Agent Starling's ‘Northern Lights Trilogy’ - a blast of seasonal cheer

One of the most innovative bands to appear in the past year has been Agent Starling, who have wasted no time in following up their debut album European Howl with a gorgeous seasonal EP offering - Northern Lights Trilogy.  

Agent Starling is an unusual duo, a pairing of hurdy-gurdy player Quentin Budworth with Louise Duffy-Howard (aka Lou Loudhailer.) Back in the 1980s, the latter was the bassist with one of my favourite indie bands, Red Guitars. When lockdown restrictions scuppered their usual musical projects, the two decided to create Agent Starling and record European Howl, a complex, immersive and at times disorienting listening experience. Its opening track ‘Helicopter Arms’ set the tone – pulsating, intriguing, the distinctive droning, buzzing but melodic sound of the hurdy-gurdy and whispered, spoken-word vocals (à la Traffic’s ‘Hole in My Shoe’.)

There were some traditional tunes on the album too – an agreeably ambient version of the Elizabethan carol ‘Drive the Cold Winter Away’ and a suitably inebriated-sounding ‘The Parting Glass’. By contrast, ‘Minor Surgery’ was a cyber-Morricone soundtrack with whipcrack noises and a splendid rumbling bassline. Throughout, the contributions of guest violinist/cellist Dexter Duffy-Howard added a lot to the overall texture.

So, I was delighted to hear that Agent Starling had decided to follow on from this engaging and original debut with the Northern Lights Trilogy EP or, as Lou describes it, “three new festive singles that add a bountiful sprinkling of bells, twinkles and festive spirit to our catchy hurdy-gurdy tunes, hypnotic drones, live bass grooves & strings.”

The three festive singles in question are ‘The Cordwainer’s Lament’, ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘Stockport Polka’. ‘The Cordwainer’s Lament’ sounds like an atmospheric musical walk down a snowy country lane. ‘Northern Lights’ is not – in case you were wondering - the 1978 hit by prog-rock band Renaissance but a totally different song, which mixes spoken-word with musical quotes from Prokofiev’s ‘Troika’ (if it was good enough for Greg Lake to borrow, it’s good enough for Agent Starling.) It’s a joyful, wintry offering. Amid a soundscape of sleigh bells and church bells, Lou sings “I know you yearn for calm, long for night, but my heart dances with the Northern Lights.” Finally, we have the exuberant ‘Stockport Polka’ (familiar as the tune that Jona Lewie used for his unlikely 1980 Christmas hit, ‘Stop the Cavalry’) but here performed with plenty of cymbals and a warbling sound on the hurdy-gurdy that sounds strangely like steel drums.

It’s all terrific fun and, for me, it’s the 2021 equivalent of the Cocteau Twins’ glorious 1993 Christmas EP Snow. If you’re short of Christmas cheer this year, you could do worse than to go to Bandcamp and get hold of the Northern Lights Trilogy.

But that’s not all! I’m reliably informed that Agent Starling are poised to release a second album in 2022. And, as if these weren't enough glad tidings, Red Guitars have reformed and, if the fates allow, will be touring in 2022. 

Nursing literary ambitions

My short story Weekend On Call has just been published. I’m delighted for two reasons. First, this is the second of my short stories to be published this year – my story Eastgate Clock was published in the March issue of Firewords magazine. Second, Weekend On Call was shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize last year but didn’t make it through to the final selection. However, I then discovered it had been longlisted for the 2021 Bournemouth Writing Prize and was subsequently selected to be included in The Waves of Change, an anthology of short stories and poetry published by Fresher Publishing. I’m looking forward to reading all the other contributions in the collection.

Weekend On Call is an entirely fictional account of a weekend in the life of a mental health nurse manager. The combination of an alcohol problem, work-related stress and difficulties in his marriage lead to a crisis, as he struggles with his own mental health while being expected to oversee the management of mental health services over the weekend period. In the story, the on-call manager recalls something he was told back when he first trained as a mental health nurse:

           Back inside the house, you put the bleep and the on-call mobile on the coffee table and sit in an armchair, in the dark. You notice you can’t stop crying. When you did your nurse training all those years ago, you remember someone saying that to work in mental health you had to be ‘okay in yourself’. What did that mean? That you had to have good mental health in your own right? That you had to have a stable home life, a secure relationship, a happy marriage?

The Waves of Change is a remarkably apt title from my point of view. By a strange quirk the book's publication coincides with my decision not to renew my registration as a mental health nurse. I retired from the NHS in 2016 (but maintained my professional registration as I then began a second career as a senior lecturer in mental health nursing.) When my late wife became terminally ill I decided to retire from nurse education, ultimately becoming her full-time carer. Waves of Change indeed – retirement followed by widowerhood. But it is only now, as my professional registration comes up for renewal, that I am finally, officially un-becoming a registered nurse. I began my nurse training in 1983 so there hasn’t been a time in the past 38 years when I haven’t considered myself involved in mental health nursing. 

Relinquishing my nurse registration could be seen as another major life event and another loss. In one way I do feel like I’m surrendering a major part of who I am, but I’m considering it an opportunity to become something else. Now, having retired twice, I feel it’s time to let go of nursing and to focus more on my other lifelong interests – writing and music. That’s why it’s so good to have some of my fiction published this year. And so I begin my third career – this time as a full-time writer and musician. It sounds, somehow, so much more interesting than ‘retired mental health nurse’.   

The Waves of Change is published by Fresher Publishing and is available from all good bookstores.

This blog post is published simultaneously on my other blog: Tony Gillam on Creativity, Wellbeing and Mental Health 

From wistful synth-pop to masterful folk – Celebrating Worcester's Huntingdon Hall

One of my favourite live music venues is Worcester's Huntingdon Hall - a former 18th century Methodist chapel which continues to play host to an eclectic array of artists. Over the years, I’ve seen guitar wizards like Gordon Giltrap and Eduardo Nuebla, singer-songwriter Dean Friedman and prog-folk legends like Focus, The Strawbs, Magna Carta and Caravan. (Many of these shows are memorialised here on this very blog. Just use the ‘search’ button to revisit those.)

Now that live shows are getting going again I’ve been tempted back twice to Huntingdon Hall in the last two months. In October I saw – for the second time – eighties synth-pop balladeers China Crisis. I’d last seen them here almost exactly two years previously, and that earlier gig is poignantly memorable for being the last live concert that I ever went to with my late wife. We had been pleasantly surprised both by the charming familiarity and warmth of the music and the hilarious banter of singer Gary Daly, whose wit is more entertaining than many a stand-up comedian. Songs like Christian, Wishful Thinking and Black Man Ray have an enduring wistfulness.

When I saw China Crisis again last month the music was every bit as uplifting and the repartee every bit as funny. When some audience members began to call out to him between songs, Gary responded: ‘Ah, audience interaction! We like that because, to be honest, for a minute I thought you were all f***ing dead.’

Fewer laughs were to be had at last week’s Martin Simpson gig. I’d last seen Martin Simpson at Huntingdon Hall in 2010. This distinctive English folk singer, guitarist and songwriter is now 68 years old but he continues to dazzle with his mellifluent guitar playing and unaffecting singing. There were one or two self-deprecating jokes but this is an artist who takes his art seriously and whose audience respect him for that. A subtle, occasional use of delay on the vocals was supplied by the sound engineer rather than pedals, causing a few in the audience to question their sanity. Highlights included a quasi-bluegrass version of Dylan’s Buckets of Rain and a moving rendition of Donal Óg (Young Donald) as well as Martin’s always touching tribute to his dad, Never Any Good.

From wistful synth-pop to masterful folk, we’re very blessed to have venues like Huntingdon Hall.

The Surprise and Delight of Music

The coffee house chain Starbucks used to have a set of idiosyncratic guiding principles which they felt set them apart from competitors. A bestselling book - The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary – extolled the virtues of these 'people-driven philosophies.' These included ideas like ‘everything matters’ and ‘leave your mark’, but the one that resonated most with me was something they called ‘surprise and delight’.

'Surprise and delight' is a marketing strategy that aims to attract and nurture customers and increase customer loyalty and engagement by providing unexpected rewards.  

I saw one example of this from the original source, as it were, in a Starbucks in Manhattan. It was a cold and wet February day and we had time to kill – we’d checked out of our hotel but it was too early to head back to the airport so we gratefully huddled in a corner of the café with our luggage and our two rather grumpy teenage children. I ordered coffee and paninis and was surprised – and, yes, I suppose, delighted – when the barista told me they had a selection of new cakes and pastries and asked if we’d like some free samples. She also presented us with complimentary cake-forks to keep as souvenirs. Word must have got around quickly as a steady stream of homeless people began to arrive, thankful for the generous offerings of free cake. It was heartening to see that the staff made the homeless customers just as welcome as the swanky businessmen who, with mobile phones and laptops, used the cafe as a remote office, answering emails, writing reports, even holding meetings with clients – all for the price of a cup of coffee. More than the free souvenir cake-forks, the staff’s attitude towards the less fortunate members of society surprised and delighted me.

Before you begin to suspect me of working for Starbucks, I should say, of course, that other coffee shops are available, absolutely. In fact, I prefer the coffee made by some of their competitors. But this isn’t really about coffee shops. Much as I like coffee and cake, my point is about the things in life that surprise and delight us and, for me, nothing does this more than music – shapeshifting, time-travelling music. Let me explain...

As a teenager I discovered the music of Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. I had a budget-priced album of his which included a haunting track called ‘Donna, Donna’. When I started playing guitar myself this was one of the first songs I learnt. It's originally a Yiddish folk song about a calf being led to slaughter – an unlikely choice for Donovan to release as a single in 1965, (though Joan Baez had also released a version five years earlier.) I probably haven't heard the song for thirty years or more but, on a recent trip to Edinburgh, I happened upon a great little pub called The Captain’s Bar. Musicians were sitting outside at tables, taking turns to play and, though I had no instrument with me, I was welcomed and invited to join them. Various songs and tunes were performed and then one of them surprised and delighted me by singing ‘Donna, Donna’. I was instantly transported back to the thirteen-year-old me, getting to grips with that tricky A minor chord.

Cut to 1981. I'm living in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, and browsing in a record shop. The sales assistant puts on an album and the music is – well, yes, surprising and delightful. I ask what the record is and it turns out it's the latest release by Breton folk-rock band Tri Yann, An heol a zo glaz. One track in particular, ‘Si mort a mors’, is so striking I immediately buy the album. I later learn the song is based on a poem written on the death of Duchess Anne of Brittany in 1514. I assume the tune is a traditional Breton one. More of this later.

Seventeen years after discovering the music of Tri Yann I made a nostalgic return trip to Brittany, now with wife and children in tow. We arrived in the pretty town of Dol-de-Bretagne on market day, just as the traders were setting up. One of them sold records and was playing a song which wafted across the square towards us. It was a heart-stopping moment, the music a fusion of Breton folk and hip-hop beats, the verses a rap in French and the chorus a stirring, vaguely familiar refrain. You guessed it – it surprised and delighted us so that when, later that week, we heard it playing as background music in a supermarket, I just had to ask someone what the record was so I could buy it. I accosted a teenager who helpfully told me it was a band called Manau. Heading for the CD section I discovered the song that was following us around was ‘La Tribu de Dana’ and had just topped the French charts. The irresistible and vaguely familiar chorus was a sampling of Breton harpist Alan Stivell’s 1970s folk-rock hit ‘Tri Martolod’.

One final example: I was recently listening to Mark Radcliffe's BBC Radio 2 Folk Show when his guests were Northern Irish trio, TRÚ. They selected a track by Skara Brae called ‘An Cailín Rua’. I instantly recognised the tune as ‘Si mort a mors’. A revelation. So, it seems, it's not a Breton song about Duchess Anne after all but, as was explained on the show, a love song about a red-haired girl, from the Donegal area! Well, okay, it’s both, since the tune is used to accompany two quite different lyrics.

Of course, it’s quite possible that Tri Yann borrowed the Donegal tune from Skara Brae, just as Donovan might have borrowed ‘Donna, Donna’ from Joan Baez, and Manau borrowed a chorus from Alan Stivell. But it all goes to show – never mind coffee and cakes; it’s music, with its unique ability to transform itself and transport us back and forth in time, that’s most likely to surprise and delight us.

Brickfields, monkeys and murder - three folk albums reviewed

It was back in 2018 at the Beardy Folk Festival when I first saw Granny’s Attic - three young men who manage to create the authentic sound of traditional English folk music. Quite how three such young men could make such old music – and yet make it sound new and fresh – was a mystery to me.  The trio – Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne (melodeon, anglo concertina), guitarist George Sansome and Lewis Wood (violin) – have been impressing audiences across Europe since 2009 and have released two previous CDs before this month’s new release The Brickfields.

Produced with a micro-grant from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, The Brickfields was recorded live in just three days in April 2021. It’s a fine example of a recent new phenomenon – the post-lockdown album. Having spent most of 2020 scattered in various separate corners of the UK the band couldn’t wait to get together and play again, and that pent-up energy – and the joy of reunion – comes across in the nine superbly-played instrumentals that make up The Brickfields.

If you should meet an alien from the Planet Zog and they ask you what quintessentially English folk music sounds like just point them in the direction of Granny’s Attic.

Another band who are rapidly becoming festival favourites are Southampton-based quartet Monkey See, Monkey Do. Their debut album The Night Out may have been a little overlooked in the chaos of last year. This is music firmly rooted in the English and Irish folk traditions featuring guitar, fiddle and bodhrán with the unusual addition of clarinet. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of seeing the band live but, judging by the cover art and the choice of material, Monkey See Monkey Do seem a lively, fun-loving bunch, with a suitably salty repertoire, from the tale of a wicked pirate called 'Alexander the Great' to 'The Drunken Sailor' (yes, really, that famous drunken sailor who poses such a quandary to his crew mates, ear-ly in the morning.) 

The clarinet blends well with the more conventional instrumentation, particularly on tracks like 'The Night Out and the Hangover' and 'Superfly' (which is apparently unconnected with Curtis Mayfield's funk-soul hit of the same title.)

Monkey See Monkey Do demonstrate how well they play together as a unit on the reels that make up 'The A & E Tunes' and in their full-bodied rendition of 'Farewell to Erin'. With only eight tracks The Night Out is a fast-moving but thoroughly enjoyable selection of songs and dance tunes.

For a more introspective – and altogether stranger take on folk music – you might want to try David A. Jaycock. David has previously collaborated with Marry Waterson and James Yorkston. His album Murder, and the Birds is a dark, eccentric exploration of British traditional folk, inspired by a Victorian anthology called Ballads and Songs of Lancashire. 'Lord Townley's Ghost', 'Pendle Hill' and 'The Murderous Huntsman' are given the Jaycock treatment: detuned acoustic guitar accompaniment and occasional eerie touches of pre-digital synthesisers. 'The Murderous Huntsman' epitomises the sound - a dreamy gem of a track, reworked so as to no longer celebrate the hunter's life so much as his death, leaving the animals and birds free from fear.

Half the tracks originate from Lancashire, half from other regions. Jaycock's version of 'John Barleycorn' is musically rather uneventful and thus is an odd choice as an opening track. But things get more adventurous and more atmospheric as the album progresses.

Jaycock's melodic sense is very Beatlesque. Everywhere there are shades of John Lennon songs and the double-tracked vocals only add to the Lennon effect.

Murder, and the Birds is a quirky, unsettling reimagining of traditional English folk.

The Brickfields by Granny’s Attic is out now on Grimdon Records. Monkey See, Monkey Do’s The Night Out was self-released. Murder, and the Birds by David A. Jaycock was released by the remarkable Triassic Tusk Records - a small label based in the East Neuk of Fife.

Prose dissolving into poetry - 'Dark Neighbourhood' by Vanessa Onwuemezi reviewed

Dark Neighbourhood is a debut in two senses – this is both Vanessa Onwuemezi’s first book of short stories and (I think I’m right in saying) Fitzcarraldo Editions’ first foray into short story collections (alongside their novels, novellas and essays.)

These seven stories make for an unsettling read. I read the opening titular story in August, just as the news was full of the catastrophe at Basra airport, with countless Afghans trying to flee the Taliban. Real world events gave an added sense of eerie desperation to the scene conjured up in Dark Neighbourhood, in which people seem to be queuing at the gate to another world after society has collapsed.

Onwuemezi is experimental in her prose style, the paragraphs of prose often dissolve into lines of free poetry and, in the opening story, the collapse of society is mirrored by a fragmentation – a collapse – of language and meaning. Punctuation is inserted as words – “enough of that (full stop)” – “washed of sweat and blood (comma)” and the author leaves extra spaces between words mid-sentence.

Whether you find these techniques to be effective and arresting or a self-conscious writerly affectation is a matter of taste. At times, I found this formal disruption a distraction from the narrative (in stories where the narrative is often already quite nebulous.) It also somehow made me care less about the characters, perhaps because it made me more aware of the writer behind them. Is it artful, or too clever by half? At the end of Heartbreak at Super 8 there is a final paragraph of prose where it would seem the confused and desperate protagonist has shot himself. His fragmented first-person, present-tense account is followed by a few lines of free verse in his voice. Onwuemezi’s insertion of lines of poetry into the prose reminded me of the way Western film director Sam Peckinpah used slow-motion in the more violent scenes of his films to create a heightened, stylised effect.

There is little lightness or humour in these stories although I did laugh at this rather childlike exchange between characters, which could almost have been some lines from Waiting for Godot:

            “... ‘You’ve not travelled?’

            ‘I have, to some places I remember. To Moscow.’

            ‘Ah Moscow, never been, but I’ve been to Sorrow.’

            ‘A feeling.’

            ‘What?'

            ‘Sorrow is a feeling, not somewhere to go. Perhaps you meant Glasgow?’...”

As one who enjoys the short story form I’m pleased that Fitzcarraldo Editions have, with Dark Neighbourhood, embarked on publishing short story collections. But, too often in reading these stories, I had the impression Onwuemezi would have preferred to have been writing poetry, that she somehow didn’t trust prose fiction enough to create all the effects she wanted to achieve.

Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi is published on 6 October 2021 by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Music in a world turned upside down

- Nettlebone, 100 mile house and Douglas MacGregor reviewed

Distracted by world events and global pandemics we could be forgiven for being too preoccupied over the past couple of two years to notice some fascinating albums that were quietly released into a world gone mad or, as one of the artists reviewed here put it, a world turned upside down. So, as a public service, here’s a little recap of what you might have missed...

Nettlebone’s Revel and Rhyme 

Revel and Rhyme is a serious-minded collection of original ballads in the English folk song tradition. The opening track 'World Turned Upside Down' makes it clear these are songs of dissent, calling for 'No kings, no queens, no lords above, no walls to come between us'. The sentiment of the lyrics remains uncannily topical in these times of post-Brexit Britain and a divided America, struggling to recover from Trump’s presidency.  

The album is the handiwork of brothers Dominic and Justin Forrest. Dominic provides a bedrock of Irish bouzouki, mandolin and guitar and the sound is greatly enriched by the addition of Jon Loomes' hurdy-gurdy, fiddle and viola and Jude Rees' distinctive flourishes of oboe, shawm, crumhorn, recorder and flute (which provide a pleasing early music feel.)

The Forrest brothers know their anti-establishment history: 'A Revel' celebrates Wat Tyler (leader of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381) and the radical priest John Ball; 'Anna Pink' concerns a renowned 18th-century merchant vessel while 'Towton' commemorates a decisive battle in the Wars of the Roses. It's all stirring stuff, but, while inequality and injustice persist, I think Nettlebone could allow themselves to sound even more outraged.

100 mile house’s Love and Leave You (on Fallen Tree Records)

As the title suggests 100 mile house's second album is all about relationships and loss. Love and Leave You is unflinching in its acknowledgment of life's inevitable sadnesses. The eleven songs cover themes including depression, parental alcoholism, difficulties starting a family, the breakdown of sibling relationships, the loss of a child and caring for a partner with dementia.

If all of this sounds rather too melancholic the album is also a celebration of human warmth and resilience. As the lyrics of 'Grateful' observe: 'If it wasn't for our darkness we wouldn't know what we're made of.' The moral of 'Like Each Day' - a beautifully-crafted family saga - is that, whatever life throws at us, we should live each day as if it's our last.

This oddly-named Anglo-Canadian duo (named after a town in British Columbia) are husband and wife Peter Stone and Denise MacKay. Stone's vocal delivery, always understated, is reminiscent of John Gorka and Leonard Cohen. With sympathetic, delicate touches of mandolin and violin, the songs' narratives are all the more emotionally powerful for their matter-of-fact restraint and uncluttered arrangements.

Douglas MacGregor’s Songs of Loss and Healing 

Finally, Songs of Loss and Healing. This is the third solo album by accomplished London-based classical guitarist Douglas MacGregor. A deeply personal project, it explores the connections between music, loss and healing - MacGregor experienced delayed grief, twenty-five years after the death of his mother to cancer when he was only seven.

The album is emotionally challenging - a musical journey through grief - so it's unsurprising that there are few strong melodic themes to hook us in; instead there are scattered, searching motifs and an emphasis on creating a mood evoking the confusion and uncertainty of loss. 'The Pathway' hovers between major and minor, as if battling not to stray into sadness. 'New Beginnings' starts tentatively, as if it dare not hope that grief can be resolved.

One of the most appealing tracks is the waltz 'Song for Lost Childhood', which reminded me of Freddie Phillips' music from 'Trumpton' and 'Camberwick Green' - TV delights of my own lost childhood.

Songs of Loss and Healing is an honest, brave project that celebrates the power of music in grief.  

Douglas also has an excellent website dedicated to exploring the power of music in grief: 
https://www.songsoflossandhealing.com/

Bamboozled in Batlava - 'Batlava Lake' by Adam Mars-Jones reviewed

I first became aware of Fitzcarraldo Editions when, browsing in a bookshop, I came across Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk. Apart from the striking title (taken from the poetry of William Blake) the look of the book set it apart from everything else on the bookshelf. With its text-only blue and white cover, French flaps and title page at the back, the design of the book reminded me of those cream and red bindings of Gallimard’s NRF and l’Arpenteur paperbacks. In other words, it looked like it had been produced by a French publisher. The old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover is only partly true in the book trade because all readers do indeed judge books by their covers. So the idea of both Gallimard and Fitzcarraldo Editions seems to be that the writing should speak for itself and the uniformity of cover design should create a brand loyalty where readers can expect consistently high-quality literary fiction (and essays.)

Fitzcarraldo Editions was created in 2014 by The White Review’s founder Jacques Testard – an editor and publisher who learnt his trade in French publishing houses, (something which helps explain the Fitzcarraldo aesthetic.) Their current catalogue includes some forty fiction titles as well as a similar number of extended essays. One of their latest releases is Adam Mars-Jones’ novella Batlava Lake.  

Batlava Lake recounts the experiences of a recently-divorced civil engineer, Barry Ashton, who spent time in Kosovo in 1999 attached to the Royal Engineer Corps of the British Army. Adam Mars-Jones is no fan of chapter breaks, and so the 97 pages of the novella are made up of a continuous first-person monologue. With no dramatic changes of scene, and no variation in point of view, the reader is at the mercy of Barry as he describes events in Kosovo, his relationship with the military engineers, his marriage and his relationship with his children. I’ve known a few engineers in my time and, through the character of Barry, Mars-Jones does a convincing job of capturing the mindset of many an engineer – the tendency to concrete thinking, a lack of emotional intelligence and an intolerance of people who don’t (or can’t) see the world as a series of logical, reducible systems. 

Barry is, frankly, not just an unreliable narrator but an annoying one, with his clipped, shorthand use of language, partly suggestive of a military way of speaking, partly reflecting his belief that, if he can make himself understood in fewer words, why should he bother to form whole sentences. Paradoxically, far from being economical with language, he is digressive in his account of things. Sometimes he’s unintentionally witty. Describing his arrival at a war-torn hotel in Pristina, he recalls: “I was hoping for curtains, but I would have preferred windows without curtains to what I got. Curtains without windows. Curtains don’t do the same job as windows, it’s a fact.”

Occasionally Barry shows some self-awareness and a self-deprecating humour: “Most of what I’d done in Kosovo was modular, all the bases were modular. My brain was modular! Probably.” He recalls one incident prior to Kosovo when he’d been on a residential training course and the Corps of Engineers had conspired to get him drunk on Caffrey’s the night before an important exam. (The fact that it's Caffrey's is significant and I can attest to the specific kind of hangover that particular Irish ale can induce!) The drinking competition - and the later incident where Barry takes part in a boat-building competition - show his vulnerability. Desperate for respect, and to be one of the lads, he is outwitted by the army engineers – “And I should have known better, I did know better. I absolutely knew better. Made no difference.”

Again, with hindsight, he shows some insight into what lay behind the drinking incident: “I’m not used to people cheering me on, haven’t had a lot of that, and I suppose that was part of what got me bamboozled.” Still, his engineer’s brain can’t stop itself from analysing the process: “I had been concentrating on the wrong end of the process, and I was forgetting that the Engineers, guess what, are always likely to be engineering something. If I had been paying proper attention, I'd have noticed that the competition were getting pints that had been sitting for a minute or two, and I was being handed pints that have been under the tap seconds before (…) It's all to do with the delivery system of Caffrey’s. Not just carbon dioxide. Nitrogen. I'd been drinking those pints while they were still chock full of tiny bubbles (…) Potent as hell. Not good!”

Barry shows a matter-of-fact acceptance of the break-up of his family, (just as he seems largely indifferent to the plight of the few Kosovar Albanians he comes across.) But, if he is not a particularly sympathetic character, in the end Barry seems rather pitiful. Bemused, (or perhaps bamboozled), with his marriage breaking down, not much of a relationship with his kids, a civilian figure-of-fun to his military colleagues, he endlessly, chirpily, goes on about how he likes to keep busy, all the time quietly hoping for a little respect.

A mini-adventure in Scotland - Edinburgh, Oban, the Isle of Skye and the Sound of Mull

After a station called Loch Awe, the next stop is called Falls of Cruachan. And, if Loch Awe sounds like a fictitious name for an awe-inspiring loch, who would ever have imagined there could be a railway station called Falls of Cruachan? It could almost be the title of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel – Weir of Hermiston, Falls of Cruachan... Am I to assume there are waterfalls here? Waterfalls, plural? Just one would be impressive enough. It turns out that the station, at the foot of Ben Cruachan, is a summer-only request stop because it’s mainly used by hikers who want to climb the 1,126 m mountain. I’m not one of these hikers. I’m on a leisurely train journey om the West Highland Railway to Oban. (The West Highland Railway was apparently voted best rail journey in the world by travel magazine Wanderlust and, apart from the poetic station names, the scenery is indeed extraordinary.) We were meant to be starting our journey in Glasgow but a surge in the cases of Covid meant we were switched to Edinburgh. Luckily, I didn’t have to sort out the logistics. The travel company, Rail Discoveries, sorted it all out for me.*

After months of lockdowns and travel restrictions, in June I managed to go to Scotland – a six-day trip taking in Oban, the Isle of Skye and the Sound of Mull. I’d never been on an ‘escorted rail holiday’ before but it seemed like a relatively safe way for a solo traveller to enjoy a mini-adventure without worrying about quarantine or whether the destination was about to turn red, green or amber. 

Instead of starting and ending in Glasgow, my holiday started and ended in Edinburgh. I’d forgotten how much I liked Edinburgh. I’d honeymooned there thirty-five years ago but all my subsequent visits to Scotland have been to Glasgow. To get from Edinburgh to Oban we were first taken by coach to Dumbarton. It was from Dumbarton Castle that the young Mary, Queen of Scots was conveyed to France for safety as a child. Seeing the castle, I couldn’t get the Mike Oldfield song To France out of my head: “Don't you know you're never going to get to France, Mary, Queen of Chance, will they find you?” Probably nothing to do with Mary, Queen of Scots but a very catchy chorus. 

Oban was, I found, a lovely town. A harbour where you could watch the Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) ferries come and go – it seems they were using somewhat larger vessels than they would normally, to allow for social distancing on board. I wandered along the promenade and through the town and found an excellent vegetarian eatery, The Little Potting Shed Café. 

Using Oban as our base for three nights, we took another scenic and serpentine coach trip to Fort William where we boarded the Jacobite steam train to Mallaig, across a remarkable landscape of lochs, rivers and mountains, and travelling over the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct. 

From Mallaig, we sailed on a CalMac ferry to Armadale on the Isle of Skye. I would have loved to have seen much more of Skye but time constraints meant we were limited to a visit to Armadale Castle and gardens – the “spiritual home of Clan Donald,” we were assured. Given a choice, I’d have preferred to visit The Isle of Skye Brewery in Uig as the good people who work there have kept me supplied with excellent beer through successive lockdowns, (when the pub had to come to me.) Sadly, there was no time for me to go and thank them in person. Instead, we sailed back to Mallaig and took another coach trip back to Oban, in order to be able to get a good view of the Glenfinnan Viaduct (something that’s not always easy when you’re travelling over it.)   

A quiet morning in Oban (and another trip to The Little Potting Shed Café) and then we sailed across the Sound of Mull. I went up on deck and enjoyed the dramatic seascape, including the island of Lismore and Duart Castle. Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency on board which delayed the sailing, time didn’t allow for us to disembark on the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides so I can say I’ve travelled to Mull without actually setting foot on it!

After our third night in Oban, we took the train back to Dumbarton (cue Mike Oldfield again) and then the coach back to Edinburgh. The weather in Edinburgh was fine and warm. I spent some time browsing in Blackwell’s marvellous bookshop in South Bridge and in Edinburgh Arts & Picture Framers in Nicolson Street, where I bought some cards by the artist John Lowrie Morrison, aka ‘Jolomo’. Jolomo is known for painting vivid, expressionist landscapes of the Scottish west coast. Edinburgh Arts & Picture Framers, by the way, is just round the corner from the pub I’d discovered – at the start of my holiday – the Captain’s Bar in South College Street, where folk musicians were playing at tables in the street. But, on my last evening in Edinburgh, instead of returning to the splendid Captain’s Bar, I wandered round the city and had a quiet pint outside the Malt Shovel in Cockburn Street.

The next morning, I took the direct train from Waverley Station, through Dunbar, Newcastle, Durham and York, and on to Birmingham and home, making a mental note to myself that it would be easy enough (and fun) to have a weekend break in Edinburgh some time. And perhaps, one day, I’d return to Oban and even get to visit my brewing friends on the Isle of Skye.  

*The trip described was entirely self-funded and no sponsorship has been received by the author. 

All text and images © Tony Gillam, 2021

Vinyl-hunting in Tewkesbury

Ever since it opened in July 2020, I've been meaning to visit Tewkesbury's new independent record shop, To Have and To Hold Records. Finally, as pandemic restrictions were gradually relaxed, I was able to head down the M5 to Tewkesbury on the first Sunday in May. 

I know Tewkesbury very well and my late wife Sue and I used to visit this lovely historic market town regularly. For those who don't know it, Tewkesbury stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon in Gloucestershire and is made up of medieval streets, Tudor buildings and a magnificent Norman Abbey. The Royal Hop Pole Hotel (in recent times a Weatherspoon's pub) is mentioned in Dicken's The Pickwick Papers and The Battle of Tewkesbury, which took place in 1471, was one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses. The town normally hosts a splendid medieval festival which I've featured previously on this blog. 

After years without a decent record player, I've just treated myself to a new stereo that can play vinyl and CDs (and can even play Spotify and iTunes via Bluetooth.) So, I felt even more vindicated in visiting a record shop and maybe making a few new additions to my collection of hundreds of old LPs and singles. 

I found To Have and To Hold Records easily enough. It occupies a Grade 2 listed building - a former butcher's shop - at Number 6, Church Street. I was greeted by the owner Mel and we chatted about how long I'd waited to come and explore his shop. I think I confused him a bit because, when he asked me what music I was into, I mentioned singer-songwriters from the 1970s and then went ahead and bought two albums - one by Cocteau Twins and one featuring electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire (neither of which could be described as being in a singer-songwriter genre or from the 1970s.)

I've loved Cocteau Twins since I first heard their Sugar Hiccup in 1983 (a single from their second album Head over Heels.) Surprisingly, though, I had only ever owned one of their LPs on vinyl, their 1984 album Treasure (although I've got a 'Best of' on CD.) With its gorgeous cover, I couldn't resist buying Four-Calendar Café - their seventh album. It sounds great on my new stereo. 

The other record I bought is a bit of a curiosity, to say the least. The Synth And Electronic Recording Exchanges is essentially a tribute to Delia Derbyshire pioneer (composer and arranger with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, who is probably best remembered for her ground-breaking electronic arrangement of the Doctor Who theme. It turns out Martin Hannett - record producer famed for his work with Joy Division, The Stone Roses and many other famous names of the late 1980s - was a great admirer of Derbyshire's work. In the 1970s the young Hannett corresponded with Derbyshire, and they sent each other tapes of their electronic experiments with a view to one day releasing them. Both Derbyshire and Hannett died before agreeing on a release but it was issued posthumously in 2019. 

The beauty of a good record shop (like a good bookshop) is you'll find things you didn't know you were looking for. My early May trip back to Tewkesbury reminded me of a couple of things: Tewkesbury is one of the finest historic market towns in England and, while streamed music is all very well, you can't beat visiting a good record shop or the feeling of having and holding some new records. 

A fiery airing for 'Eastgate Clock'

Encouraged by being shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize last year, I've been sending a few of my stories off to various publications recently. One of these stories is set in the historic English city of Chester. It involves a photographer who revisits the city forty years after a key event in his life that centred on one of Chester’s famous landmarks. I’m delighted to report that the story - Eastgate Clock - has just been published in the latest issue of  Firewords Magazine.

Firewords is a beautifully-designed publication, launched in 2014 and edited by Glasgow-based creatives Jen Scott and Dan Burgess. Jen and Dan describe Firewords as "the magazine of fiery fiction and poetry brought to life with visual flair.” My own story is accompanied by original artwork by an Italian illustrator, Anna Mancini. Anna has skilfully managed to combine the key elements of Eastgate Clock into an ingenious illustration. I’m very proud to have my short story appear alongside so much innovative writing and artwork in this enchanting and thought-provoking magazine.  

You can find out more about Firewords Magazine here and more about the Bridport Prize here. 

It’s doom alone that counts - Thomas Hardy's 'Wessex Tales'

In his song Shelter from the Storm Bob Dylan sings: “nothing really matters much; it’s doom alone that counts…” While it’s probably a fool’s errand to try to interpret any of Dylan’s lyrics I’ve always taken this line to mean that it doesn’t really make much difference what hopes we have or what actions or choices we make as everything is determined by fate or destiny. Like Dylan – and Jacques in Diderot’s novel – you could say I’m a fatalist. Not so much a case of “I’m all right, Jack” as “I’m all fatalistic, Jacques.” In literature, the master of fatalism is Thomas Hardy. Hardy’s characters, try as they might, cannot beat fate. This might seem a depressing scenario, but there’s something deeply satisfying – even reassuring – about the way the dominant force in any Hardy story is fate itself.

Over the last few months I’ve been reading Hardy’s first collection of short stories, Wessex Tales. To the modern-day fan of short stories it’s a curious collection for several reasons. These are tales rather than short stories in the contemporary sense. Hardy doesn’t deal in ‘slices of life’ like so many of today’s short story writers. Wessex Tales contains no open-ended glimpses of characters' lives, no apparently arbitrary moments. Instead, Hardy always tells a good yarn – something happens in the story that makes it worth the telling. The events may be “strange, lively or commonplace”, (as Hardy put it in the collection’s subtitle.) Thus, he mixes the domestic with the supernatural and humour with tragedy. Hardy himself sometimes referred to his tales as “minor novels” and some of them cover several years of their characters’ lives and could easily have been developed into full-length novels. (Likewise, some of his novels had few characters and simple plots and could therefore have been compressed into short-story length.) In Hardy’s day there was a thriving market for self-contained short stories (periodicals like The Cornhill Magazine and Blackwood’s Magazine) and, at the same time, novels tended to be first published in serialised form, so there was perhaps more fluidity between short- and long-form fiction.   

The stories in Wessex Tales contain many passages of fine, descriptive writing that speak volumes about the psychology of the characters and their social situation, as in this extract from The Melancholy Hussar:

Before that day scarcely a soul had been seen near her father's house for weeks. When a noise like the brushing skirt of a visitor was heard on the doorstep, it proved to be a scudding leaf; when a carriage seemed to be nearing the door, it was her father grinding his sickle on the stone in the garden for his favourite relaxation of trimming the box-tree borders to the plots. A sound like luggage thrown down from the coach was a gun far away at sea; and what looked like a tall man by the gate at dusk was a yew bush cut into a quaint and attenuated shape. There is no such solitude in country places now as there was in those old days.   

The yearning for a visitor (and perhaps a certain visitor in particular) is captured by the multi-sensory hyper-vigilance of mistaking the meaning of various sights and sounds while the last sentence – “there is no such solitude in country places now” – underlines part of Hardy’s mission, in writing these stories, to preserve “a fairly true record of a vanishing life.”

Small domestic details (of the ‘commonplace’) are often used by Hardy in acutely observed and telling descriptions to symbolise psychological and social rupture. In the story Fellow-Townsmen we have this evocation of the family home of Downe, whose wife has recently died by drowning:

The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in places which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should have been in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, unrenovated air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower.

The use of “maimed” to describe the house is unexpected but perfect, suggesting the family home itself has suffered a violent and life-threatening trauma.

There is so much to enjoy and admire in Hardy’s short stories and reading Wessex Tales has whetted my appetite to revisit the novels, and also to read Claire Tomalin’s acclaimed biography of this great writer. 

And, by the way, just to return to Shelter from the Storm for a moment, is that a futile horn or a flugelhorn that the one-eyed undertaker blows?