Memories, like the windmills of your mind

Before I start typing this, I will let you know that I wrote it yesterday, and it ended up going somewhere completely unplanned.  I will however leave it as it is rather than mess about with it.

I was actually wondering what this Movember thing was all about recently, but was stupid enough to not find out anything until about the seventh of the month.  I wish I had thought about researching it sooner because, to be quite honest, I have sported many different variations of facial growth, so a month with a 'tache wouldn't have been too much of a problem.  Even Louise said she would have put up with the discomfort for a good cause (kissing y'see).  Next year is set in stone then, but for now you can all go and sponsor my brother Mark and the team he is a part of in this wonderful charitable event that sheds light on something that is incredibly important.

Granddad, Paul, and me with moustache

My granddad (on my mum's side) died of prostate cancer and, to be honest, I try to think of him when he was the active and incredibly fit man that I and many of us in the family used to go on walks with when I was younger (and much fitter myself).  I remember the man who me and Paul invited to go and record Rock Around The Clock with, where me and Paul played guitar and he played harmonica.  He was someone who I absolutely loved and looked up to, and I am sure that everyone who met him felt the same way, even Alex who engineered that recording session at what was Bandwagon Studios.

Me with beard at Alton Towers

Sometimes I will think of him as the man I saw in the hospital at the end, and that would make me sad and cry occasionally.  That is not a bad thing I think, because it shows how I felt, and still do feel.

When we recorded that session I was sporting a moustache which I still had at the next session some time later, bringing about Alex's comment, "you're take now Freddie!"  It's probably just me, but that still makes me smile thinking about it, although I may at the time have preferred he had mentioned someone else such as Burt Reynolds, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, or someone else that was far less camp.  Now I just think that it is funny, and maybe even more so.

I remember the walks with granddad vaguely.  I remember walking down to Pleasley Vale, back when you could walk everywhere without being stopped by security gates and fencing.  I don't think that sort of thing was as in your face back then.

As a bit of an aside, I just pressed shuffle on my iPod.  The first five songs are -

Hey You - Pink Floyd
All Around The World - The Jam
Connected - Stereo MC's
Battleship - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Cold Weather - Lee "Scratch" Perry

I don't know why I mentioned that, but I just thought that I would.  I find it interesting when I shuffle the songs, because I could never ever guess what song would be coming up next.

The next song after Lee "Scratch" Perry is So Long Frank Lloyd Wright by Simon & Garfunkel by the way. There is just something about vocal styling in the sixties that has never been bettered since in my opinion.  Just look at these, The Mamas & Papas, The Beach Boys, the Motown artists (of which the next song 'Heaven Help' by Lenny Kravitz I think is reminiscent in a passing way with it's close harmonised backing vocals).

While we're on the memory thing, I think my first memory of Top Of The Pops is Adam & The Ants performing, and I remember Blondie playing on the stereo at the Marina Fish Bar at Pleasley, when they had a back room where you could sit and chill with your mates.  I'm not sure if all of my memories are one hundred percent right.

Anyway, my granddad was a musician.  He played the harmonica and had a little keyboard.  He loved all types of music, and his harmonica playing including The Fool On The Hill by The Beatles, Stranger On The Shore by Acker Bilk, obviously Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley, and a lot more tunes.  I have an incredibly wide and open minded view to music, which I believe is where I was influenced by him.

We'll finish this right there I think, but needless to say that this Movember thing isn't stupid or petty, but of importance to every man.  It is a visual representation of something that is man's.  It is there to raise funds for different things that affect men, such as prostate cancer.  The money raised will be used to hopefully come up with more cures for these things which will hopefully be stopping people from having to put up with memories such as those that I have when I think of my granddad in hospital, rather than the music, the walks, the stories, the laughs, and everything else that was him.

Thank you for reading.  Please take care.

November 15 2011 (40 years, 11 months, and 20 days old)