful that she – and Dad – taught me variety isn’t the spice of life, it’s makes sense of it.
Thank you my dear, wonderful Mum.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Dad, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, Otis, Parents
Today would have been Dad’s 86th birthday.
That means he’s been gone 26 years.
What’s bizarre is I remember the last birthday he had – his 60th – so clearly.
The photo above is from that day.
Part of my reasons for remembering it is because I flew back from Sydney for it. Part of it is because we had bought him a special armchair that allowed him to get in and out of it with ease. And part of it is because he hardly had time to use it, because within months, he was back in hospital – except this time, it would be his final time.
And yet I look back on that day with love.
Sitting next to him.
Looking at his beloved garden.
Having some-sort of conversation about the plants … even though his strokes had robbed him of his ability to talk – bar individual words. In many ways, that was the cruelest thing of all given he was such a wonderful conversationalist. And yet he had – thanks to his tenacity, Mum’s care and speech therapy – found a way to pick out the most perfect word to express what he wanted to communicate. Including when you wish he hadn’t.
I remember when he was later in hospital and there was a male nurse.
Dad kept looking at him intensely and I asked if he wanted anything, to which he replied, “Hate him” very loudly. I don’t know why he felt so much distain towards this person, but he was not the sort to have such an emotional reaction towards anyone without merit.
Mind you, I also remember when another nurse asked him what night-time drink he wanted and he said, “gin” and then laughed proudly to himself for an age.
That is still one of the best memories from one of the worst times of our life.
But then that was Dad …
His ability to make people feel at ease regardless of the challenge they were experiencing.
I think I’ve written about the time he was driving a friend of mine back to their house and casually asked what his parents did for a living. My friend – we were about 15 at the time – replied that his Father had passed away to which Dad then asked what had happened.
I was fuming and embarrassed and told Dad that on the way home.
And while I knew he wouldn’t want to make anyone feel that way, I was angry he’d asked such a personal question to a friend of mine. And I felt that way right until Benny – my friend – told me a couple of days later how grateful he was my Dad had shown interest in him and his Dad because most people immediately changed the subject or just clammed up the moment they heard his Dad had passed.
This moment made a huge impact on me …
Challenging my perceptions and perspectives on how to communicate and interact with others … ultimately demonstrating the foundation of any relationship of worth – whether for life, work or a moment-in-time – is based on your ability to be conversationally intimate and honest.
Of course, to do that means you have to be authentic and considerate, but being interested in what other people are interested in – as opposed to wanting people to be interested in what you want them to be interested in – is the most powerful way to build understanding between people, even when you come from different worlds or perspectives.
That pretty much sums up my Dad and Mum.
The strength of character they had to be transparent and vulnerable
To enable others to feel at ease with their situation and themselves.
To be open to answers or perspectives that were different to theirs. Or even better, be open to their perspective to be changed because they see what works for someone else, doesn’t mean it has to work for them.
But you can only get to that place by creating the conditions for it.
To allow emotional safety.
It’s why I get so angry when people call emotions, a ‘weakness’.
The reality is, if it’s anything, it’s honesty.
A way to build bridges rather than walls.
Of course that doesn’t mean your view is the only right view. Nor does it mean you can act or react any way you want or choose. But it does mean you feel you can express your truth because you know it will be seen and heard by people who actually want to better understand who you are rather than judge what you do.
I got to experience that.
I got to experience that pretty much every day of my life.
And while I didn’t always get the outcome I hoped for. Or realise how amazing it was to be in a place where I was continually encouraged to express and connect. I now appreciate the power of listening to understand.
That should sound obvious, except it isn’t.
Too many people only listen to win. To find holes to poke, push and provoke.
And that’s led us to where we are … a world of division, arrogance, selfishness and blinkered, one-winner-must-take-all competition.
And yet the irony is, when you listen to understand … you still win.
It opens doors.
It creates relationships.
It allows good things to be born and shared.
I know that sounds hippy-like shit, but it’s true.
It’s the reason why Dad was such an amazing lawyer, because he fought for equality rather than one-sided victory.
Equality of rights … consideration … possibilities.
[And if anyone tried to stop that, he would make them pay. A lot. Haha]
Which explains why certain corporations/CEO’s hated him but their employees/families/unions were massive fans of him.
So even though today is Dad’s birthday, he – and Mum – gave me the greatest gift.
I don’t always live up to it, but I always will measure myself against it.
And I hope I can pass that on to Otis.
A gift from his grandparents … a way for them to be part of his life despite sadly never getting to be in his life.
Oh my god, they’d have absolutely loved to play that role and I’d have utterly adored seeing them live it. But alas, things don’t always go to plan … but they ensured their lessons and love remain and flourish.
And boy, do we ever need that right now.
Which is why, while it is Dad’s birthday, he – and Mum – gave me the greatest of gifts.
So Happy Birthday Dad, I love and miss you so much.
Give Mum a big kiss from me.
Rx
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Age, Attitude & Aptitude, Bands, Bangkok Shakes, Childhood, Dad, Jill, Mum, Mum & Dad, Music, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Nottingham, Otis
You know those time capsule things that were all the rage for a while?
Where people bury artefacts from their life with the sole intention that it is dug up 20+ years later for people to marvel at. Or be confused by.
I always liked the idea of it but never got around doing it … mainly because I imagine the outtake is massively underwhelming unless you’re directly attached to it.
Well, I’ve been proved right … but in a way I love and am amazed at.
As many of you know, I was in a band called Bangkok Shakes.
Thee were 2 iterations of the band – with different singers and bass players – with the 2nd version almost becoming something of some note.
Till it didn’t.
Anyway, while I had a huge amount of fun – touring and recording – the fact it all ended when I was 23 or 24 means I only think about it when I occasionally pick up a guitar and play a few of the songs we wrote.
Enter my mate Sam.
I love Sam.
He’s a brilliantly annoying person … and I say that with utter love.
He also buys more ridiculous shit than me, and that’s saying something.
And yet despite his natural tendency for mischief and mayhem, he’s a wonderful, kind and caring human. Or he is until he gets something in his head, and then no one is safe.
Oh the stories I could tell …
In fact, I bet the people at Virgin Broadband are still counting the cost of trying to mess with him because he’s like a crime-fighting cockroach who won’t give up. Or die.
But his behaviour is not always acts of commercial terrorism, as I was soon to discover.
You see one day, he woke up and – for reasons only he will know – I was in his head.
Or specifically, Bangkok Shakes was.
So he decided to go on one of his legendary explorations resulting in me receiving a Whatsapp from him that said, “this is you, isn’t it?” with a link attached.
Ignoring all safety protocol, I found myself on Youtube, staring at this.
This shocked me for 4 very specific reasons.
+ The song it relates to was one I wrote in 1991.
+ It’s a song I didn’t know was anywhere near the internet.
+ It was a very early demo of a song we did, not the final recording.
+ The handwriting on the tape IS MY HANDWRITING. MINE! WTF?!
But wait … there’s more.
You see, I was so shocked that I put a screenshot of the Youtube page on insta regailing the whole story.
Enter Gareth Kay.
Now I love Gareth too.
He’s very different to Sam [thank god, ha] but as wonderful.
Gareth is a music obsessive so imagine my surprise when a day later – after seeing my instagram – he sent me an email with another link in it.
And yes, I pressed it without any consideration of network safety.
Except rather than take me to Youtube, it took me another site altogether … a fan site … a fan site featuring not just the stuff Sam found, but the ENTIRE GROUP OF SONGS FROM THE SESSION WE DID IN 1993.
Not only that, it also showed the inner sleeve of the cassette the demos were in … where I’d carefully written out all the song names and info of the recording. Including the ‘then’ phone number of our drummer, Jason!
Now I was properly flabbergasted.
How?
Why?
Where?
Of course I downloaded the tracks and while they sounded a bit pants – made worse by the recording coming from a tape that was obviously old and a bit screwed up – it was an utterly joyful experience.
A chance to revisit my past.
To be taken back to another time.
Where life was only about excitement, hope and energy.
And while I know we made a better version of this demo – and made a shit load of better songs after it – it was something very special for me. A reconnection to something that was incredibly important to me. Something I hoped would be the foundation of my entire life.
But how did this tape end up on this blokes website?
Well, it gets weirder … because this bloke is based in Perth, Australia.
He loves 80/90s rock and trades tapes from that era to build up his collection … which means that a tape that I helped create and wrote out in Nottingham, THIRTY ONE YEARS AGO in Nottingham, England, somehow ended up in the possession of a person literally on the other side of the planet who decided he liked it so much, he added it to the internet.
And I couldn’t thank him enough.
Not just for the memory and the connection to my home and history bu because I remember everything about that recording …
After spending a month in hospital because my retina in my eye continually collapsed, this was the first thing I did ‘back in the real world’.
It was a Sunday and I remember our singer – Joe – bitching about having to carry my amps into the studio as I was not allowed to lift anything heavy for a few months to ensure there was no strain on my eye whatsoever.
It was a quick session, designed to try out a few songs and be used to play to a few promotors we knew – but never for wider public listening – so if someone told me then that 3 decades later, I’d be listening to it on the internet from New Zealand, I’d have said you’re mad. And not just because no one would know what the internet was back then.
It was pretty emotional to hear it … and to play it to my family … because it represents a time where pretty much everything from that era has either gone or been left behind.
+ My parents were alive when we recorded that.
+ Dad hadn’t even had his stroke at that point.
+ So Mum was still working.
+ I lived in my family home.
+ I had no idea I was going to leave Nottingham.
+ I was working, but we were being courted by record companies so I thought things were about to change.
+ My wife – who was in Australia, a place I’d never been to at that point – would have been 17.
So Otis was -21, hahaha.
It was a chapter of my life that was wonderful, but I thought fully closed.
And while that door has not been smashed open, listening to those songs on that wonky tape cracked it open a little.
Which is why I laughed when Sam then came back again with another link … this time taking me to a page of old gig dates, where on Saturday 17th of some month and year, we played at the then iconic Narrowboat [RIP], scene of some of the best nights of my life.
We often look back at life with rose-tinted glasses.
Reimagining our history to be something more than it was.
But on this occasion, it was better than I remembered.
Not because of the music or my overly fancy handwriting … but because it allowed relatively new friends to walk around my old life … to let them inadvertendly know a bit more about the person they’d only casually heard about in convesation … to give me the gift of shining sunlight upon a time of my life I’d almost forgotten … a time of my life that was deeply important and special to me … one I never thought I’d be able to expeience again, let alone be able to finally share with the family I love.
And it’s because of that I want to say a huge thank you to Sam and Gareth, they may never know what they have done for me.
Just like that guy in Perth who somehow got a tape I wrote out in my bedroom in the early 90’s in West Bridgford, Nottingham.
They say elephants never forget, but neither does the internet.
And while that might be scary for some, it’s made me realise that maybe the time capsule is an even better idea than the worldwide web.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cats, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Hope, Jill, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Otis, Paul, Respect
This week has been a week of pretty heavy posts.
But given the standard I normally write at, this has – if I may say so myself – been pretty good. And hopefully today will top that off, albeit in a pretty emotional and confronting way.
Let’s see …
When I was young, I remember thinking that I never wanted to be with my parents when they died. My belief was the pain of watching them go would be too much for me to deal with. That seeing their final moments would leave an indelible scar on me for the rest of my life.
Thank fuck I came to my senses …
Because while their deaths were – and continue to be – the worst days of my life, I’d have been haunted if I’d not been by their side.
It could have happened.
It could have happened easily given I was living in different countries when they passed.
Australia for Dad. China for Mum.
But for reasons I’ll be eternally grateful for, I was there. With them. Able to tell them how much I loved them, was grateful for them and would do my best to honour them.
Because even though I was drowning in a sea of overwhelming grief as I witnessed them take their final breaths, it was the moment I understood – with absolute certainty and clarity – why I had to be there.
For them. And for me.
A few years before Mum died, her sister-in-law passed away. It was unexpected and she died at home on her own. To be discovered the following day.
Mum was understandably very upset about this. Not just for the loss of a woman she liked very much, but that her final moments had been on her own. That she must have been so scared. So desperate to be surrounded with the people she loved.
One day, while visiting from Shanghai, Mum confessed how she feared this would happen to her. That she’d be alone. I’d never heard her say something like this before and it genuinely haunted me. Not just in that moment, but till the end.
My Mum was an amazing woman. She had endured a huge amount of hardship through her life and all I wanted to do was look after her. But she was also fiercely independent, so it was always hard to get her to accept anything from me. In her mind, I had to focus on my life – not hers – which is why revealing her fear was so heartbreaking.
You see, not only was she acknowledging her own mortality – which was devastating to hear, let alone for her to say – she was admitting there was something I could do for her, even though we both knew it was something that was almost impossible to ensure.
What made this even more emotionally charged is that we both knew that this admission had ‘slipped out’.
Mum spent her life trying to protect me from pain and inconvenience at all costs – from her gentle words to try and coax me out of my delusion that Dad would miraculously get better after his devastating strokes through to me finding notes she’d written prior to death to make sure it was easier for me to handle her affairs – so the pain of hearing her fear was no doubt matched by the pain she felt for causing me sorrow.
She was that sort of person. A wonderful, compassionate and considerate human. A woman who would genuinely give someone her last £1 than keep it herself. Which I admit, annoyed the fuck out of me sometimes. Ha.
And that’s why I’m so grateful I was with her when the worst happened. As I was with Dad. And if you look back to March/April 2015 on this blog, you will read the anguish and pain I went through. But among all the desperation and loss, you’ll also see clues why I was so happy to be there on one of the worst days of my life.
Because while the idea of not having to see your loved one’s die, makes some sort of sense – the reality is quite different.
In fact, I’d go even further.
As bone crushingly devastating saying goodbye to a loved one is, it’s not as agonising as you would feel for not being there.
You see at that point, it’s not about you – but them.
However you feel has to place second-fiddle to their needs and situation.
For them, knowing they’re not alone at their final moments gives them peace. A way to leave with love rather than just fear. It doesn’t matter if they’re conscious not, they know and I can say this with absolute certainty.
As I said at Dad’s funeral, when we arrived to be by his side after an urgent call from the hospital, we found his body in the throes of turning off all the lights. Imagine someone walking around their old house and checking that all the windows were closed, all the lights were off and all the doors were locked. Making sure everything was done before they left for good. That was Dad and his body had almost finished its final check bar one little candle flickering in the night. But the thing was, he wasn’t going to blow that out till we were there … till we could tell him he could go … that we loved him … that we were grateful for all he had done for us … that we knew he loved us.
And when we did that, we watched him metaphorically blow out that final light out without fuss. A dignified, quiet passing, leaving us distraught with the loss but happy we were together.
Which is why I am so glad I came to my senses about not wanting to be there when my parents died. Because if I did that, not only would I have left my parents to experience fear instead of comfort and loneliness instead of love, I would have spent a lifetime trying to come to terms with what I’d done. How in my selfishness, I’d left people I loved – and love – at their most desperate and alone, at a time where they arguably needed me most in their life.
Of course, for some, they don’t have the option to be there.
Sometimes it’s because of circumstance, sometimes because of situation. And to them, I hope they are able to find some sort of peace because I can’t imagine the pain and burden that must inflict on them.
Now I say all this for 2 reasons.
One. Because tomorrow is the 9th anniversary of my wonderful Mum dying.
Two. I recently read an article that brought all this back to me … but through a perspective I’d never considered – the final days of a pet.
As you know, I bloody love my cat Rosie.
She’s basically my first real pet … and while we originally got her to keep Jill happy, she has become a true member of the family.
I’ve turned down jobs because of her.
I’ve started companies to bring in her favourite food for her.
I’ve taken big freelance jobs to aid her movement to new countries for her.
She is very, very special to me.
She is also, very, very old … and while she is generally fit and well … for the last few years I’ve wondered if this is the year we have to say goodbye.
It will happen eventually. I mean she turns 17 this year. SEVENTEEN. And my worst thought is having to one day take her to the vet to put her down.
And despite the lessons I’ve learned from my parents passing, my initial thought was if we had to do that for Rosie, I’d not be able to be there. It would be too hard.
And then I read this.
[Whether a pet owner or not, please read it]
Of course it should have been obvious.
Of course it should never be even a consideration.
But while we treat pets like members of the family, at the worst moment – many of us disassociate ourselves to try and protect ourselves.
Forgetting that at that moment, it isn’t about us – but them.
Yes we will be devastated.
Yes it will be horrific and hard.
But how do we think it is for them?
To face your final moments and not see the person who has been there loving them and looking out for them must be terrifying and confusing. Alone in an unfamiliar room with unfamiliar people.
As the article states:
“You have been the centre of their world for THEIR ENTIRE LIVES!!!!”
“90 per cent of owners don’t actually want to be in the room when he injects them so the animal’s last moments are usually them frantically looking around for their owners”.
Frantically looking for their owners.
Take that in.
I don’t imagine its that different for people in their final moments.
They need us. They need us to feel they still have us. That their final moments are with love and not abandonment.
I know it’s hard. I know it’s horrific. But I also know it’s not about us – not really.
So I write this to say that should you be of the opinion you don’t want to be there … that the pain would be too much. Know I sympathise, but also know it won’t nearly be as painful or deep as the knowledge that you weren’t.
Give the people. pets and places you love a hug, call or kiss this weekend.
See you Monday. I hope, ha.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Humanity, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, Otis, Parents
A while back, I saw a tweet by the incredible Alison Moyet, quoting CS Lewis.
It was this:
It captivated me. Both for how beautifully it is expressed and how true it is. At least to me.
You see the older I get, the more I realise the phrase ‘everything happens for a reason’ is the perfect encapsulation of how life is.
Whoever we are, wherever we live, we experience a rollercoaster of emotions.
Good, bad, scary, sad … you name it, we go through so many of them each and every day.
In many cases, they’re but a temporary moment in a day full of temporary moments. But occasionally, they can be something that leaves a lasting scar … a scar that transcends all that has gone before and shapes all that comes after.
That doesn’t mean it’s always bad, far from it. But it does mean that it is the start of a period of your life where it creates a lens of how you see and live life.
What is interesting is that while you are living through it – and think you have clarity because of it – the reality is we often only get understanding of why something happened with time.
Not that we realise that at the time, sometimes it can take decades … however even though we may stlil find what occurred unfair or unjust, there is a sense of enlightnment because of it.
The feeling that everything finally and suddenly makes sense.
Of course, that can also trigger disturbance inside you all over again … because you discover the scar you thought had healed, was just hiding … but it does have this amazing affect of revealing something you had not seen.
And that’s why that CS Lewis quote hit me so hard.
Because I went through some of that, especially when my Dad died.
I was full of anger and anguish.
Tears and tantrums.
At a loss for what to do or how we had got to this point … even though Dad’s journey to death was over years, rather than days.
And then a decade later – on the eve of my birthday – something happened where the byproduct of that experience was that I learned the last 10 years of my life had been spent in mourning.
Which had been a byproduct of denying my Dad’s health reality for years.
Not due to stupidity, but a need to survive.
To think it was not going to be the end – even though my wonderful Mum tried to gently get me to acknowledge the reality of his ill-health.
And what she did … and what this enlightnement did … and what my wife and Otis did ultimately led to me being able to better handle the tragedy when Mum died, 16 years later.
I was still devastated.
I still had anger and anguish.
But this time, because I knew why, it let me move forward … so I could focus on her wonderfulness, not get lost in the injustice of her passing.
It’s why I think it is so important to talk about death.
Fuck it, it’s why I think it is so important to talk, fullstop.
Not the mindless shit, but to make time for the personal and important shit … because nothing shows love and generosity than ensuring someone you care about doesn’t lose decades of themselves because of things they wish they knew or things they wish they’d said.