IN 1972 IT was the ‘in’ thing to go to the country and ‘get your shit together’. That was the exact expression. Initially I hadn’t really understood what this meant. I first heard the expression in 1971 in America, when some black dude, a really lovely musician I’d met in Los Angeles, was chatting with me about music.
‘So, Rick, tell me: where do you Brits go to get your shit together?’
Way back then a lot of Americanisms that we now take for granted hadn’t yet hit our shores so I really didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. All I could think of was that in some way he was interested in gardening and was asking about manure, fertiliser, that sort of thing. So I just thought I’d play it cool.
‘Oh, all over the place, all over.’
‘Really?’ he said, impressed. ‘That’s really cool. But surely you have a favourite place to get your shit together?’
All I could think of was Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire, because this was popular with gardeners who got peat and compost made from the rich, leafy woodland materials in that particular ancient woodland.
‘Burnham Beeches, man, I often go there to get my shit together.’
‘Cool – is that by the sea then, Rick?’
‘No, it’s in these beautiful, really old woodlands. Beeches spelt with two “e”s, named after all the beech trees there.’
‘Wow, what a place to get your shit together.’
Exactly.
Eventually one of the Yes crew who’d previously toured around the USA put me right and explained the meaning of the phrase. Within twelve months, every self-respecting British rock band was going away somewhere remote ‘to get their shit together’. You couldn’t ‘get your shit together’ in your own home or round the corner, and you certainly couldn’t do it at your parents’. I was eager to ‘get my shit together’ so I sat down and decided to buy a house somewhere in Devon. To get my shit together.
I bought this beautiful little farmhouse called Trevanin Farm in Devon, in a place called Woodbury Salterton. I loved it down there and spent an age ‘getting my shit together’. People from London would ask where I was and the management would say, ‘Oh, he’s writing, getting his vibes . . . he’s getting his shit together.’
Basically, what this actually meant was that I did the same as every other rock musician who was ‘getting his shit together’. Bored with your normal surroundings, you told your management that you had some writing to do and needed to be somewhere away from the masses in order to get your shit together. The management would pass this information on to the record company, and basically all you did was vanish to your hidey-hole for as long as you liked, eventually return, having done nothing but get wrecked, and tell your management what great inspiration you’d had whilst getting your shit together. The management would then pass this information on to the record company that would inform the music press that you had now well and truly got your shit together. That’s an awful lot of shit flying around if you think about it. I’m sure this eventually spawned the word ‘bullshit’
For me though, it was important to get away from the pressures of being close to London and I just loved my place in Devon. Now you might think that one long round of drinking with my mates in such wonderful hostelries as The Diggers Rest and the Alfington Inn had very little to do with getting my shit together, but it really did help me. I could relax down there. Go for walks with the dogs on the common or drive out onto Exmoor, spend a day at one of the seaside places such as Budleigh Salterton and generally just chill out until I felt ready to return to the madness of London.
Whilst in Devon, the press and media assumed I was discovering my music and rediscovering my inner artist. Many of my journalist friends were quite heavy drinkers and very often they would come down to see me in order to get their own shit together, which was nice.
Periodically an anxious record-company man would phone up.
‘Rick, how are you?’
‘I’m good, thanks. Still getting my shit together.’
‘Okay. And how long do you think you will be getting your shit together, Rick?
‘Oh, it could be a while longer – there’s quite a bit of shit to get together.’ And off he’d go, satisfied that he had chased me and convinced that I was, at that very moment, working on some new masterpiece.
The beautiful part was that whenever I delivered a new piece of music, nobody ever had a clue where I’d actually written it and it was often assumed that Trevanin Farm was the key and so I was encouraged to go there a lot by my management.
To be fair, while I was down on my little farm I did switch off – the phone wasn’t constantly ringing with managers, publishers and record executives chasing me every hour – so I did clear my head and feel refreshed. In fact, don’t ask me how, but in-between the long drinking bouts of natural cider, I did actually write a large part of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, so perhaps I did get at least some shit together after all.
I spent a lot of time down in Devon and became friends with quite a few of the locals. I especially want to tell you about two of my favourites: Grizzle Greenslade and Jake Berry. Like many of the tales involving my mates in Devon, theirs begins in the Alfington Inn in the village of Alfington, near Ottery St Mary. Dave Cousins from The Strawbs had a house in the village, which he had bought a year before I bought my place as he felt the need to get his shit together twelve months before I did. So we regularly used to meet up at the Alfington Inn to get our shit together, together. We got to know all the locals and it was a fantastic place – I loved the Alfington Inn. It had old-fashioned table skittles, dominoes, all the old-school pub games. I was told recently that it no longer exists as a pub, so one day I may have to make a little trip down to south Devon to check for myself. Back in the 1970s, it was a real hive of activity and you used to meet the most amazing characters in there.
Like Grizzle Greenslade.
Grizzle had been brought up by his grandma in the village. He was a lovely, harmless fella but he was a little bit slow. He’d never really had a proper education and difficult circumstances meant he had to help his gran out round the house quite a bit, so the result was that he couldn’t really read or write. All the guys in the village really looked after Grizzle: they made sure he had food and company and if the lads were going out they’d take Grizzle with them and then make sure he got home.
The Grizzle stories are legendary. For starters, he was not exactly tactful, mainly because he had little or no idea of social etiquette. For example, there was quite a pretty young girl who was the fiancée of one of the local thatchers and she was in the Alfington dancing to something on the jukebox one night. She saw Grizzle sitting on his own and felt a bit sorry for him.
‘Would you like to dance with me, Grizzle?’
‘I’d better not, thank you. I’d rather I didn’t,’ he replied.
Surprised, the pretty girl asked why.
‘Because whenever I looks at you, it gives me the horn.’
She continued dancing on her own.
Grizzle had numerous jobs, which never lasted very long, and each and every tale of Grizzle’s employment efforts has become folklore.
To his credit, he did try and hold on to jobs and was keen to pay his own way and stand on his own two feet – at various points in his life he’d worked for the council, most famously when he was painting the bridge over the little river at Ottery St Mary. One day in the Alfington Inn Jake Berry and Dave Cousins told me the story about Grizzle and how he came to lose his job with the council. Apparently, a van had lost control on the bridge, smashed through the railings and ended up in the water. It wasn’t a long drop but the van was half on its roof and half submerged so the driver was obviously going to be shocked and frightened by his unfortunate experience. Jake and Dave were crying with laughter as they continued the story.
People soon gathered on the bridge and before anybody had even called the emergency services, Grizzle had run down the riverbank and wrenched the van door open. People started applauding.
‘Wow, that’s amazing – what a hero!’ I replied, impressed. ‘Saving the driver’s life deserves some sort of award, I reckon.’
‘Grizzle was arrested for grievous bodily harm,’ said Jake.
‘What! For saving a man’s life?’
‘Err, not exactly. Grizzle did pull the guy out, but then smacked him on the head and shouted, “You bastard! I’ve only just finished painting that bloody bridge!” then dropped him back in the water.’
Grizzle was let off the GBH charge but he did get the sack from the council.
Then he managed to get himself a job at a local golf course as part of the greenkeeping team. Grizzle loved his outdoor jobs, so we all thought this was the perfect type of work for him. Within a couple of days, I heard a rumour that he’d already been sacked.
I saw him in the Alfington and said, ‘Grizzle, what happened at the golf course? That sounded like it was perfect for you.’
‘The bastards. They don’t understand when you are just trying to help,’ he replied cryptically. ‘I just don’t like it when you’re trying to help and you get the sack.’
I said, ‘Well, what did you do?’
‘They asked me if I’d worked at a golf course before and I said I had. But their course was different to the one I’d worked at cos there were no windmills or funny obstacles to whack the ball through and this golf course was grass too, not concrete and it was far too big. People had to walk miles to find their ball after they’d hit them. Bloody stupid and they’d dress up in silly clothes.’
‘Grizzle, where you worked before was crazy golf . . .’
‘I know that now, don’t I. Anyway, on my first day I had to start at seven in the morning. They gave me all these sticks with flags on and told me to go and put them on the greens, so I got the buggy thing with the trailer tractor and I drove on to these green bits where they wanted me to put flags in. I tell you what, Rick, it was beautiful, I’ve never seen grass like it. They were scattered all over the place so I just decided to find them one at a time. I couldn’t believe it, though, right in the middle of each of these green bits there was a hole. I thought, What a shame, they’ve done such a fantastic job and someone’s left a hole there. So I stuck the stick with the flag on the end in the ground – it had a spike in the end, you see, Rick – then I went round and filled up all these holes.’
‘How many did you fill up. Grizzle?’
‘Well, that’s just it, Rick, there were loads, eighteen in all.’
It was actually a different kind of driving that Grizzle was most famous for. Because he couldn’t read or write, it was very hard for him to get a driving licence. Impossible, in fact. This didn’t stop him. He owned a blue Reliant Regal van. It was the same as the car in Only Fools and Horses which people always say is a Reliant Robin but it isn’t, it’s a Regal (and yes, I do play Trivial Pursuit). He had a Reliant Regal van because he could drive it on a provisional motorbike licence perfectly legally.
One day Grizzle announced he was going to take his driving test, so we all sat in the Alfington Inn trying to figure out how he could possibly pass and what we might be able to do to help him. Problem was that Grizzle was illiterate, like I said.
‘That don’t matter, does it?’ Grizzle asked.
‘Yes, it does matter, Grizzle. The first thing they will do is ask you to read a number plate on a nearby car.’ So Jake had the bright idea of getting Grizzle to memorise his number plate. Then on the day of the test itself, the plan was that Jake would park his car right outside the driving test centre in the spot where the examiner usually pointed to a car to ask for the number plate to be read. Grizzle, having memorised the number could rattle off the number plate from memory while pretending to look at it and off he’d go to continue the test.
So it came to the day and he went to do the test. Jake drove to the test centre well beforehand.
Later that afternoon Grizzle stormed into the Alfington Inn effin’ and blindin’, having failed his test. Jake followed him in.
‘Grizzle, what happened?’
‘It was an effing disaster, Rick. It was all Jake’s fault!’
‘How was it my fault?’ protested Jake. ‘When I got there, I couldn’t park in the space opposite so I had to park about half a mile up the road. Grizzle came out and the examiner pointed at the car opposite and said, “Can you read that number plate please?” and . . .’
Grizzle interjected . . .
‘. . . And I said, “Nope, but I can read that number plate on that red car that’s right up there at the end of the road.” Jake’s car was like a speck in the distance, Rick, but I said the number you all told me to remember anyway. Then the examiner said, “How do you know that? Can you see that far?”’
‘And what did you say, Grizzle?’
‘I said, “No, I can’t see that far, but I know that’s the number plate cos it’s my mate Jake’s car.”’
‘So you didn’t get off to a very good start then, Grizzle,’ I sighed.
‘No, Rick, I didn’t. But he didn’t ask me to read any other number plates so we got in my Reliant. Then the examiner said, “When you are ready, Mr Greenslade, I want you to pull away, using all due care and attention to other traffic . . .”’
‘And . . .?’
‘Well, the nice lady at the hospital said the cyclist should be okay. He shouldn’t be in there too long, and they let the driving examiner go home after they gave him some pills. I don’t care anymore. I can drive my three-wheeler without anybody sitting in with me anyway so why bother to take a test. Can someone help me get the bicycle seat out of my front grill please.’
Quite a few months went by and I was spending some time at my house in Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire. I still had the Devon farm to ‘get my shit together’ but I was having a few days away from ‘being away’. I was due to return to Devon to get some more shit together after the weekend and so I was packing my things in the bedroom when I looked out of the window at the long winding driveway screened either side with beautiful rhododendron bushes, through which were currently driving two police patrol cars followed rather erratically by a blue Reliant Regal van.
Grizzle.
They all parked in the drive and two policemen got out of the first car, then two more got out of the second car, then Grizzle Greenslade climbed out of the Reliant Regal. I opened my front door and said hello to the officers, only two of whom I recognised.
‘Morning, Rick. Do you know this man?’
‘Yes. That’s Grizzle Greenslade.’
‘Well, he says he knows you too. He’s all yours.’
Grizzle stepped forward from behind the officers.’
‘Hello, Grizzle, mate. What are you doing up here?’
‘I’m on holiday, Rick.’
‘That’s lovely, Grizzle,’ I said. ‘Where are you going on holiday?’
‘Here. Only took me six days.’
I looked at him in total bewilderment. The distance from Ottery St Mary to Burnham Beeches is about 170 miles. Even in a three-wheeled Reliant Regal it’s only a six-hour journey at the most.
At this point, one of the policemen I didn’t recognise spoke up. ‘We are from the Berkshire police force, Mr Wakeman. We found Mr Greenslade lost in our area. Apparently, your friend tells us he can’t read any road signs and he’d been stopping strangers in the street and saying, “Do you know where my mate Rick lives? He’s in that band, Yes.’’’
The Berkshire boys had been handed Grizzle by the Surrey Police, whom in turn had been handed Grizzle by the Hampshire Police. Grizzle had in fact managed to reach my home from his home – just those 170 miles – via seven different counties and travelling just over 800 miles.
The Berkshire boys had traced where I lived, then they’d escorted Grizzle from Berkshire into Buckinghamshire because he was too much of a liability to leave roaming around the country roads.
‘I like this house, Rick. Nice here, isn’t it?’ said Grizzle, blissfully unaware of the major police operation he was the centre of. Bless him, he stayed that night with us and we agreed we’d drive down to Devon early and make Grizzle follow us all the way right behind. I’ve never looked in my rear-view mirror so many times in one journey!
It’s time to tell you about Jake Berry, another man I became firm friends with while I was in Devon ‘getting my shit together’. Jake was a real local character: he had this very strong Devon accent and mostly picked mushrooms and did odd jobs on local farms.
At the time, I was working on my epic King Arthur on ice shows at Wembley and as the production got bigger and bigger, I realised that I needed more crew, especially with the humping side of things (that’s moving heavy equipment around for those of you with one-track minds). I was in the Alfington Inn and asked the lads one night if any of them fancied coming up to London to help out.
‘I’ll have some of that,’ said Jake. ‘I’ve never been further than Exeter before.’
Jake did indeed come up to work the show and he was brilliant. He really wanted to learn and he listened to everything the senior crew members told him. Most of my usual crew couldn’t understand a word he said, but he kept telling me, ‘Rick, corr, I love this, I wouldn’t half mind doing this all the time.’
I explained to Jake that the only way to learn was by experiencing life on the road. If he really wanted to climb the ladder he would need to learn about drums, guitars, amps, PA systems, lighting, travel, management, record companies . . . the list just went on and on.
Shortly after, I had some shows in America and again I needed some extra hands. I suggested the idea to Jake, thinking it might possibly be too far for him to travel from Devon but he couldn’t say yes fast enough. Before we set off, he did some more UK shows and started learning a little about being a keyboard tech, drum tech and so on. ‘The only way you can learn is out on the road,’ I kept telling Jake, ‘and we’re out on the road solid so you’ll be able to learn fast if you want.’ All the time he just kept saying, over and over, ‘I want to learn, Rick.’
I have to say that Jake worked harder than anybody else in the crew and worked his socks off. He only had to be shown something once and he got it. We could all see that he was tailor-made for the business and would do very well. If only we could understand a bloody word of his thick Devonian accent then life would be complete!
The usual procedure with an American tour was to send the tour manager out there a week or so before the band arrived, to do what we called a ‘recce’. He’d check the hotels were booked, the venue loading regulations, the equipment getting through Customs, setting up the rehearsal facilities, internal transport and working with the promoter and the agent to make sure all the shows were set up right – all the minute detail that goes into making an American tour a success.
Three days before the US dates, I phoned my manager Deal-a-Day’s office and asked after the tour manager and his recce. Sandy, Deal-a-Day’s secretary said, ‘Well, we are a bit worried, actually, because we haven’t heard back from him. We’ve checked the hotel but no one has checked in.’
‘That’s not like Toby at all. I hope he’s all right,’ I said.
‘Well, we didn’t send Toby – he was otherwise engaged.’
‘Oh, so it’s Big Ian. Still, I’d expect him to have been in touch . . .’
‘It wasn’t Big Ian either, Rick.’
‘Oh my God, who did you send?’
‘Jake Berry.’
‘Jake Berry? As in Jake-from-down-the-Alfington Inn-I’ve-only-been-outside-Exeter-once-and-I’ve-been-helping-my-mate-Rick-a-bit-with-concerts-Berry? And he’s now in New York prepping a major arena tour. With an accent as thick as Devon cream that’s hard enough to understand if you live anywhere in England outside of Devon, never mind the Bronx . . .’
‘That’s the one.’
Great.
By this late stage we had little alternative but to fly anyway. The shows were booked so we decided to get there and try to salvage what we could from the wreckage. To my amazement, when I walked through Arrivals at Kennedy Airport in New York there was Jake Berry, waiting for me.
‘Jake! Where’ve you been? We’ve all been desperately worried about you,’ I said. ‘You didn’t check into the hotel and no one could get hold of you.’
‘Everything’s all under control, Rick. I’ve been staying with a mate,’ replied Jake.
‘A mate? In New York?’ I said, incredulous.
‘Yeah, he’s a taxi driver called Enzo.’ And with that Jake turned to his side and introduced me to his ‘mate’, who spoke with the broadest Bronx accent you’ve ever heard. Between them I don’t think they knew a single word of actual Queen’s English.
‘Hi, Rick,’ said Enzo. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you. This man Jake’s funny.’
‘Enzo’s been great, Rick,’ explained Jake. ‘I got off the plane and Enzo was waiting in the taxi that I got in. I told Enzo where I was going but he didn’t understand a word I was saying. He said he’d never heard an accent like mine. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying back to me, though, so I showed him a map and he said, “You’ve never been here before, have you?” And I said, “No, I’ve only been further than Exeter the once for my friend Rick to do a show with him in London, on ice.” Then Enzo said, “I’ll show you around.’’’
‘Show you around?’ I asked, slightly alarmed.
‘Yeah. First he took me to meet his wife, she’s lovely, this real nice American-Italian, and she says “Why doesn’t he stay with us?” so that’s what I’ve been doing. He insisted that I didn’t need to spend money staying at a hotel so I’ve been stopping over at his house . . .’
I could hardly believe my ears. I suspected my tour was already in total disarray and I’d probably never work in America again, but at least Jake was safe.
‘. . . Anyway, Rick, Enzo has been driving me round while I’ve done all the recce. I have promised him tickets for Madison Square Garden, I hope that’s okay, Rick. It’s all sorted, everything is exactly as the itinerary planned, I’ve had to adjust a few timings to make it more organised in a couple of places, but it’s all done.’
I was completely stunned. And Jake was right. It turned out to be one of the most meticulously planned tours I’ve ever been on. Jake was a master at work. In America they loved him: the Devon accent made him stand out and his natural eye for detail meant he was a huge hit with everyone.
Jake worked with me for about four years and he tirelessly focused on learning everything there was to know.
Then he moved on and worked for AC/DC.
Then he got promoted and became an assistant tour manager. Very early on he was working with people like Michael Tait who is one of the world’s foremost lighting designers, and Jake gained first-hand experience with innovative American sound systems and stadium shows.
Before long there wasn’t anything he didn’t know about touring.
Nowadays he still speaks with a strong Devon accent, which I’m sure is still cause for amusement . . .
. . . given that he is the very highly respected tour manager for the Rolling Stones.
I do love doing charity performances, but you can’t do every one that comes your way or else you’d go broke very quickly. The problem is, no matter how many you do there are always yet more worthy causes that need help. It’s quite frustrating at times, but there are of course only so many you can humanly fit in. Like most of the people I know in the entertainment business, I get about fifty requests a month to help out in some way. And the problem is they are always great causes. What most of us have are charities which we support on a regular basis and try and fit in one-off appearances for some of the others that come our way. Some of the really big stars get thousands of requests per year. You feel so bad saying no but the problem is that none of us have got infinite amounts of time and in order to cram something else in it would mean taking away your support from one of the other causes you already champion. I don’t like being the patron of something unless I can actually take part in it. I don’t see the point of having your name linked with a cause if you’re not going to be properly involved. So it really is very difficult.
However, on occasion something crops up that you just happen to be able to slot in easily. Maybe there’s a surprise evening off on tour or a similar break. One such request came into my office during the late 1980s while I was on tour with my son Adam. It was to raise money for a charity near St Ives in Cornwall and they had asked if I’d go down and do a concert. It just so happened that the tour with Adam was very modest and manageable, only a four-piece band and four crew, so I looked at the schedule – we had a day off that we’d lose but that was no bother – looked at the extra driving and so on and thought, Yes, we can do this.
The tiny theatre where the show was booked was run by a group of local people who seemed to have something to do with the church too. On arrival we were met by this very nice but completely mad woman. That’s the kindest way I can put it. Very nice but very mad. She was in her fifties and dressed like a real hippie, with a flowing dress, kaftan coat, twenty-seven silk scarves and floated around like a fairy. As were all the people she was involved with. In the 1960s a lot of hippies had settled in the south-west and I guess some of these community-minded groups were still riddled with original hippies. It was like Woodstock all over again. I was quite relaxed but Adam was completely freaked out by them straight away.
This lady offered to take us to the theatre to look over the place, and as she opened the stage door we were met by the most overpowering smell of rotting vegetables. It was really violently pungent, eye-wateringly so. It was like being hit by a tidal wave of rancid cabbage. I was convinced that someone had died in there.
‘What is that smell?’ I gasped.
‘Supper,’ she replied. ‘It’s the cabbage curry,’ she explained. ‘As part of the ticket price, the audience will get a bowl of cabbage curry before the show starts. It’s being made under the stage and the audience will be each given a bowl on their arrival.’
Now this venue was very small and certainly didn’t have any air-conditioning, so the prospect of 250 people filling their bellies with cabbage curry before we walked on stage was not a particularly enticing one, even for a tour-hardened flatulent rock ’n’ roller like myself. For Adam, all green round the gills and in his late teens, this was rapidly turning into his worst living nightmare.
‘I want to go home, Dad.’
‘Adam, don’t worry, it will be all right . . .’ I reassured him.
‘Yes, but Dad – cabbage curry? And they are really weird people, I’m close to shitting myself.’
‘Well, for God’s sake don’t eat the cabbage curry then or you really will shit yourself,’ I told him. ‘But try not to worry, we’re here now, let’s just keep our fingers crossed.’
So they let the audience in and fed them the 250 bowls of cabbage curry while we readied ourselves to go on stage.
Let me tell you that whatever smell you might imagine 250 people could make after simultaneously eating cabbage curry and then farting in a confined space is infinitely less offensive than the reality of what our noses were actually subjected to when we walked out on stage. It stank. It was horrendous. There was a near-invisible green mist that just hung in the air and the stench of the actual cabbage curry mixed with the effects emitted from the various rectums was quite literally suffocating. It was a good job we weren’t reading sheet music because our eyes were streaming within minutes. It was unbelievable. Lee Pomeroy would have been proud (remember Costa Rica?).
We rattled through the concert pretty quickly, for obvious reasons, and right after the last note pretty much ran outside gasping for fresh air. One of the guys – Alan Thompson, the bass player – had actually eaten some of this cabbage curry. We didn’t see him for another twenty-four hours.
After a few minutes, the mad hippie woman came outside and said how much everyone had enjoyed the show and thanked us very warmly. She then invited us to a celebration party in the church hall that was starting in ten minutes. By now Adam was like a rabbit caught in headlights: he was both genuinely terrified and actually quite mesmerised by the events of the evening. We got to the party and there were even more ageing hippies there, more original flower-power people.
The band and crew came and spoke to me as one.
‘We’d like to skip the party please Rick, go back to the hotel, get rat-arsed, sleep for a few hours and leave at the crack of dawn. This place is barking.’
‘I’m afraid we’re all invited, chaps, so you’ll all have to stay,’ I responded.
It was not the most popular of statements and Adam was now sticking to me like a limpet when the mad fairy woman came over to me and said, ‘We’ve got a present for you, as a small gesture of thanks for playing the concert.’ I tried to say there was no need, dreading what they were going to give me, but she insisted.
I hope it’s not a bloody bowl of cabbage curry, I thought.
‘We have a poetry society, you see, Rick. And we even have our own poet laureate – he’s called Rupert.’
‘Right . . .’ I didn’t like where this was heading . . .
‘And as a gift of thanks, Rupert is going to present you with one of his poems.’
Feeling relieved that I wasn’t going to have to eat some of that foul-smelling curry, I said, ‘That’s very generous, thank you.’
She gestured towards the corner of the church hall, numerous silk scarves flailing all around her, and a man started walking towards us. I say ‘man’ – he was actually the closest thing to Merlin the Magician that I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. He was straight out of a science-fiction novel, with a long wispy grey beard, a black cloak and a pointed hat.
‘Maybe it is time to go,’ I said.
Rupert came over and a few adoring elves and pixies followed him, gazing at him like some kind of super-celebrity. Then the mad hippy woman said, ‘This is a rare honour Rick, Rupert has never before given one of his poems away.’
I have to admit to being quite touched with this gesture as I am extremely fond of poetry and I was beginning to realise that what was about to happen was really something quite special.
And it was.
‘Oh, that’s really so very kind. Thank you so much.’
Rupert moved closer.
The elves, pixies and fairies all moved in closer with him.
I put my hand out, expecting him to give me the poem on some paper or beautiful scroll.
The mad fairy queen grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear. ‘Rick, Rupert never actually writes down any of his poems. They are all works of art that he keeps in his head. They are only ever spoken, never read.’
I nodded knowingly. Adam and the rest of the band and crew starting edging toward the door.
I gestured for them to come back. They did so begrudgingly. Adam simply said. ‘I want to go home, Dad.’
‘It’s okay,’ I reassured him. ‘Rupert is doing me the great honour of giving me one of his poems, not written down, but verbally.’
‘I really do want to go home, Dad.’
‘Shhh.’
The Fairy Queen continued. ‘Rupert will now recite the poem and once he has spoken the words he will never utter the poem again: it will be a gift to you. It will pass from his mind to your mind.’
‘Dad . . .’
‘Not now, Adam.’
‘How lovely,’ I said. ‘And what is the poem called?’
‘‘‘The Discontented Donkey”,’ replied Rupert, poker-faced.
I was already thinking, How the hell am I going to remember this poem if they ask me to recite it back? Then Rupert stepped forward and the elves and pixies made a circle around him. I was ushered into the circle to face Rupert. There was a pregnant pause whilst Rupert obviously was composing himself and then he looked at me and said, ‘“The Discontented Donkey”, by Rupert.’
I stood expectantly waiting for a beautiful worded poem about a discontented donkey to come from his lips. I was mentally trying to work out how I would remember it, but I needn’t have worried. It wasn’t a lot to remember as he simply pulled his head back, brayed like a donkey and then walked away.
‘Let’s now go and discuss Rupert’s gift to Rick everybody,’ said the mad happy hippie woman. She headed off into a corner with a crowd of weirdos trailing her.
‘Dad, I want . . .’
‘So do I, son. Come on, let’s get out of here!’
But before we could get out I was accosted by a very smartly dressed man in a pinstriped suit. He certainly didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the Happy Hippy brigade and so when he stopped to speak to me, I was not at all concerned.
Normality at last.
He spoke with a strong London accent and we got chatting.
‘You’re not from round these parts, are you?’ I guessed.
‘No, no, I’m a Londoner born and bred. I used to work in the City and that was obviously very stressful. I was in banking. Still am, in fact. I’m not married, I lived for my job, but it started to get on top of me, I worked ridiculous hours and I began to get depressed and had a sort of breakdown and so I came down here to sort myself out.’
‘Ah, yes, to “get your shit together”. People do that in my line of business too.’ I said with a nod of the head.
‘Doesn’t matter. Anyway, from meeting you now, this break away from City life certainly seems to have done the trick.’
‘Exactly. More people should do it. I felt tremendous stress but coming down here helped me get my mind and body back to normality so I could return to work refreshed and raring to go. It certainly worked for me – in fact, next month I’m going back to London and I hope to take up a position similar to that which I left.’
‘Well, that’s marvellous. You should be very proud of yourself. And if you don’t mind my asking, exactly how long have you been down here?’