Friday, January 31, 2014

I remember Pete Seeger, who died this week at the age of 94. He was well known for his banjo tutor, but I had an LP that he made that taught guitar. It was full of stuff on hammering-on and hammering-off and there were a couple of instrumentals that I learned. I used a clip of his tuning-up question ‘Do you have a pitch-pipe?’ in many a mix-tape. I must dig it out and digitise it. Or was it my cousin’s and she lent it to me? No, I’m sure it was mine. I also remember the extraordinary control Seeger had over his audiences, the ability he had to get them to join in with him. I was delighted to learn, reading various obituaries and tributes, another example of his extraordinary bravery, whereby a matter of months after Pearl Harbor he married the love of his life - a Japanese girl Toshi, who of course died last year.

I remember the only poem I can recite from memory – He for a short time tried, To live without her, Liked it not, And died.

I remember Richard Jackson, on hearing that someone had lost both their parents within a short space of time, remarking that this was a little careless.

I remember calling Canada geese Canadian in the presence if my cousin, who lives in Vancouver. Or it might have been the cousin (they are brothers) who now lives in New York. I was corrected and rightly so.

I remember when the conductor used to ding the bell or if he was upstairs the buzzer twice to let the driver know he could drive off from the bus stop. You had to press it once for him to stop at a request stop.

I remember noticing the other day in Morden, apart from the predominance of pawnbrokers, a pub with live music and live sport emblazoned on the windows. Two different uses of the word live. What would you do if you went in there and found a group of people playing football? Or a big screen showing the Last Night Of The Proms?