My family and other criminals

My Family and Other Criminals

This is not the way that albums should be created. Most artists decide to make an album and then start writing. The themes and the title evolve together. When I started recording I already had 50 to 60 songs and more arrived whilst I was recording “Whitby Lifeboat”. I came up with the title while brainstorming titles for “Whitby Lifeboat”. The songs for “Whitby Lifeboat” were already chosen, however. There were plenty of family stories (“I think its going to rain”, “I’ll go to sea no more” and “The last time that I cry”) but there wasn’t much of a crime theme.

“My family…” became the title for album two. This gave me the chance to offload the remainder of my personal songs. When I was growing up, my grandparents would tell me the stories of the past. At the time, they seemed to endlessly repeat these stories. Now they are long gone, the ones they kept repeating are the only ones I remember.

I am mindful not to bore Adam with my stories but here, in song form, are a few of them. Some of them are pretty much as they happened (“Its Late”for example), most use artistic license (“Moving On”) and others bear only a passing nudge to reality (“Where the Old People Dance”). Sherriff Ants Trapraneur likes to talk about legacy and these songs, for good or bad, are just that. With the album title, the remainder of the songs bear a passing reference (sometimes more) to crime.

Album Cover: Back row (L to R): Jane North (great great aunt), Winifred Sharman (1911-1999, great aunt), Ronald Oldfield (1918-1973, grandfather), Vera Sharman (1914-1996, grandmother), Scarborough: Diana Tew (mother), Ellen Robinson (grat grandmother), Frank Tew (grandfather), Vera Sharman (grandmother), Frank Robinson (great grandfather), Frank Tew (1913-1984, grandfather) and Vera Sharman (on their wedding day, Sheffield), Ronald Oldfield

Middle row: Frank Tew, Patricia Oldfield (1950-2010, aunt) and Diana Tew (1941-2014, mother), Vera Sharman (on right) and friends, Frank Tew (royal signals, India), Brian Oldfield (b. 1942, father) and Patricia Oldfield

Bottom row: Richard (Dick) Whittington (1890-1970, great great uncle), Scarborough: Frank Tew and Vera Sharman, James Oldfield (1893-1969, great grandfather), Ronald Oldfield, Jessie Whittington (on their wedding day, Sheffield), Richard Whittington (1890-1970, great grandfather), Betty (Sal) Whittington (great aunt), Edna Oldfield (1923-2001, great aunt), Jessie Whittington, Tom North (1856-1935, great great grandfather)

Rough Diamond is the only song that doesn’t really meet either brief. The album needed another song and I needed to up the overall quality on the album so this fitted the bill. The music came first and the words were inspired by a scene the TV series “Shameless” which is about a family on a housing estate in Manchester. In episode one James McAvoy (Steve) spots Anne Marie Duff (Fiona) dancing in a night club. The plot of the song deviates (a lot) as usual…. Kevin Todd is on harmonica.

April 1963 the Beatles came to town

The grand Azena ballroom on White Lane

The greatest band in history ten minutes from your door

A chance like this would never come again

Now I’m asking why (x2)

Now I’m asking why you didn’t go

I could have dined out on the tale the best days of my life

Anecdotes like this are rather rare

I could have bored my children and terrorised my wife

If only you’d been there

Now I’m asking why…

If I’m being honest it doesn’t sound appealing

An overcrowded room with a cacophony of screaming

But you’d see Paul McCartney shake his mop-top hair

And tell your children you were there

You were in the library up on Manor Top

Dad’s attending college up in Leeds

You would thaw him out after riding home each night

A concert is not one of your needs

Now I can see why (x2)

Now I can see why you didn’t go

We went to visit the Blades (Sheffield, 1970s)

I loved football, both playing and watching it, for as long as I can remember. Did wasn’t interested so it fell to my Graddad Frank to take me. We would travel to Sheffield on a Saturday morning and arrive for lunch. Meat and Tater (Potato) is the only meal I can remember my Nan Vera cooking. My sister tells me she made very good cakes. Grandad had a small rose garden at the front of their terraced house. Most of the year it was only mud and manure; I’ve never tried to grow roses myself becuase of this. There is a lot of coal in the area and the soil is black. At the end of the back garden, the World War Two Anderson shelter was still used for storage.

Granddad and his cousin, (Uncle) Aden Roebuck were friends and season ticket holders. I don’t know how they did it but, whenever I went with them, they always found me a seat near them in the John Street stand. When I first went, there was no stand opposite opposite but a cricket ground. Luckily I was there for a golden era; Sheffield United were riding high in division one (the top at the time) and Tony Currie played a few times for England. I was a Leeds fan (small boys can smell success) and I even saw the great Don Revie team. Fearful of violence, I was not allowed to wear my “Super Leeds” t shirt. You wouldn’t tell from Aden and granddad’s comments that United were doing well. However well they were doing, it never seemed to be as good as some mythical team in the past. Half time would be a drink from a flask of tea and the scores over the tannoy. With no internet, you relied on the ground to keep you updated with your rivals. Even if they weren’t in the same division, Sheffield Wednesday had their score read out and there was a cheer if they were loosing. The open air toilet did smell of tobacco. Although I’ve never smoked, I like the smell and I will detour to follow a smoker from time to time. The “Green ‘Un” was a paper that was rushed out at full time. By the time we got home we had a print out of the final scores and first half reports.

Granddad was a patient man who never raised his voice or had an unkind word (apart from the team). His devotion to me was great. I remember a game of football in the back garden when I beat him 100 to ninety something. That must have taken a lot of patience. Once, when Sheffield United’s game was snowed off he took me over to Hillsborough to see Sheffield Wednesday. We must have stood at the Leppings Lane end as I can remember that to Kop had no roof and was higher at one side than the other. In the 1990’s I lived in Hillsborough and remain a sufferer of Sheffield Wednesday (to be a football fan is to learn about diappointment). Please don’t tell my family; I hope they are not reading this.

Saturday at nan’s was meat ‘tater pie

With gravy and Henderson’s Relish besides

Then after dinner we’d wrap ourselves warm

With red and white scarves for our uniform

Then round the corner to our Uncle Aden

In a Morris 500 we’d join the parade and

By East Bank Road my patience was fading

As we went to visit the Blades

We went to visit the Blades

Saturday 3 o’clock at Bramhall Lane

My grandad, his cousin and me as a lad

When I think of them now it makes me feel sad

But looking back they’re the best times I had

When we went to visit the Blades

From high up in John Street we’d watch the parade

Woodward and Dearden leading the Blades

We suck on our humbugs and mint impereals

We watch Tony Currie with presence ethereal

Half time something warm with the semblance of tea

As Aden’s bemoans that missed penalty

And grandad soaks everything in silently

We went to visit the Blades

Chorus

I remember the Kop as they sang toe to toe

The open air toilet that smelt of tobacco

Then after the game do it all in reverse

Aden’s convinced that the whole team is cursed

Grandad’s still quiet that’s what I recall

He’d puff on a fag and say nothing at all

I think that he must have liked his football

As we went to visit the Blades

Chorus

We’d pick up a Green ‘Un on our way home

And check to see how our rivals had done

In time granddad’s smoking would be his failing

He passed on a spring day before Hysel Stadium

And I mustn’t feel lonely, downhearted, benighted

And nothing today brings me this much excitement

As those days when we went to see Sheffield United

When we went to visit the Blades

Chorus

Moving On (North Staffordshire Polytechnic, 1983)

I went to North Staffordshire to study business studies. Who knows what our motives are for anything. I guess I feared failure and I avoided risk. To get into North Staffordshire I needed DDE at A levels. I got BBC. The course didn’t stretch or interest me; I was going to become a Jack of all Trades. My accommodation was a terraced house on Hillchurch Street, Hanly. The area was run down; I would come home and found a street nearby had been demolished. It felt like the differs were moving ever close. I remember a house party which ended when the toilet was smashed; someone dropped a bottle of wine. The tennants spent the next day cruising the empty houses looking for an unlocked door and an avocado toilet befoe they were discovered. My housemates; Hugh and David were often away and I was left alone in a strange town. I left after a term; in doing so, I could still get a three year grant for another course.

Sue, me and mum outside Hillchurch Street, Hanley

The car was red (a Hillman Avenger) and mum felt my absence more keenly than I did. She never did any baking though.

Sunlight drips off the pavement

I’m heading south for the sun

New dreams on the horizon

Today I am moving on

Woke up in a small town

Got my dreams all packed, guitar on the rack

I’m moving on and I won’t look back

My life in a red car

A dozen shirts and a hundred hurts

And a thousand nights and ten thousand slights

But a million smiles to light my life

Chorus

Downstairs mother is baking

Kneading tears and pummelling fears

A love that lingers down the years

I don’t really notice

I can smell my dreams like a fragrant crème

And the best laid plans hung out like hams

And hope that crashes through the dams

Chorus

And every place I hang my hat

I never know if I’ll come back

But no matter where I roam

There’s somewhere that is always home

Chorus

Woke up in a new town

But my family are here with me

They’re in my heart we never part

My life with a new start

A hundred routes to tempt my boots

And a different future every day

So who knows what may come my way

Chorus

Where the old people dance (The Fat Cat and The Leadmill, Sheffield, 1983-1994)

The places are real but the story certainly isn’t. After North Staffordshire, I went to Sheffield University to study Economics (successfully this time). “I chanced on a pub far away to the south, all alone like a tooth in a prize fighters mouth”. My discovery of the Fat Cat, Alma Street, Sheffield was the opposite of this. Chance did not play a part. I had developed a taste for “real ale” which, in the 1980s was starting to revive in fortune after alost being wiped out by largers and keg beer; easier to make and transport but lacking in taste. My neighbours in Lincoln, Pete and Colin, were both in the local Campaign for Real Ale (Camra). They told me that I should seek the Fat Cat. It was a free house, not tied to a single brewery, and it sold ten different beers. The most any pub in Lincoln sold at the time was three or four. In Freshers week, armed with my Camra Good Beer Guide and an AZ map of Sheffield, I went in search. It took me longer than I expected. I blame the change in goegraphy; the area looked like it had been abandoned to fate and nature. In reality, I can’t have been much use at reading maps. I eventually found it; the only brick house amongst empty plots and faceless low rise industrial units. Anyone who knows the pub also knows that it is not to the south; please check out how many things rhyme with “north”!

I hear that the area and the pub are now much revived. At the time, the carpets were sticky with years of ingrained beer. One summer night, when my friend Lewis tried to open the window, the bottom of the frame remained whilst the rest slid upwards. Fortunately it was too close to go too often for my health and meagre student wallet to survive but we still had many joyous random nights there. In the days when pubs could not open before 6pm on a Sunday I remember waiting outside; having walked all that way. There was nowhere else to go. Walking home always felt like it took much less time than walking there.

Whilst I did go the the Leadmill a few times in my student days, my rare trip to the clubs was more likely to be to Barry Noble’s Roxy Nightspot (The Roxy). I frequented it more when I worked for the department of Employment and later as a student nurse. The Leadmill was a club like no other I had seen before; you didn’t have to wear a suit and it sold real beer, although in plastic mugs and not as nice tasting as in the Fat Cat. In the high ceiling of the dance floor sweat would condense on the steel frames and later, as people left and the temperature cooled, would fall as pseudo rain. Our main night was The Beat Club on a Thursday, playing music from the sixties and seventies. I did see a few bands; Fairport Convention and Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. Davy Spillane was a no show, a habit of his apparently. Sunday mornings was newspapers and jazz.

I was new to the city, quite shy and nervous

Despite reservations I was eager and curious

I set out to bid the fair city good day

I wandered, meandered, let fate lead the way

I chanced on a pub far away to the south

Alone like a lone tooth in a prize fighters mouth

It looked too inviting to not take a chance

Though its not where the old people dance

Chorus

Dance, dance, where the old people dance

Come find a partner and come take a chance

You never know where or when you’ll find romance

So dance where the old people dance

I huddled my pint to me watched from a table

The pub became louder, a hostel of babel

I felt peripatetic, pathetic and lonely

As people formed huddles I wished I could only

Rip myself out from my corner and say

Hello to somebody and how was your day

And then a bit later I’d make my advance

Do you know where the old people dance?

She stood at the pump like a tall Elvin queen

Ringlets of burgundy eyes firing green

She exuded confidence, class and disdain

And I cursed my own shyness, my fears and my pain

My knees were a quiver, my countenance pale

Up went the confidence down went the ale

And in spite of her eyes that pierced like a lance

I asked where the old people dance

She looked me all over as though I amused her

My confident bearing had really bemused her

I explained in the sixties I’d smoked marijuana

And danced around naked, sharing the karma

I’d been with the flower people in San Francisco

I’d pogo’d to punk and I’d strutted to disco

And now that the acid house no long held a trance

I would go where the old people dance

She took both my hands led me out in the night

Though my feet were terrestrial my heart it took flight

And I knew by the hour this girl by my side

I would woo her and win her and make her my bride

After queuing, canoodling we hit the dance floor

We danced to the Beatles, James Brown and The Doors

And I knew I was home and would you perchance

Like to know where the old people dance?

My Personal Heaven (Meersbrook, Sheffield, 1988-90)

My colleague at the Employment Service, Adrian Owens, bought a 3 bedroom house at the top of Meersbrook Avenue and he needed tennants to help him pay the mortgage. Myself and Lesley (Shark) Smith volunteered. We had a blast. Lesley convinced us that our neighbours were all signing on the dole and moonlighting as window cleaners and the like. She thought that they believed we were a part of the benefit fraud squad and therefore out to get them. They left us to ourselves. The parties were loud and late. One summer night Ken Foster, in his drunken state undressed in the passageway between the two houses and went to bed (with landlord Adrian and his girlfriend). When he woke up, the neighbours had taken his clothes and were apparently on their way to Doncaster market to sell them. Somehow a message was delivered; the clothes were returned and nothing more was said.

On days off I would lie on the grass in Meersbrook Park and look over the city. I am not religious but I keep writing uplifting tunes which, in different hands, would be a spritual song of some sort. At the time of writing I would walk the song round my local lake in North Hykeham. Try as I might, I kept returning to themes of religion and spirituality. In the end, I went with the flow and the song is a homage to Sheffield and socialism.

Jesus crossed the Jordan, I just crossed the Trent

But when I got to Meersbrook I knew what the Bible meant

Heaven is the place where you weather every tide

So in my personal heaven I’ll reside

No doubt about it, it’s here my heaven lies

So I can shout it, from the rooftops to the skies

So in my personal heaven I’ll reside

Now we know that heaven isn’t made of bricks and mortar

It’s made of friends and family, our sisters and our daughters

Heaven’s made of arms that always open wide

So in my personal heaven I’ll reside

No doubt…

But heaven can’t be heaven if it stands out on its own

Like legendary Canute on his rather soggy throne

And so it grieves to say it but it’s what my heaven needs

Heaven’s also Manchester and Leeds*

No doubt…

In my personal heaven I’ll reside (repeat until bored)

But heaven’s only heaven ‘cause it’s built on strong foundations

From the roots that dig down deep to the steel of strong relations

So if you’re run from Westminster and you’re run by imbeciles

That’s not the way that heaven’s meant to feel

No doubt…

So go and smash the government in whatever way you choose

You’ve everything to gain from it and nothing much to loose

Go and turn around that neoliberal tide

Then in our personal heaven we’ll reside

No doubt…

*Other northern metropolitan cities are available

It’s Late (Sheffield, 1988)

How met my friend Helen. Adrian (my landlord) had gone out clubbing on a work night and I was asleep. He met Helen and her friend Biddy, I think, in a nightclub and brought them back to the house. Helen, in particular, decided that we should all have a party in the kitchen. I wasn’t having any of it but I think they took quite a bit of persuading to leave. We have been freinds since. By coincidence she lived for a while in Pontesbury, the village in Shropshire where I was born, and knew my godparents and their children.

It’s late; no I don’t want to talk

It’s late; it’ll soon be work

It’s late; I don’t want to moan

Please will you just leave me alone

It’s late; so just let me sleep

It’s late; I’m sure it’ll keep

It’s late; let me put you straight

Whatever you’re thinking it can wait

You’ve been drinking, Out on a bender

A late night session is your agenda

I’ve been sleeping, I’m nice and warm

I’m not getting up to party ‘til dawn

Its late; please go downstairs

It’s late; you caught me unawares

It’s late; you’re clearly pissed

Start the party without me I won’t be missed

It’s late; can’t you see I’m tired

It’s late; and you’re completely wired

It’s late; I can’t handle the drama

If you wait ‘til morning I’ll be much calmer: Chorus

You’re irritating you’re incessant

Your persistence makes me incandescent

What part of “no” is it you don’t get

I might do something I regret

Some circumstances your persistence

Might just weaken my resistance

But at this time and in the place

You might as well give up with grace

It’s late; I can tell you’re actually nice

It’s late; tomorrow I might think twice

It’s late; I can tell you mean no harm

But there’s only three hours until my alarm

It’s late; can you see I’ve had enough

It’s late; so now please f*** off

It’s late; I don’t want a can from the offie

If you bring me anything can it be coffee

Folk Rock Band (Sheffield, 1988)

Helen introduced me to Fairport Convention that same year. I must have dabbled in folk music in the past; I’d been to see Martin carthy and followed local band Spot the Dog (Jeff Wood, you are missed). I’d survived school and teens on sixties pop and rock but then lost my way. I dabbled with the Housemartins but never settled. Helen had acquired a live bootleg cassette of Fairport and played nothing but. Listening to the instrumentals I would date it to Expletive Delighted (released 1986). The opening medley which melded into Matty Groves (a 20 verse chorus song according to Simon Nicol) blew me away repeatedly.

I’ve been a fan ever since, including a few trips to the annual gathering at Cropredy. If anyone questions the ethics of bootlegging music, I paid back in official merchandise and concerts tenfold. It also led me to Richard Thompson and the folk and folk rock scene.

I left school to an electric pastiche

There was nothing to move me or fit my niche

Everyone worshipped the great god synth

Placed on a pedestal, engraved with a plinth

The years passed by and I searched round

Looking to find a different sound

On a nothing night when nothing was planned

I first heard the music of a folk rock band

In a dusty bedsit near Meersbrook Park

It was a bootleg tape that lit the spark

Soaring fiddle, pounding bass

My first trip to a magical place

I played it every night for a month or more

Neighbours banging on a paper wall

After a search all over the land

I fell for the music of a folk rock band

It took a live show to seal the deal

On a summer’s night at the Winding Wheel

Punched in the face by Walk Awhile

I promised myself the extra mile

Unhalfbricking, Liege and Lief

Through the back catalogue I tore like a thief

With Matty Groves the flames were fanned

I was devoted to a folk rock band

On a summer’s night with the scent heady

Finally made the trip to Cropredy

With a mug of wine I know I was there

As the sun was setting to the Hiring Fair

At the end of the night we made a pledge

To return in a year to Meet back on the Ledge

I’ve planted my flag, I’ve made my stand

I’m the devotee of a folk rock band

House Share (Sheffield, 1988-89)

I was part of many house shares over the years. I was on Rushdale Avenue for under two years and I’m not sure why this one stood out. We al clicked. My friend Helen (Bowen) was already renting the attic from David (LeLievre) and Caroline (“Takeaway” Taylor) who were both student psychiatric nurses. I was doing alright financially (I had an A registration Ford Sierra!) and didn’t really need to rent a box room that wasn’t big enough to hold a bed or cupboard, but I did it.

Shifts allowing, we would often eat together. David and Caroline were vegetarian and the main meal was nearly always a bean and vegetable stew with home made garlic bread. We drank together in the White Lion, a distinctive art deco pub on Chesterfield Road. The thing that brought us together was a naughty collie cross puppy called Dill. Dill would eat anything. We often forgot to put the margarine away when we went to the pub and would come home to find the tub licked clean. We never learned and that was a mainstay of his diet. One Sunday lunch at the Yorkshire Bridge I had tied him to my stool. He pulled the stool over when someone across the room dropped a brussel sprout. When David rebuilt the fire place he ate the broken bricks and mortar. At Christmas, he ate all the needles from the tree that he could reach. His poo was green. His other name was “I don’t believe you just did that”.

I was there when Nelson Mandela did his long walk to freedom, watching on TV. Before long, I got a job in London and had to leave. Maybe it was good because I wasn’t around long enough for it to sour. I didn’t last long as a civil servant in London. I realised I didn’t really like the job itself. David, Caroline and Helen all seemed to be doing something more worthwhile than me and seemed to be having more fun too. Helen worked with people with learning difficulties. Eighteen months after leaving Sheffield for London, I was back in Sheffield and starting my nurse training.

Twenty pounds a month buys a mattress on the floor

Feet stuck in a cupboard, head just by the door

My books, my clothes and my guitar would fit into a little car

And so I went to start anew down on Rushdale Avenue

Some days I would trade everything to spend a day back there

In my lovely dysfunctional house share

I’d trade all the tea in China for a lift in David’s Morris Minor

Helen’s room is full of signs we picked up back from the White Lion

And not forgetting Caroline, gently sipping her red wine

Doctor Martins, donkey jacket, her drunken late night take away habit

Some days I would trade everything to spend a day back there

In my lovely dysfunctional house share

Bruce Cockburn serenades us all with the strains of Peggy’s Kitchen Wall

If you want to find us you can try and search the back in the White Lion

Then there’s Dill with shiny nose, mostly Collie part who knows

Always stealing margarine, caught red handed at the scene

To eat a Christmas tree is hard, he pooed green poo into the yard

Tore the Yorkshire Bridge apart chasing down a Brussel sprout

And I hope that in the future our children will be there

In their own dysfunctional house share

Come hear the music play (Lincoln, 1990s to present)

My musical collaborations are listed elsewhere. The Terracists has been, by far, the longest of these. I’m not sure why I decided to write a “this is the band” song. I must confess to delusions of grandeur and, in my head, I can see us walking out onto big stages with this playing. I’m not sure why. It isn’t very good. It even poses the question “should I record every song”. For better or worse, I am doing so.

I think I’ve recounted how I started playing with Phil Robinson already on this site. To save you a search it was a late and drunken night at Cold Keld, a basic cottage we rented from time to time in Cumbria. I discovered that Phil could sing “She moved through the fair” a song I loved playing but hated singing. The rest is history.

I first became aware of Roger Williams on a trip to the Cambridge Folk Festival. Roger had been very drunk and had mistaken a wet wipe for a cheese square. I’m not sure when he joined Phil and I and made the duo a trio. I’m not even sure if he truly has. He’s very much his own person, although he does wait until the end of the show before he disappears into the night. Given that he lives only two doors from Phil, he’s really difficult to pin down. We didn’t see him for over a year in lockdown (stuck on a narrow boat); we met again at a gig we played together, no rehearsal.

Come hear the music play

Come and listen and don’t be cagey

Please bring your friends and gather round

And feel the beat pulse through the ground

Phil has got a new guitar

He practiced ‘til his fingers bled

And then he went out and hit the road

The critics say he could go far

He could have played the stadia

But he’s happy in a pub with his rock and roll

Come hear the music play, come and feel and don’t ask questions

And if the devil asks you let him take your soul

Shake your booty to the rock ‘n’ roll

And Roger on harmonica

The master of the twelve bar blues

He felt the rhythm on the day that he was born

From The Tap to the Morning Star

From winkle pickers to his blue suede shoes

He’s jammed the night away into the dawn

Come hear the music play, come and sway and feel the rhythm

Come and dance and let your hair hang down

Feel the beat and come and claim the town

And me I’m happy plucking strings

And looking at the smiling faces

And I feel that I can have it all

The pleasure that the music brings

The memories of friends and places

And then it’s time to take the curtain call

Repeat chorus

Old Leather Suitcase (Lincoln 2018)

In 2017 it started to become clear that dad’s memory was worsening. It felt like a baton was being passed from him to me and my sister, Sue.

The holly and ivy, mulled wine and beer

Please raise your glasses and be of good cheer

To those far away and those who are near

We wish you a happy New Year

The month of December with snow on the moor

An old man presented himself at the door

Although silhouetted against winter skies

He carried the weight of the world in his eyes

I opened the door and we let him inside

He carried a suitcase down by his side

Chorus

We sat by the fire drinking our wine

There was laughter and tears as we talked of old times

And heard in his voice the wisdom of years

Half way to misery, half way to fear

The old leather suitcase lay by his feet

It was tied up with string that was singed by the heat

Chorus

A cold and grey morning the old man was gone

He trudged his way up the long path all alone

The old leather suitcase was still by the embers

And I stared at it all of the month of December

I didn’t want it but I knew it was mine

And it would be with me for all of my time

I would fill it with love and when my time was done

I’d pass that old suitcase on to my own son

I say I’m doing fine (Lincoln 2018) featuring Kevin Todd on harmonica

I work in a hospital and I get to pound the corridors a lot in my job. Everyone is friendly and we ask each other “how are you” many times every day. We are not expecting an answer, however. We are too busy for that. Whatever trials, tribulations and tragedies are passing us, the answer we give is that we are fine. There isn’t time for the long answer, except for our closes colleagues.

No-one has a garden that’s always rosy

No-one has a home that’s always cosy

When skies are grey I always say

You’ve got your problems I’ve got mine

So when you ask me, which you do from time to time

I say I’m doing fine

They say that no-one is an island

There’s always clouds on the horizon

When I’m feeling blue, there’s something you can do

Just pour the wine

So when you ask me, which you do from time to time

I say I’m doing fine

There’s always someone lying, always someone crying

Always someone trying to make you feel like dying all the time

There’s always someone grieving, always someone thieving,

always someone leaving you and cutting you right down in your prime

So when you ask me, which you do from time to time

I say I’m doing fine

It’s not that I don’t want you to know me

But in your presence you have shown me

That you really care, and you are there

When I need you and that’s fine

So when you ask me, which you do from time to time

I say I’m doing fine

Modern Highwayman (written Rob Oldfield and Phil Robinson, featuring Phil Robinson, vocals,)

This song started with one of Phil’s favourite songs; “Too Close to the Wind” as recorded by Fairport Convention. Its one of the few songs he knows about his native Northamptonshire. It tells the story of some thieves who were caught and hanged and contains the lines “from Daventry down to the southern byways, we robbed both the rich and the poor”. Phil and I thought anyone trying that now would have to face the racetrack that is the Daventry bypass and robbing anyone may be difficult. The idea took shape. The structure, although in a major key, is a lift from the “Raggle taggle gypsies / Seven Yellow gipsies” song. Over the years, we’ve lost track of who wrote what but Phil rightly claims the last verse.

It was late last night when the boss came home

Asking about his lady-o

And the servants do say that he’s gone away

With a man with a CB radio

Come gather me my milk white steed

And go and pack my pistol-o

Go fetch my cloak and that really dodgy bloke

That we picked up in Bristol-o

From the top of Shap to the Watford Gap

You can ride as quick as you can

With a flash of the cape you’ll never escape

From the modern highwayman

We rode out east and we rode out south

All in search of our lady-o

In church we lit a candle all to get a handle

On the man with the CB radio

In London we searched the registers of UNSCOM and UNESCO-o

And our horses waned in the London rain

As they grazed on the gravel in Tesco-o

Our spirits fell like a goat from hell

As we ambled north to Leicester-o

And before we could run we stared down the gun

Of a man in a so’wester-o

His “stand and deliver” made our knees quiver

As the rain dripped off his poncho-o

And in less than five seconds we threw down our weapons

And we made him our head honcho-o

With a knife in the dark and life’s car park

We advanced our reputation-o

We’d hit and we’d ride to a secret hide

On a motorway service station-o

We got our ticks on the A46

Where the sheep all graze on the heather-o

And we got cheap personal stereos

With litres of unleaded-o

Deported from Australia

Vic was full of worries-o

But he made it pay on the queen’s highway

Where he was robbing lorries-o

For the theft of some cress and wearing a dress

They sent him north from Hobart-o

And he met his end on a hairpin bend

At the hands of Eddie Stobart-o

Reconciled (featuring Kevin Todd on harmonica)

This could be the best day of my life

Because I’m coming home

Got my friends they’ll be waiting for me

But my family who knows

When I was young I didn’t take the easy course

There was a bad crowd around

Had some fights and too many long nights

On the wrong side of town

I hope there’s a young girl waiting there for me

When I left she was a child

What do I say how do I repay

Will we be reconciled

This could be the best day of my life

The tears will be of joy

I’m a little scared and quite unprepared

When I left I was boy

One night in a bar we’d been drinking

It was a long sultry night

There was a fight and somehow a knife

Been coming all my life

I hope there’s a young girl….

I’ve had a long time to regret what I have done

When you’re doing time there nothing but time

I’m on the train coming away from my pain

My future’s on the line

This could be the best day of my life

But will she be there

After all the tears all the wasted years

I hope that she cares

There’s a figure on the platform ahead

Her face is a mask

I’ll give her her due after all that we’ve been through

That is all I can ask

I hope there’s a young girl….

Senator McCarthy (with Phil Robinson on vocals)

Inspired by the film “The Front” by Woody Allen. I hope there aren’t any Americans reading this. To explain modern US history I divide America into three parts; the bit in the middle and the bits down the edges (coasts). The people at the edge are a bit like us. They produce all the books, plays and films. The people in the middle are the ones who voted for Donald Trump; they produce the food and make the cars. In the 1950’s the ones in the middle started to worry that the ones at the edge were trying, through their art, to turn them into communists. They put pressure on politicians to stop this. Senator Joseph McCarthy set up the committee of un-American activities. Writers and artists had to prove that they were not communist sympathisers. Those who could not do so were black listed. Nothing was written down but they could not find work. Livelihoods were lost and some people committed suicide.

Senator McCarthy, I’m in need of some advice

I’ve just received this letter and its content isn’t nice

It says I think the USA is not the paradise

That I once knew, what can I do?

Senator McCarthy I hope you understand

That I’ve got to make a living and on this I hadn’t planned

What good is a writer whose work has all been banned

I’m in a stew, what can I do?

And Senator McCarthy  you have got me in your grip

You and your committee on your power bending trip

Just you watch your back and watch your halo doesn’t slip

 ‘Cause I’ll be there, so you take care

Senator McCarthy I hope you recognise

That the contents of this letter are a litany of lies

And calling me a communist surely takes the prize

This red feels blue, what can I do

Senator McCarthy you have got me in the mess

You have all the power I have no means of redress

I see you on the TV with your buddies from congress

Sitting pretty, in the city

And Senator McCarthy I am fed up of this land

And if you think that’s un-American then you don’t understand

That to like a beach you don’t have to like every grain of sand

You artless swine, you Phillistine

Senator McCarthy I am now at my wits end

I am hungry, cannot feed my kids and I cannot pretend

That I’m not at your mercy and am able to defend

My family, so pity me.

The Witch Burning

We visited Fife in 2018 and my friend Ken Foster gave my son, Adam, a copy of a poster from the Fyfe Brewery. It outlined the expenses undertaken in order to burn two witches in Kircaldy in 1633. It was too tempting to resist. I sat down with a calculator and carefully crafted this song….. A “pricker” was a particular sort of torturer designed to find “the devils mark”. They would repeatedly poke the “witch” with sharp implements and the devil’s mark was a point which, when “pricked” would not cause pain. A rudimentary knowledge of the pain gate theory would show that this is achievable in any person. Prick someone repeatedly in the same area and the spinal nerve gate will close and stop sending messages back to the brain.

On the banks of the Forth in Kirkcaldy

In the year of our Lord 1633

Two people were accused of the devil’s work

And they stood before a session of the kirk

John Miller was sent to East Lothian

For which he was paid £2 and 7

He went to Preston and while there

He found a man to try the pair

We are worried, its concerning

Who will pay for the witch burning?

£12 given as the cost

To bring the Pricker from Culross

He laid his tools out to embark

On a search of the bodies for the Devil’s Mark

A little time of tender care

The Devil’s Mark he could declare

The coal it came to £1 and 4

To pay for the burning and some small torture

The Commission was £9 and 3

To ensure the pair were found guilty

So William Coke and Alison Dick

Condemned by the body politic

An executioner of high renown

Was paid for by Kirkcaldy town

£12 8 the consequence of

Fees and travel and expenses

We never thought it came to this

To pay the price for the Lord’s justice

And so the morning on the shore

The one the town’s been waiting for

The witches dressed in hemp-spun clothes

In tar barrels upon the tows

We stood them high on mounds of coal

£4 6 was the bankroll

And witnessed by Kirkcaldy town

The witches burned into the ground

We came to stand as witnesses

To see them burn as they confessed

The princely sum of 17 pounds

Each to the church and to the town

We hope the witches aren’t returning

We need to save for another of the witch burnings