Random Moments by Phil Ryan

The Foreword

Our lives are scattered with significant random moments. It's as if just for a period, time almost seems to stop and in that unique space we feel total all encompassing joy, elation, heartbreak or misery or a mixture of them all. Often we are only truly aware of them after the event; their enormity lost on us at that precise point. Sometimes that's when we feel their true impact. And after a while, like links in a chain these random moments run together to become totally life defining. A line of markers on our life map. Places we look back to as we continue our journey. These single remarkable moments are often what truly define us as people; they mark us and make us who we are.

Unfortunately life doesn't come with a manual or guide on how to live for us to consult. We just have to get on with it as best we can. I once read a self-help book that said that life isn't supposed to be a struggle and that if it is we are doing it wrong. It said just stay calm. But then it went on to point out that life is sometimes very complicated and confusing and frightening and impossible to predict. Not much help there then!

There have been many highs and lows in my life but I am confident, that if nothing else, to me at least, I have lived a relatively interesting life so far. For most of the time I've been a musician, filling in the occasional gap or work lull with a host of other jobs but ultimately it is music that pulls me back to my real vocation. I'm a performer and I suppose it's who I am.

When I run through my own defining moments I get a blur of sensations and wildly mixed emotions. Being phoned and told my best friend had been killed. Receiving a letter full of pure unconditional love. Stepping in front of an audience of 100,000 people. Going back into a hospital ward to speak to my Father after having been told that he didn't have much longer to live. Realising the company I was running had to close down or face total ruin. Winning an award. Contemplating suicide. Making love in such a way that I thought my heart would burst out of me. Realising I would survive a potentially fatal illness. Suddenly feeling at total peace with myself.

Just another life, so many emotions, so many moments, some small, some too huge to quantify.

I still don't know why but suddenly I wanted to set as many of them down if I could, and it's been difficult because some are complete stories while others are brief moments simply too short to adequately fill more than a couple of paragraphs.

But the common thread is the people.

Through chance and circumstance I have been fortunate to meet an extraordinary range of people whose lives have intersected with mine.

All of them taught me things mostly without them knowing it. And regardless of whether they caused me happiness or sadness they brought influences to bear that remain with me forever.
They made me the person that I am.

Some of these folk are a constant, flitting in and out of my thoughts, others only barely registering as they just briefly crossed my path before fading into that place of distant but fondly half remembered memory. Many I am glad to forget and happily some are still around me. People are like that. They effect us sometimes more than we can ever know.

We all have such people and stories to go with them. I don't think my experiences are that unusual they are simply my experiences. But I do know that versions of them are mirrored in countless other lives. And these stories are the reason I am me, and why we are the way we are. Those I have set down here fell from me in a tumble of memories over a four-month period as I realised how lucky I have been to have known so many experiences and so many people.

Sartre once said that "Hell is other people" and I agree, the worst times for all of us are often the result of the influence and activities of other people, but he forgot to mention that if 'Hell is other people' sometimes so is heaven. Just as much as I've been emotionally battered the balance has always tipped in my favour. And in my own way I've had glimpses of heaven and realised just how much joy some people can give you.

It quickly occurred to me as I was writing this, that throughout my life I have somehow found myself drifting into all sorts of strange jobs and situations. I don't know what it is about me, but I seem to love a challenge. And even though it is music that runs in my veins (a compass of my soul that always unerringly leads me back to being a songwriter and performer), I just can't seem to resist trying my hand at other things.

To this end I've run shops, created music venues, produced and directed a theatre musical, ran a newspaper, been a business consultant, ran a recording studio, been in charge of a rescue team and written plays. I've set up Internet ventures, trained people in First Aid, I once even tried to buy a theatre and an office block, and of course played thousands of live gigs and concerts. This is only a brief list; I've fitted some other equally diverse stuff in between these. I think it's called a portfolio career! Others would probably call it irresponsibility masquerading as a lifestyle choice.

But it's really about me being optimistically curious. I promised myself when I was very young that I would try to do absolutely everything that ever interested me. This was because I never wanted to be able to say, "I wish I'd have done that". So far I haven't had to! I've been very lucky (Although admittedly this approach has also led to me being able to say on many occasions "I wish I hadn't done that!") I never said I was perfect!

So for me life as far as I can figure should be an adventure wherever possible. And in case you're curious about how well I've done or how successful I've been with this particular personal philosophy, well I can only say that I've had plenty of money and been flat broke in about equal measure. (If you measure a life in terms of material wealth) Although I'm very sure that I don't.

I measure it in being able to feel that your life matters and that it serves some real purpose. And that can be measured by your own faith and belief in yourself, and the positive impact your existence has made on other people. So of course it's right back to those other people. Lives that you've touched and lives that have touched yours.

I've genuinely tried my very best to make sense of each story, what it meant to me, what it did to me and I'm not sure if I've completely succeeded. I do know there's so many more I have yet to write but these few random fragments of a life are a wild attempt to discover how I got here.

At the bottom of my rather lengthy job CV it says 'Why isn't he dead yet?' and underneath it I put 'Luck and regular meals'. I guess that's the same for most of us.

Once I began to set all these random moments down I could see that my experiences might bring other peoples experiences into their minds and maybe remind them of their own particular life journey so far. So if like me you believe that life is a wheel that turns through good and bad then I guess all we can do is simply hope it spins us back to good more than bad. But whatever the wheel does, it leaves us with moments ranging from the extraordinary to the mundane that make up our days and moulds us into who we are.

I have no idea why I suddenly felt that I should commit all these pieces of a life to paper, but once I started I couldn't stop myself. I just wanted to put them all down. There was no plan. After I had written my first couple of stories I talked about them with both friends and strangers and in return got given glimpses of moments from other people's lives that then commonly provoked the response from them of "you should write a book!"

So I did

Phil Ryan - 2006

The book is divided into three chapters. The following excerpts are taken from all three chapters.

I heard a wonderful topic on a radio programme once. The presenter was asking people if they felt they had any friends that would help them bury a dead body and then keep quiet about it. The rather obvious point he was making was about friendship and just how many real close and trustworthy friends anyone truly has. And as I now try to imagine asking close friends of mine to help me to dispose of a body, it makes me laugh to imagine their poor shocked faces when I'd call them up and ask for 'one small favour'. But it occurred to me, how fortunate I am to actually have some close friends that I could call and expect support from, although like most people I can honestly only lay claim to a handful of such folk.

But then it began to dawn on me that although I know quite a lot of people I can't honestly call them all friends; some don't even qualify as acquaintances. And it set me thinking about the turnover of people we have in our lives and what is it that binds some to us while others simply vanish from our days after months and even years.

I was twenty-five and whilst playing in a restaurant I met a guy and his wife who invited me to come down to a recording studio they owned. They liked my songs. Like many chance meetings in life, it turned out to have far more import than I could have ever imagined. After taking up their offer of some free recording, months passed by and I was now counted as a friend, staying at their house and going to parties they hosted. They recognised my organisational abilities and soon I found myself helping them put together an ambitious plan. That's what friends do, they help each other.

They were going to buy a large house that would be the base for a music production company that would effectively be run like a co-operative. Other friends who like me had started out as musicians they had met somewhere became involved and over a period of months the project began to take shape. It was very exciting. Alan, the guy I met in the restaurant was the catalyst. A talented musician and even more talented wheeler dealer he had a dream of a collective of musicians and artists all working together to create a wide range of commercially viable products. He was a driven man. He almost crackled with energy sometimes such was his conviction and belief in what he was doing.

His wife Theresa was a quietly spoken woman, who unwaveringly gave him all the emotional support he seemed to need, and so it was that slowly but surely they pulled a large and disparate group of people together. A large five bed roomed house in the east of London was purchased, the current studio equipment was moved from it's old site, and building and fitting work commenced. Everyone began to work. Painting and hammering and building and moving things. Even me!

The project had begun. The team began to grow.

It was incredible. Somehow the common belief that the project could work made a group of people who I'm sure would never have normally mixed, mix! Weeks went by and soon there were musician's of all kinds, a couple of photographers, a gay theatre group, a hairdresser, a puppet maker, they really were an eclectic bunch. And most importantly they all wanted to contribute something to make it all happen. It was a true co-operative.
The atmosphere was wonderful. I had never before experienced such a strong feeling of all and encompassing happiness that you can get from being with a bunch of like-minded people. There was real joy to be found in our common purpose. I had been in teams and groups before but this felt different. This was both business and creative at the same time.

It was at this point in my life that I first encountered Dave (who I still work with today) Dave's band had wanted to record an album and Alan recognising his extraordinary ability to turn his hand to most things, had decided to get him involved. He did this by teaching him the technical side of sound engineering a modern 24 track-recording studio system with a view to him being a lynch pin in the team. I was to run the bookings, sell the time to interested parties and be the general co-ordinator. Dave was to be the studio's chief engineer. And so it was that somehow between us we ended up effectively organising and running the studio side of things

Like me Dave was just in his mid twenties and it seemed quite an adventure in a way and so I suppose we both just got on with things confident in the fact that they would only get better and better. One thing we weren't short of was optimism! I think it goes with being twenty.

In retrospect the rest of the team were like the cast of a surreal sitcom. But Alan gave off an almost missionary zeal in his dealings with them all and they believed. Everything was one giant deal. The gay theatre group built a garage and storage building at the back of the house in exchange for studio time. (One morning as I watched them hammering away from the kitchen window I said to Dave "Look we've got fairies at the bottom of the garden" - a line they adopted telling people they were my private fairies!) The puppet maker lent us an entire multi-keyboard and mixing desk set up in exchange for us housing it all for free. The barter system was back in town!

We swapped bands their old and unwanted musical equipment in exchange for studio time and then sold the equipment through a dealer we knew. And through all this frenetic activity a bond started to forge between us all. We began to spend most of our time in each other's company and it's not unrealistic to say we were almost a family. I really liked them all. They educated me in so many things and it's fair to say they taught me to be tolerant of everyone, and that the biggest problem the human-race seems to have is a lack of understanding about each other. I learnt a lot. They were all good people.

We had meetings. Ideas were kicked around. Plans were made. But a dawning reality soon set in that general house-hold bills, simply had to be paid. Even though the majority of the team sorted out they're own income from jobs and state benefits, there was a few of us that relied on the small payments we got from the studio profits to eke out an existence. I played local gigs, one man and his guitar. Dave drove me there and took a small cut for his troubles. Alex being the house owner tightly controlled the money and with me, and him managing the day to day financial affairs of things a kind of loose co-operative payment system fell into place.
It wasn't brilliant but it all worked after a fashion. Dave and I lived above the studio, sharing a tiny room that also housed our own small studio set up. Many of the others stayed when a room was free.

A year passed and everyone had settled into a comfortable pattern. There never seemed to be much money around but it didn't seem to matter. We were the team and we had a common goal. For me at the centre of it all I got to deal with everyone and after a while I began to see the personal problems and issues they were all facing. Everyone talked to me. I was the co-ordinator (the boring sensible one I was told apparently) but slowly it began to dawn on me how fragile all of our alliances were. The bands we recorded were supposed to provide income so that all us musicians in the team could make albums of our own music. But outside bands took precedence over everyone because their studio fees were our main income stream. And sometimes we just had to fill up all the spare recording time just to stay in business.

Sadly it wasn't cheap to run the house and studio but unless we paid all the gas, electricity and General Company operation bills we wouldn't even be open. This meant there was never that much spare money left over after we had met all of these vital commitments. This started to rankle with everyone. Even Alan who was effectively the owner of everything didn't have time to record his own music project and this really began to grate with him. To be fair to him, he was definitely under pressure because after all, the house was home to him, his wife and two children and an entire circus of people including Dave and myself. It wasn't an ideal situation. The place hummed constantly with an endless flow of people.

But we tried our best. The theatre group were a bit avant- and couldn't seem to attract outside funding so they pushed ahead with their musical album project which slowly but surely we found time for. Alan's wife Theresa managed to record a couple of her tracks and eventually so did Alan, but it was starting to look a long way from the original idea.

I never got to record in the main studio. There just wasn't the free time. But in a way I guess I understood and keeping my head down I just got on with my job. Months passed and then the cracks really began to show. Theresa and Alan's marriage was tempestuous at the best of times but now the rows seemed to spill over into the common areas of the house. One time I found that I had to bodily come between them to stop Alan physically attacking her. That particular incident shocked me a lot and my respect for Alan faded overnight.

The dream was coming to an end.

Alan's behaviour became more and more erratic. He was convinced that people were plotting against him and we all watched as once close team members left in disappointment, only to then be accused of treachery and malice. But still we tried to carry on. I found myself defending him more and more but even I couldn't keep it up.

It was obvious he was slowly mentally breaking down and becoming more and more unreasonable. In a last ditch effort I got us involved in a Trades Fair which ran for three days. What was left of the team worked day and night to prepare for it and I found myself effectively working eighteen hour days but I could see from Alan's moody and volatile behaviour that we were now in serious trouble.

Ironically the show was a great success. We'd taken bookings for the studio, set up meetings to sell various company projects, but now everything seemed to rest on Alan's whims. When I mentioned that I wanted some of the money I'd brought in by all the work I'd carried out at the trade show he told me there wasn't any left. Apparently it had all gone on bills. I just didn't believe him. Something had to give.

Then just a few days after the show two of the most loyal team members came to me and said they'd had enough.

Ron the puppet maker with the keyboards told me that on the following weekend he would be removing all of his equipment. The studio relied heavily upon it as a selling point and with it gone; we would be in a far worse position regarding promoting interest in the facility. Jim the drummer, a powerhouse of energy who had often worked for days at a time to build walls, fit carpets, run errands said he didn't like what he was seeing and he couldn't stay. Amongst them all Jim was the most loyal to Alan and to see him leaving showed just how bad things had become.

One particularly vivid and telling memory of my time there with Jim was when he decided to build a luxury bathroom. Theresa had often complained about how bad the bathroom in the house was and Jim got everyone together one weekend when he knew Alan and Theresa were going away and told us that he wanted to design and build a luxury bathroom in two days. It would be a present for Alan and Theresa. Everyone threw themselves into his mad but lovely idea. Jim managed to find all the fittings and fixtures for nothing through friends and in a manic work schedule the entire place was fitted and finished in just under 48 hours. The looks upon their faces when they returned at this kindness were almost as happy as Jim's. He had really cared about them. But now he was going.

As the week passed I talked to Dave and it was now patently clear to both of us that it was over. With a heavy heart I wrote a letter of goodbye and left just a day or two later. It was over. All the people I'd worked alongside were gone. There was no team anymore.

It was strange. My life had been wrapped up in that house and studio and all the people and now it was all gone. Most of them came from all over London and beyond and it was to these places they all returned. The one uniting factor had been removed.

The next weeks were filled with figuring out what to do next and it was at this time that I formed the Production Company that I still run today. We moved our small studio set up into Dave's parent's garage, Denny joined us and we began to do the only thing we knew how too. We made music.

But it felt odd. So much time, so much familiarity just lost and vanished.

And friends and people I thought I'd know forever were gone almost overnight.

Writing this now fills my head with faces from that time. But that's how it goes sometimes, the ebb and flow of people from your shore.

I often wonder what I mean to the friends I have now. And like the radio show idea I guess there's a few that would help me dispose of that hypothetical body.

To me they are a comforting and familiar presence that let's me feel just a little more, less alone. They listen to me when I need to talk, and they forgive me when I can't. And so often their kind and caring counsel has helped me through such dark moments that I wouldn't know what I would have done without them.

Without them I would feel that my life was a rootless thing but their friendship allows me to feel a sense of place in a wide universe. I find when I listen to them I am genuinely interested and moved by what they say. And I think they know I am there if they need me.

Their words have an importance and give me a responsibility that gladdens my heart.

I have no idea why they like me, I'm just happy that they do.

And I hope I can hang onto them all, I know I won't let them go without a fight, but sometimes you can't keep them no matter what you do.

Without true friends this world can be a very lonely place.

But thanks to a few special people I'm not alone and I'm thankful for it.

Truly thankful.


I was wandering around the gift shop in a historic palace recently when I saw a young guy of about sixteen with what must have been his girlfriend. She was staring into a glass case with some jewellery in it and I saw him standing behind her, carefully and surreptitiously counting his money. Once he'd checked it twice he joined her and began pointing at things he'd obviously worked out were in his price bracket. She gazed at him adoringly as he paid for whatever they had chosen and I saw a slightly glazed look on his face as he passed me. Obviously it hadn't been cheap. But he didn't care. It was for her.

No-one ever tells you about love. When we're young we just have to guess our way through a mass of feelings that instantly overwhelm us and none more so than those feelings of first love. It's bad enough when you're older thinking you should know how to cope, but when you're a kid, let's just say it's a long way to fall. But just like a baby seagull that gets pushed off the ledge to make it fly, you peer over the edge of life sometimes and close your eyes and jump.

Nothing prepares you.

But still you want to jump.

The sun sparkled on the pool and I stood in what I hoped was a nonchalant devil may care pose, leaning against a palm tree. I was fifteen, I was in Spain on a school trip, and I was completely bored. We'd been here before, in fact three years on the trot, and although I couldn't help but like the fact that the beach wasn't far and I knew my way around pretty well, something was missing. Girls. But there was a problem.

My school-mates were just not subtle. Any girl at the hotel that came within six feet of the pool area was treated to a sudden studied display of speed swimming or fancy diving, or hysterically funny soaking as it usually turned into. And in town there must have been a warning about us, as every local girl only had to catch a glance of us and she was suddenly moving quickly in the other direction. I have to admit that we were a pretty odd looking bunch. Couple this with pasty white skin and some fashion mistakes too horrific to mention and we weren't exactly the world's most desirable bunch. Plus we tended to move in a group. It was as if a sexually charged flange of badly dressed baboons had arrived in town and worst of all they were English baboons.

I was suffering. It must have been my hormones or something. Three days passed and I mooched about, avoiding the main group if I could, and I fell into a pattern of coming down to breakfast a little later than the others. I had my friends of course and the three of us would wander about together but some days I just preferred being on my own. One morning as I breakfasted late I noticed a battered looking Spanish guitar hanging up as a wall decoration and I gestured at it when the waiter was clearing away the plates. He was about the same age as me and as he took it down he said in perfect English "You play?". I said I did, and as I tuned it I realised it was quite a good guitar.

The manager wandered in from the lobby and seeing me with the instrument he came over and smiled at me as I began to strum it experimentally. I wasn't a bad player and seeing them both regarding me with such interest I strummed the instrument again and then sang a song.

As I finished they both clapped delightedly and I couldn't stop smiling. The manager told me I could use the guitar if I wanted and they both left me as I fiddled about with it. This was more like it. I went into the scrubby little garden at the side of the hotel near the dustbins (remember this was a hotel used by schools, the Hilton Inter Continental it wasn't) and tuned it as best I could.

It was a beautiful day and no-one else was around so I sat under a tree and played to myself, singing new songs I had been learning at home. I must have played for about a half an hour when I saw her. She was sitting on a low wall about twenty feet away writing in a book and she had obviously been listening to me. I held up my hand in greeting and smiling she stood up and came over. She looked very nice. She was obviously Spanish with big brown eyes and jet-black hair, not to mention a lovely olive coloured skin. I felt my stomach churn and for some reason my mouth went dry and I felt my face go red. She must have been about the same age as me. She asked me if I had been playing long and we talked for about five minutes before someone called to her. Glancing round as if caught she said she had to go and saying goodbye she sprinted off.

I sat where I was and felt useless. Fantastic I thought, at last I meet a girl and suddenly she runs off. Brilliant. My conversation must have been really fascinating. I felt like the most inept boy in the world and going back into the hotel I hung the guitar back in it's place, smiled at the manager as he acknowledged me and wandered disconsolately into town to try and find the others. There was at least some small comfort from being with the other failures.

Of course I told them about my little meeting, who as boys do, began to wildly fantasise about Spanish girls in general telling me that it was a fact that they were all sex mad. We imagined these sexy girls and realising we had absolutely no chance of ever meeting any we went shopping. So instead of amore we settled for eating tons of ice cream and picked our way through market stalls festooned with tourist gifts and tried our best to look grown up. The day passed and we returned to the hotel where after dinner I picked the guitar up and went back to the garden where I'd been that morning. My friends sat down and I played to them and we laughed and sang for a while, the sea air fresh on the evening breeze. Just as I was about to get up, the girl from the morning appeared with two other girls, and shyly she waved to me before all three of them disappeared giggling down the street.

That was it.

My friends now began grilling me. Who was she, how did I know her, had I kissed her? It was all bravado but we weren't boys, no we were experienced men, so I acted very cool and basked in their mistaken belief that I had somehow got a Spanish girlfriend from somewhere on the strength of a five-minute conversation.

They started to formulate wild theories that I was keeping all the girls to myself and that it was obviously my guitar that attracted them. After an hour of ludicrous discussions about all our vast sexual conquests and experience we eventually went to bed. A rumour quickly circulated the next morning at breakfast that I had met a Spanish girl and was going to run away with her. We were just kids, but wow did we have great imaginations. We had to. We'd never really been near a girl. We didn't have a clue. We'd seen pictures. We didn't know what you were actually supposed to do. But boy did we want to find out.

The next few days passed and I played in my spot everyday, hoping she would return but she didn't. It was over a week before I saw her again. I was walking along the harbour wall down by the fishing boats when I saw her waving to me. She shyly walked over and with me desperately trying to act very cool we walked along, her pointing out the monastery that looked out from a distant hillside. I said I was thinking of going to see it and without warning she suddenly grabbed my hand and before I knew it we were running for a dusty old bus that was pulling into a nearby turning.

It was great. We went to the monastery and looked around and checking the time she said she had to get back to the hotel to help her Father who it seemed was the Manager. I was feeling very good, especially as at one point she held my hand as we walked along the road back down to the bus stop. Once back in town we talked for a bit and then she smiled and asked me what room I was staying in. She said she could come and see me for an hour before she had to go to bed and as she spoke a choir began singing in my head.

This was it. I had met a girl. A really pretty Spanish girl. My heart raced and my thoughts tumbled around in my head as I realised the enormity of it. Maybe I could kiss her. Wow! This was amazing. My heart was racing and I felt a little light-headed.

I watched her as she walked away waving to me over her shoulder and I realised that I would have to very careful. I couldn't tell the others and there was a rule about no girls near our rooms, although I suspect the teachers only said this to make us feel better.
But this was it. You just didn't guess your way along in a situation like this, you had to have a plan and so I began to think about how to make the moment perfect.

I bought a bottle of cheap champagne from a shop, the only problem with this being that I didn't actually drink so I bought some Fanta as well. I thought if I opened the bottle and had two glasses already poured I could fill my glass with Fanta. I didn't want her to think I wasn't a man, but alcohol made me sick and in these situations in films they always had champagne in cute glasses. It was romantic.

That evening after dinner I carefully avoided the others and taking the guitar down from the wall I raced up to my room which was just on the first floor. It looked pretty tidy and it had French windows that led onto a small balcony, which I opened. I had taken an ice bucket, which unfortunately was plastic and had a Coca-Cola symbol on the side, but I covered that up with a paper serviette I'd brought from dinner and plonked the open bottle into it.

Then putting them on a tray I carefully arranged my two best borrowed items, some proper champagne glasses and a single candle in a holder I'd grabbed from behind the unattended bar by the pool. Carefully I filled one with champagne and the other half with champagne and half with Fanta to take away the horrible taste and then came the piece de la resistance.

My Dad had given me a white dinner jacket, which I thought made me look like James Bond. As he gave it to me he actually said it was a bit big for me but I would grow into it, but I told him I thought it made the cloth hang more interestingly. This was what I would wear. I had it all planned. I would sit casually playing guitar. She would gently knock to enter, but I would leave the door open. Hearing me say come in she would then push the door to find me framed by moonlight, leaning casually by the window in my James bond dinner jacket nonchalantly playing guitar. She would be driven crazy. I would be irresistible.

The strange thing was that I had no idea what I would actually do after she saw me like this. I just hoped the stories were true and her being Spanish she would show me.

The time ticked away and after lighting the candle and arranging the glasses for the tenth time I went onto the balcony and looking at my watch I sat on the balcony wall holding the guitar and tried to stop sweating. My hands were running like a river and they were freezing cold. My heart was pounding. Then I heard her knock. I tried to speak but all I could do was emit a kind of dry rasping "come in" that cracked as I spoke. Her head appeared round the door and smiling she walked towards me.

I glanced up and carefully resting my guitar I made to get to my feet but suddenly I missed my footing on the tiled floor and slipping I fell backwards over the balcony. She must have managed to stifle a scream, although the next thing I knew was that I was lying on my back about fifteen feet below her in a rose bed, staring up and seeing her mouth which was frozen into an enormous letter O. Luckily my room was on the first floor so I hadn't fall that far, but it felt a lot worse. For one thing I had been slightly winded but luckily the soft earth of the bed had broken my fall and as I lay there totally dazed I watched her face instantly disappear.

I gingerly sat up. I ached all over and I'd scratched myself on a rose bush, but thankfully I didn't appear to have actually seriously hurt myself. My white jacket was now brown and spotted with blood from a scratch across my cheek and as I staggered to my feet, she appeared. After asking if I was all right I heard her name being called and pausing only to look me straight in the eyes she said she was very sorry but she had to go. I was glad. I felt like the world's biggest fool. I wasn't injured but my pride was. Limping back up to my room I ran myself a bubble bath and after pouring the champagne down the sink I sank into the hot water and drank the Fanta from a champagne glass.

I like to think it's what James Bond would have done.

I saw her the next day at breakfast, and she shyly waved and smiled to me but we never met anymore. Two days later we all flew home.

But I never forgot how I'd felt. The excitement, the wonder, and the fear. And finally coming down to earth with a thump, literally.

It was a bit like love.

And I guess we learn that Love is one of those journeys that you set out on full of hope and trepidation, but you know whatever happens you simply have to make the journey.

People tell me you can't ever feel like you did when you took those first tentative steps, but it should be close.

But I know what it should be like.

No matter how it turns out.

It should be like fifteen.



A couple of months back I couldn't sleep and finishing the current book I was reading I got out of bed and hunted for a new book. Scrabbling at a pile I hadn't touched for ages I reached to the back of the cupboard and pulled out a book I couldn't remember reading. I noticed it had a small piece of card as a bookmark stuck halfway through its pages. It was a Christmas gift label and I opened and read the words "Thank you for always holding my hand love Fi" and I broke down.

Fi or Fiona had been killed a year and a half earlier. And as I read her little message my heart broke all over again (as I'm writing this I can barely see my computer screen)

She was my friend but never has the word sounded so small in comparison to what she meant to me. She was so much more than I can ever express. Her death changed me forever. And now my life has one missing piece and what a piece.

We first met over seventeen years ago when I was playing in a Wine bar near to where I live now. Her and her flatmate became regulars and one evening we introduced ourselves. I found out that she had just arrived in London and was working as a sales promotion girl in Selfridges. She was very well spoken and immaculately dressed, her make up perfect and we seemed to get on well. At that time I was working with Dave, Denny and Rick and we'd just set up a small recording studio in a video shop basement directly across the street from the Wine bar. She asked if she could drop by and I realised that the she liked me a bit more than I had first thought and in the way of things within a few weeks we became a couple.

I don't think I can adequately describe how we were together but I do know it was so full of innocence. I don't know why that was except to say that Fi was so new to life and especially life in a big city that she seemed surrounded by a wide eyed curiosity for everything she encountered. She was just eighteen.

I began to learn about her background and a very rarified one it was too. Her Uncle was a Lord Somebody and her parents lived in a huge Elizabethan Manor House near Cookham (A very wealthy country area) She had grown up in what used to be called the County set. Private schools, pony riding, grand balls and all that went with a part of society that is only just now beginning to fade. But the way she talked she seemed to be so apart from it all. It didn't seem to be her. And then I found out why. Her parents were both pretty religious and by all accounts their relationship was relatively loveless. Her two brothers seemed very spoilt and ignored her and somehow a girl full of emotion grew up in an emotional vacuum, surrounded by people who never showed their feelings and seemed bound by a family bond based on stiff principles of manners and 'proper' behaviour.

She rebelled. But in a way that left her marked for life. She stopped eating.

I'll never forget when I found this out. One evening as we sat in the tiny studio flat we now shared she began showing me pictures of her as a little girl. Most seemed to be of her riding ponies at various gymkhanas winning prizes, the occasional formal looking family photo sneaking in. Then she went quiet and said that she was going to show me some other photos but I mustn't make any comment. She looked very distant as she spoke and then as she opened the album at the back page she told me she had suffered from anorexia.

The pictures made me go cold. I could tell it was her, but only from her eyes because she was so thin it was painful to see. In front of me sat an attractive full bodied girl but in the photo sat a ghost. She looked like a skeleton, the skin stretched tightly over bone. My eyes filled with tears as she told me all about it and she described a chilling moment when a doctor came into her hospital room one afternoon and simply told her that she was going to die. That was all he said. Something gave inside her she said and she began to eat again and after a year recuperating she decided to leave home. She didn't really know anybody in London but she knew she couldn't stay at home with her parents any longer and so catching a train one-day she came to town. She was as brave as a lion, albeit a small blonde one.

This had all only happened a few months earlier and after sharing a flat with a girl that she had found in an advert she found her own small place and moved in. Shortly after she met me and the studio guys I was working with, she got one of them, my friend Denny to help her move her stuff from her parents house into her new tiny studio flat. She really was so very brave. Her parents effectively cut her off. She was on her own. Her possessions fitted into the back of an estate car. But now at least she had me.

After a year together we moved into a bigger flat and so our pattern was set and we stayed together for the next seven years. I couldn't set it all down because so much normal life happened it wouldn't exactly make riveting reading. We did the usual things couples do when they share their lives. Shopping, holidays, cinema, parties, work. But through all of this amazingly we never ever argued and we supported each other totally. I can honestly say it was the most peaceful time in my life. Everything seemed easy.

How do you describe such constant happiness in a few short memories. I don't think I can. It was just real life, real sharing and real love. I have so many wonderful moments and memories in me that if I had to choose just one, it would have to be Valentine's Day.

We used to always make a fuss each year, I don't know why but it was just something we did. We loved Valentine's day. We'd buy each other presents and cards and surprises and normally go to the theatre or the cinema. This particular year it fell on a Sunday. Unfortunately though in that particular year at that time, for me work had got a bit thin on the ground. It had left me really short of money and as that weekend approached I agonised about not being able to buy a few presents and take her out as we usually did. But she kept saying it didn't matter and that we'd have a nice time anyway and she really meant it. She didn't want me feeling bad. But despite her telling me not to worry about it, it really bugged me.

Then I had an idea. On the Saturday afternoon while she was at the hairdressers I wrote and recorded a special love song for her on my small studio system. That night just as we were going to bed I told her I'd left something in the car and leaving her in the bathroom I nipped outside and put the cassette in her car stereo with a note with a little red valentine heart saying Play Me. It wasn't much but it was all I could think of. The next morning she got up early as she always did every Sunday at this time and leaving me in bed she drove to one of her part time jobs.

She'd only been gone about ten minutes when the phone rang. Guessing it was her to tell me about the song I smiled and answered it, but to my surprise it was a friend of mine desperately needing a musician for a local lunch time gig. The money was very good and so it was that by the time she came home, I had played a gig, bought some presents and booked a restaurant. Now as I said she knew I didn't have much money and had told me not to worry about a present and as I heard the front door I could barely hide my excitement. I had bought her a card and she opened it saying I was a big softy and I shouldn't have wasted my money but she hugged me and kissed me and I knew she liked it, and then I asked her if she'd liked the song. She looked blank. "What song" she said and I realised that the poor thing had been so tired and obviously had just blearily eyed got into the car and driven the short distance not noticing my little card on the stereo. I made something up about a new song I'd heard on the radio and changed the subject.

We mooched about in the afternoon and then I told her that a friend of ours had asked us to go see him play at a restaurant he worked at. It was a very upmarket restaurant in Mayfair, stunning inside but very pricey. The regular customers included pop stars and actors and all manner of well-known people. We'd been before a few times to see him play but only ever sitting in the bar area and sipping our one overpriced drink. She said it sounded like a good idea and then casually a bit later on I said as we were going out, why didn't we dress up a bit. I made some comment about making it a bit of a night out and she laughed and said why not.

And so it was that evening, that I ran out to the car and hid the little taped song and it's card before she saw it and we set off for the restaurant. She looked beautiful. She had put on her favourite going out dress, all her little pieces of jewellery and as usual her make up was perfect. It was great. We walked in and sat at the bar and waved to my friend at the piano, when suddenly at his signal the manager came over and bowed to us. " Your table Miss" he said with a huge smile and I took her arm as we were led into the luxurious interior. She looked both stunned and stunning. Once we had sat down I produced the little gifts I had bought she just couldn't stop smiling. I loved it. Perfect Valentines Day. But it wasn't quite finished.

Once the meal was finished and we'd said goodbye to my friend we set off for home.
And then just as we pulled up outside our flat she noticed the cassette and the little card sticking out of the car door pocket where I'd quickly pushed it. Reading it she looked at me quizzically and put it in the stereo. She cried as it finished, but only tears of happiness and she often reminded me of it in later years.

And so we ended that special day not knowing that it would stay with us both forever but only I would be left to tell people about it. Right now my eyes are streaming with tears but just like those she cried that day some of them are for the happiness of having such a wonderful and precious moment.

To show what an amazing girl she was I can tell you that at one point when I couldn't get much work she worked at three part time jobs just to support us. And to repay her when my fortunes picked up, when she went back to college to get a Diploma in Food Science I pretty much supported us both. She still worked at a small part time job though, she said it didn't feel right not to work! We never discussed it, it was just how we were.

But we were both changing and somehow we'd let the romance leave our relationship and after much discussion we went our separate ways. It was my fault. I just felt we weren't going anywhere. It was so painful. She didn't want me to go, but something inside made me leave her. Thinking back now I remember how hurt she was. I felt terrible but I had to go. I just had to. Writing this down now I just feel ashamed. I never wanted to hurt her but I did.

But we couldn't let go of each other. Months passed and we talked most weeks and stayed at each other's places until one day she announced that she was going to America for a year and that she thought it was for the best. She'd tried to go out with other people but it hadn't really worked for her, and even though I had gone out with other people I usually kept the fact from her. I just felt so guilty. I can't explain it. We were permanently caught up in each other and emotionally it wasn't doing either of us much good. We couldn't seem to move on. But we both knew after all the times we'd shared that we'd become a permanent part of each other's lives. One of life's mysteries is when you can't be together but you can't really be apart either.

Years of talking though had made us family now. We both felt it and even after she returned from the states and started another relationship the die was cast.

We needed each other. We were linked forever. We knew it.

It was great. We often marvelled how wonderful it was to have each other. We had no secrets. We told each other everything. I know now how unusual it must have been for other people to figure out. We were so close but not together. I loved her and she loved me. We said it to each often because it was important to. And even though we both had partners we retained our soul link. That might sound hopelessly romantic but it was how we both felt.

And sometimes life creates such situations between people who love each other and whatever anybody else thought, we understood. Our partners probably found it a bit strange in some ways, but for us it worked and as the years passed our bond grew stronger.

As I write this now I know how privileged I am to have been able to watch her turn into the amazing, confident woman she grew to be. When we first met she was softly spoken and quite shy but as time passed her confidence grew and by the time she went to America she was a lioness. Nothing fazed her and when she told me about the outrageous things she had got up to on her travels I laughed at her boldness. It was amazing remembering the quiet girl I'd first met and comparing her to this opinionated, dynamic and beautiful woman that buzzed with energy before me. But she hadn't changed. She'd simply blossomed like a rare flower.

Using some of her experiences she decided to put together a hand made greeting card company and worked such long hours I feared for her health. When she did something, she gave it all her energy. Failure for her was never an option. That was her way. And as ever she was so determined to make it work, that endless hours passed her by, turning into weeks and then months.

And work it did. Orders poured in and her profits soared. She bought her second house just one year later!

It was typical of her ability to focus totally on a particular subject. When she was at college she would sit for hours working on her homework, putting in far longer study periods than any of her contemporaries. And by strange contrast despite her growing confidence she was always convinced that her work was just barely acceptable and that her marks might not be so good. She was top of her class every single time. I used to listen to her worrying about how well she'd done, comforting and encouraging as best as I could, to be later told she'd got the best marks possible. One wonderful moment was when a leading food manufacturer came to her college and announced a recipe competition. They offered a small prize but it was more of a prestige thing.

Now you need to understand that her cooking was heavenly and over the next few weeks she experimented with various combinations of the manufacturers product. Our friends were delighted to be guinea pigs but she remained sceptical of her ability. The day of the competition came and went and then a week or two passed as it carried on through colleges across London.

One afternoon she came home and I asked about her day. She smiled and in a throwaway fashion said she'd won the competition. I jumped about and then calmly she told me that not only had she won but the company had liked her recipe so much they were going to print it on all tins of there particular product. It summed her up. She was grace and modesty personified.

I realise that when people die we often talk about them in an extravagant manner, conveniently air brushing out their faults and inflating their good deeds and manner until they are virtually raised to sainthood. But as I put these lines onto this page I know I am not really coming close to letting you know what an exceptional human being she really was. She was a great person to know.

I've always known that in life at some point we have to face death. I've lost friends, my Father but in losing her I lost a part of me that still aches and I believe won't stop until I die. Her face is etched onto my heart forever.

It is people who shape us, who lift us up and bring us down. In their love we can feel so at peace, without out it we can feel so alone.

She loved me and never stopped.

I won't stop either.



Where exactly do we find the answers to the many questions that life throws at us? Most mornings I often listen to a radio-phone in show as I eat my breakfast. And I laugh and gasp as I hear ordinary people expand on the most sensible or ludicrous arguments I have ever heard. They all have an answer. Some simply ramble as they hold forth while others base their carefully worded answers on guidance from religious texts, others get theirs from political dogma and some simply hold to the belief of right or wrong, albeit always slightly coloured by their religious, political or own peculiar values.

Recently I was at a bookshop and as I looked at the new publications I noticed a whole huge section of self help, personal guidance books released no doubt to cope with the growing number of people seeking knowledge about themselves and their place in the universe. My eyes fell upon a copy of a book someone had given me a year earlier called the Book of Answers. Based on the ancient Chinese philosophical text the I Ching it basically has short statements printed on each page. It's a gift type gimmicky kind of book. You ask a question out loud and then open the book at a random page. Whatever is printed there supposedly gives you an answer or at least the beginnings of an idea to help you formulate a solution. Of course in the original ancient Chinese version you get whole paragraphs that guide you to your answer, but the new one is a symptom of our fast food age.

I want an answer and I want it now and I'm in a hurry so get to the point.

And as I smilingly flicked at the supposedly life enhancing answer packed pages a memory surfaced that reminded me that answers can be found in the most unusual places.

You just have to know where to look.

I had known Rick in various incarnations. I was first introduced to him as Rick the Mechanic who also owned half a wine bar. As I got to know him I found he had more facets than the Kohinoor diamond but essentially he was a fixer. He had that mental and physical ability to turn his hand to anything and essentially fix any item or situation. I heard rumours that he restored cars, organised catering at football matches, sold clothes and musical goods. He seemed to have his fingers in a lot of pies! After I had known him about a year he called me and told me he had begun to learn the saxophone and did I want him to play with me at some of my gigs. I thought it was a great idea and after a few initial rehearsals we began to play together all over the place. At first he wasn't that good but he rapidly improved, as I knew he would. It was then; he became Rick the Saxophone player, shedding his earlier incarnations as easily as a snake sheds its skin.

In his own inimitable fixing fashion Rick began to hustle more gigs and soon we found ourselves working six nights of the week and being in demand in some of London's more upmarket wine bars and brasseries. As it turned out we were to play together for over two years and our adventures during this period would fill a book on their own; we had a pretty amazing time!
Shortly after we had first met, Rick had found himself a new girlfriend. She was very tall, stunningly attractive and fashionably dressed and she helped us get more gigs. I should point out that Rick was quite short and often wore the brightest and strangest clothes I had ever seen so I must confess that initially they did seem to me to be an odd couple. But love always seems to find a way and they seemed to get along fine. And if Rick was organised she seemed the opposite, and in fact I noticed that in her own way she often seemed, quite highly-strung and nervous although generally she was actually pretty down to earth and good fun to be around.

I commented to him on this and Rick told me that she had just recently told him that she had in fact been adopted, a fact her parents had told her some years earlier. But for whatever reason right at that time she suddenly felt a pressing desire to find and contact her real parents. And it was this emotional need that was contributing to her slightly nervy behaviour.

Rick the fixer swung into action and just two months later after a bit of amateur detective work he found her real mother. He really was an amazingly resourceful individual. By an amazing co-incidence he found that her mother was living three hundred yards away from a wine bar we had been playing at. And to make it even more incredible his girlfriend had arranged the gig for us! So amazingly we had all been driving past her real mother's front door every week on our way to our gig for over three months. How about that for a massive co-incidence. But so it was a few days later he took her down to meet her real mother for the first time.

Now re-united with her real mother she began to spend lots of time with her as did Rick and we continued our hectic gig schedule as before. It must have been quite an emotional time for her, dealing as she was with meeting her real mother and still going home to her adopted parents. But Rick handled the whole situation with his usual flair and she relied on him to support her, which of course he did unquestioningly.

One night as we all drove back from a gig I sensed a tension in the car and they appeared to have had a minor disagreement. Her adopted parents were away and we were all staying at her house and as soon as we got in I said it was very late and I was going to bed. Rick guessing at my desire to leave them alone obviously felt embarrassed and told me to relax a minute and stay and have a cup of tea with them. And so I found myself sat uncomfortably in a chair feeling like a complete gooseberry as they continued to mildly argue about some aspect of their relationship. Suddenly they both stopped and Rick asked her to go and get the yellow pages. She smiled suddenly and disappeared off in search of a copy.

I looked on in bemusement as she suddenly appeared with one. They both sat side by side on the sofa and Rick asked her to close her eyes and flicking the pages in front of her I watched as she suddenly stuck her finger into the book. They both looked at where her finger was and picking up the phone he dialled the number from the page as she read it out to him.

Rick flicked the speaker on and I heard the ringing tone. Then with a clatter and a click a voice said "Midnite Motor Spares" and the name of a London borough.

What I've written next is only a rough approximation of the start of conversation that followed, of course I can't remember the exact words but the tone and gist of it is some thing I won't ever forget.

(Initially a tired cockney voice) "Midnite Motors how can I help?"

" Hi it's Rick I just wanted to ask you about a bit of a problem I'm having with my girlfriend"

A short silence followed but then the man continued apparently unperturbed. " Problem what kind of problem?"

Rick looked at his girlfriend and she nodded " Well she's saying stuff about my commitment to her and how I'm sometimes inconsiderate"

The man sighed and laughed "Well women are like that, how long have you been going out?"

Rick laughed "Well only a few months but"

The man interrupted " Nah you see there you are Rick it was Rick you said, you can't get to really know someone in a few months, wait a minute is she there?"

Rick turned to his girlfriend "Yes she is"

The man sighed loudly "Okay stick her on". Rick's girlfriend now moved closer to the phone "Hello love what's your main problem with him" and she began to talk.

I sat amazed as the conversation carried on for over an hour in the same vein. It was two o clock in the morning and a man at some far flung Motor spares centre was calmly discussing and advising two strangers he'd never met on what eventually turned out to be some pretty intimate sections of their relationship.

He was completely impartial, chiding them both, praising her in coping with her new relationship with her real mother, asking Rick to give her room to grow as a person.
He seemed a gruff sort of man but he was clearly thinking about the advice he was offering. But incredibly throughout the entire time he seemed unfazed by the entire thing but calmly continued talking and making absolute sense. He seemed to understand what they were going through and he ended the conversation by reminding Rick that he was a lucky lad to have such a nice girlfriend. Rick put the phone back on the hook. I couldn't believe it. I was lost for words. So I stood up and not knowing quite what to say about what I had just witnessed, I said goodnight and quickly went to my room.

By this time all their earlier tension had vanished and they both looked very happy and wishing me a goodnight they disappeared off to bed giggling and tickling each other.

The next day I asked him about the extraordinary episode and he looked at me in surprise and explained he had always done this. He acted as if this was perfectly normal behaviour. At first I thought it was just one of his little jokey affectations but I realised as we talked more that he was completely serious. If he came to a decision he felt he needed guidance or further advice on, once he'd talked about it to people he knew he would then often check with his own personal I Ching. The yellow pages.

Over the next years we spent working together I witnessed a few more odd conversations with individuals plucked from its pages.

Sometimes it took a couple of attempts but eventually someone always helped. It was always late and the reactions to his calls were always friendly. These strangers, night workers in all kinds of fields would sit calmly dispensing advice to another total stranger ranging from financial to emotional insights and always as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do. In a crazy way it made sense. These people had no personal involvement, no prejudices, and no pre conceptions. They were completely impartial and would carefully consider their answers and advice. And as Rick said advice was something people could only offer you didn't have to take it and as for answers well if you were afraid to get things wrong, you'd never succeed at anything.

He was an extraordinary person. We drifted as a musical partnership in the way that often happens, work got scarce, other projects came along for both of us, and eventually after a few years he finally left the country and went to Spain. He was setting up some kind of ethical tourist group, which takes tourists to real villages and let's them view the area without making an unwelcome and damaging impact on the local culture or economy.

It seemed like every thing else he did, normal but with an interesting twist.

I've read insightful writers, I've lived through various ups and downs and often I've found my answers after thought and consideration or by simply having no other choice.

But thinking of that night and the man on the phone, a random stranger who clearly wanted to help I wonder if sometimes we're all looking in the wrong place.

And as for Rick he always seemed genuinely happy.

But then I suppose he knew where to look for the answers.