Category: Life, the universe, everything

Friends. They’ll be there for you, according to the ever-present TV show. Maybe for Jennifer Aniston and Co. But the rest of us? If you’re of a certain age, the story is very different.
That group of mates we were always hanging out with – where are they now?

Back in school days, friendship was being part of a gang, hanging out, being with people you just clicked with. There were no limits, no expectation of the friendship ending. There were occasional breakups, but the bond was usually too tight for them to be permanent. And when separation was inevitable – like moving house because parents were on the move – there were pen friends, sharing messages by post. At first, these seemed like they should be for ever, too. But these didn’t last. Times move on so fast as a youngster.

I had a pen friend, and we shared letters for months. But gaps between letters lengthened until they stopped altogether. What was there to say? Interests had changed, there was a lack of shared experiences, we were meeting new people. Scrawling out a letter to someone you hadn’t seen for months took up valuable time and just seemed laborious. I don’t know who stopped writing first. I do remember my mum reminding me to write to him (I don’t even remember his name, though I still remember where he lived) but I’d just give her a shrug of indifference. And that was it. Over. Which helps prove the point. A pen friend could never be a bestie. The point of real friends is you see them all the time. You share each other’s lives. You really are there for each other. Proximity is vital.

Friendships don’t get much stronger than those built during further education. Years of working together, living close to each other, building relationships, especially where you’re on a campus. People of the same age, common interests; time spent hanging around in each other’s rooms, just sitting, talking about nothing. It’s so easy, effortless, spontaneous and natural.

And those early twenties, in education or not, these are likely to be times of limited finances, with shared accommodation or living close by because it’s where rents are cheap. If it’s not the proximity that builds the friendship, it’s shared hardships.

But it doesn’t last long. Nothing stays the same. Life gets in the way. There’s work and new commitments. You may keep the friends, but the bonds of similar experience and interests become diluted.

And there’s a greater risk to forever friendships. That of the group being broken up by pairing up – boyfriends and girlfriends. The focus changes, interests change. The group dynamic changes and forms clusters of twos. And if the partner is from outside the group, there comes a gradual separation. There are still boys’ nights and nights out with the girls, but these don’t just happen like they once did. They have to be planned in advance, becomes an occasion, requiring arrangements, getting dressed up, keeping an eye on the clock. They’re still fun, but they may need permission or at least acknowledgement from the partner. And what of joint nights out – the group with the plus ones. New friendships are formed by necessity – but the original loyalties are being watered down.

And there’s worse, of course. No group of friends can withstand the arrival of children. Now it’s mums together, pushing buggies to playgroup, dads chatting outside nurseries and schools on picking-up duty, or even sitting alone in the car, waiting with the engine running to keep warm. And what of that unbreakable bond of besties? It’s now a meet-up once a year, fixed by childcare arrangements. Conversation is easy, spent catching up on news, picking up conversations that have lapsed since the last meet-up. But gone is the unfettered small talk of old. Gradually awkward gaps appear, to be filled by soliloquies where people talk jobs, children, homes, pets, while the rest shift uncomfortably, check the time of the next train home. Then it’s setting diary dates to do it again next year.

Or there are smaller-scale meet-ups, squeezed in between family and children’s regular activities. The arrival is a melee of settling the kids, then talking about the journey, before the kids demand attention or food or a walk to the playground, and then it’s time to leave.

And if there are no children – maybe they’re doing their own thing or grandparents have stepped in – the meet up is over a meal. Talk is again dominated by journeys and families, along with holidays and work, and with the addition of health and ailments, before you hug goodbye. It’s been pleasant and enjoyable and you feel you’re still there for each other, even if life has got in the way of the unfettered friendship you once enjoyed.

All this came flooding back to me as I opened my address book (yes, I keep a paper one as well as the lists stored online) to write my Christmas cards. I always try to pick cards that I think will suit individuals, some from special packs, some that are sold as singles. And I couldn’t help but realise I had not only more cards than I needed, but I also had some unused ones from last year. The address book pages are full, but many of the details are redundant, with lines through them. This may be because some addresses have changed and been updated, others are because we have somehow lost contact. Some – depressingly but inevitably, I suppose, as you grow older – are because the people have died.

As this year’s cards sent to me clatter through the letterbox and on to the doormat, I’m noticing how the envelopes have changed. Once they were thick, stuffed with additional sheets of paper – handwritten accounts of the past year and embellished with favourite memories. Ironic, really, that what were my best mates had become pen friends. Then those hand-written messages changed to single word-processed A4 sheets detailing the past year, dominated by lengthy accounts of their children’s ups and downs. And more recently, there’s been a return to handwritten messages, but short now and hastily scribbled. ‘Sorry we didn’t meet. We must do it next year.’ Or worse – and heartbreakingly – news that the best friend has passed away in the summer, invariably after a short illness, leaving me with the dilemma of whether to still send the card I’ve already written and address it to the bereaved partner who wasn’t my best friend, or send a bereavement card instead, albeit several months too late.

And the realisation sinks in – far from being a friend who was always there, in their final hours, I’d been oblivious.

It’s what makes Christmas both a time of joy when it’s shared, but also a time of sadness and reflection. And a reminder – don’t take those friends for granted. They may not be there for you after all. So enjoy your time with them while you can.

In a recent blog, I wrote about how I was teaching myself that vinyl – lovely, shiny, lustrous vinyl –is merely a music carrier. Yes, it needs to be cared for to protect the music in the grooves, but it’s irrational to be too reverential, too precious about it. It’s just a processed thermoplastic polymer, not a work of art.

But in response, some of you have pointed out that what often is a work of art is the sleeve the vinyl comes in. And who am I to disagree (as Annie Lennox might ask)?

The most famous early example of a sleeve as art is – you don’t really need me to say, but I will -Peter Blake’s cover for the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Blake is a British pop artist, who went on to design album covers for the Who, Paul Weller and Ian Dury, and has works on display at Tate Britain, as part of the Modern and Contemporary British Art collection. So we’re talking top draw, not casual doodles.

Before Sgt Pepper, the usual format for an album sleeve was invariably an instantly forgettable image of the singer or performers, usually posed awkwardly in a photographic studio, barely a step up from the pictures taken of me at school for my parents to stand on the sideboard. Maybe the same photographers were used for both, dashing from Cliff Richard in Abbey Road to class 4a in Crouch End Primary School, the only difference being that I would have custard stains on my pullover, Cliff probably didn’t.

Sgt Pepper wasn’t entirely responsible for the change, though. Before that, Klaus Voorman – a musician who played in Manfred Mann and was a graphic designer by trade – had won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover in 1965 for Revolver, the album released prior to Sgt Pepper. But then, the Beatles were different. For the most part, it looked like the promotions people of record companies were focused on the teen market, where the priority was to get the album on the racks in shops while the single was still in the charts and before the artists disappeared back into obscurity. Classical albums that had a longer shelf were given more time and were frequently picking up honours for their sleeve designs. And just occasionally, some pop albums of the fifties and early sixties were graced with some unexpectedly groundbreaking designs. Can you guess the two artists whose music was wrapped in these sleeves?

But sleeves as art became more commonplace in pop and rock towards the end of the 1960s, reflecting the more thoughtful (or drug-induced) music of psychedelia and prog rock. And it helped sell albums too, leading to more than a handful courting controversy. Famously, there was the Jimi Hendrix album, Electric Ladyland, featuring a group of girls who, it is reported, were offered five pounds to pose topless, and another three to remove their knickers as well. Or John Lennon and Yoko Ono who appeared naked on their Two Virgins album cover. Nudity and scantily clad women continued to be a theme, used by Led Zeppelin, Roxy Music, Whitesnake, the Slits (amongst many) – presenting record shops with an issue. For the first time, the sleeves were capturing the attention. Shops wrapped them in brown paper to avoid complaints from sensitive customers, protect the innocent and preserve the modesty of the performers. But they still were garnering new-found and unwelcome attention. The vinyl had long since been stored separately from the covers to deter shoplifters, but now, with covers themselves becoming desirable, they were constantly being filched without needing to have a record inside. The photocopied sleeve for display duly arrived.

Since then, album artwork has almost become separate from the music. It often displays no text – no identifiers, no track listings or indeed titles – needing stickers plastered on them so sellers and potential purchasers can identify what the album is. Which is ironic because at the same time, the physical dimensions of the art have been reduced. CDs – for a decade or so the prime format for music – shrunk the art from 12” x 12” to minuscule. And for downloads, there is no need for artwork at all, and where it exists at all, it’s invariably reduced to a thumbnail. It must be with a sense of relief for artists that vinyl is making something of a comeback, so their palette is once again bigger, though not quite a triptych in the National Gallery. But it once more provides opportunities to showcase visual creativity alongside the music, providing the owner with a feast for their eyes as well as their ears. And something to revere.

So, while reading this, what album sleeve have you been imagining? Do you have a favourite – past or present?

(Answer to question above = Frank Sinatra, Only The Lonely, (1958) and Cliff Richard, (1965).

Piano Teacher – all ages. Call Charlie. This handwritten message was on a Post-It, pinned to a noticeboard in my local café. I scribbled down the details and next morning, I phoned Charlie. A few days later, a young man, slightly unkempt and every inch a wannabe rock star, appeared on my doorstep.

I’d invited him to give lessons to my teenage daughter. But while I was making a coffee for him before they got started, I heard him play to entertain himself. It sounded magical. I’d never learned a musical instrument, instead taking satisfaction in simply buying records and singing along to them. Hearing him play so well gave me the urge to be more creative. So, I asked Charlie to teach me as well. And as my daughter’s school pressures increased and her interest in the piano waned, she dropped out, leaving me to become Charlie’s sole pupil.

We’d begun using a cheap synthesiser that I’d bought from a charity shop, but at his insistence, we upgraded to a real piano, an upright that had probably seen service in a pub or club, complete with candelabras and piano stool. He’d spotted it in a second-hand furniture store, and had reserved it for me to buy – a touching show of faith. He must have seen something in me, or assumed that someone of my age, wanting to learn after so long, must be keen and dedicated. And at the time, I think I think he was right.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I began to let him down, and he would have realised why I’d never learnt in the first place. I never practiced. He’d remind me that he used to practice three hours a day when he was learning, and urged me to give it at least thirty minutes between his weekly visits. Then there were the interruptions during lessons. We’d seldom manage a full hour without my having to take an urgent business phone call, often for ten or fifteen minutes. And then there was my inability – and unwillingness – to learn how to read music. Paul McCartney never did, I’d argue, and anyway, all I wanted to do was be sufficiently competent to play a blues or rock’n’roll riff that would serve as accompaniment to singing a Chuck Berry or Jerry lee Lewis song.

Initially undismayed, he persisted, setting me scales and simple tunes to learn. But I seemed to make little progress. Almost as if seeking forgiveness, I did go to a couple of his gigs, even though I felt hopelessly out of place amongst the youngsters he attracted. And the venues were hardly Wembley Arena. More like pubs and small clubs where, although he was on a stage, the main attraction was the bar. He performed his own songs to the accompaniment of clinking glasses and people shouting at each other to be heard over him.

Gradually, my work commitments made it difficult to continue scheduling his lessons with me, and anyway, I sensed my lack of commitment meant he was losing either the heart to continue or interest in teaching. Probably both. Plus, he was still trying to make it professionally. He gave me a CD from a studio session that I gratefully accepted but hardly played. In my defence, when you have a record-buying habit, it’s hard to keep up with every vinyl and CD acquisition, and certainly not with a rough-and-ready CD-ROM.

Eventually, we lost touch. I used to wonder what had happened to him, and if he’d ever managed to come to terms with playing in small venues and never hitting the big time.

I reconnected with him by chance. I was in France, and was browsing the music department of a Carrefour in Calais. They displayed the best sellers on a rack on the wall – I recall Michael Jackson being both at number one and number three. What I hadn’t expected to see was at number two, a CD with Charlie’s picture on the front. A quick online search revealed he had become a huge star on the continent and in Canada. Quite why he had made it in French-speaking countries when he was English, and his lyrics were in English, I have no idea. But the first thing I did after I bought the CD was to check its lyric sheet.

Which brings me to explain why a story about a musician is on an author’s blog. What had he written about? Any creative, whether a songwriter, artist or author, will bring their personal background and experiences to their craft. While what is produced is generally from the imagination, that fiction is likely to include an interpretation of reality, to make it believable. And that inevitably comes from what they have witnessed first-hand. When I scanned the lyrics of Charlie’s songs, I couldn’t help asking myself, did his verses of disappointment and disillusionment allude, in some way, to his relationship with me? Were there any clues that he’d been inspired by – or written with anger through – my failure to take advantage of his advice and tutelage?

There are readers of my novels who have felt the same with my writing. More than once, I have been asked – nay, accused – of writing about them. I have no idea whether they were angered or flattered, but I have twice been given a mug that warns people that ‘anything you say may be used in a story’. Still, I was pleased that my characters must have been sufficiently rounded and believable for readers to think I’d been writing about them.
The reality is that any author – and any other creator – borrows from life, be it situations or people, then uses fragments to build into the fictional narrative, developing – maybe exaggerating – them. It’s what helps keep everything interesting, authentic and credible.

As for Charlie, I haven’t met him since the last lesson he gave me, but I have followed his career. I am so pleased that he’s gone from strength to strength, and it’s satisfying that he is getting recognition and reward for both his talent and dedication.

I still can’t play the piano.

Charlie Winston’s latest album, ‘Love Isn’t Easy’, has just been released on Tôt Ou Tard records.