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Readers of this journal may be wondering why I haven’t posted an entry for quite some time. The last time I wrote was in June 2022 which, even for me, is a heck of a long time ago. The reason for the journal’s absence is rather complicated to explain. Obviously, much has happened that would now take several pages to recount, if I could even remember it all. But let me attempt to at least dance around my existentialist handbag, whilst avoiding emptying its messy contents all over the ballroom floor. To be honest, I think I’ve been feeling rather low for some time. Depressed? Well, maybe, though I’ve always fought against that possibility. But several things have pushed me in that direction of late. I caught some sort of prolonged cold/flu virus a few weeks ago which left me feeling weak. Still not fully recovered. Thought it might have been Covid at first but a test proved negative, so some other bug perhaps. Another thing that I’ve found hard to deal with is the news of so many musician’s deaths these last few months: Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Terry Hall, Jet Black of The Stranglers, Angelo Badalamenti, Alan Rankine, Charlie Gracie, Yukihero Takahashi, and today the sad news of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s passing. The last two names have a personal poignancy for me as I worked with both Yuki and Ryuichi in Yellow Magic Orchestra in the ‘80s and also with Yuki on his, (and my,) solo projects back then. Yuki was also my wife Emiko’s ex-husband. Both Yuki and Ryuichi had valiantly battled with cancer for some time but, in the end, defeating it was no longer possible. We had been in touch with Ryuichi via email on occasion during his last few years so knew that things were deteriorating to some degree, but this morning’s sad news came as a real blow. Emiko had known Yuki and Ryuichi since they were students at University in Tokyo in the 1960s and she was witness to the formation of YMO after Yuki’s time as drummer for The Sadistic Mika Band in the ‘70s. It’s fair to say that YMO were the biggest band in Japan back then, a remarkable three-piece who took the Kraftwerk template to another level entirely. Working with them was a wonderful experience for me, as was later touring Japan in Yuki’s band and having him play on my ‘Chimera’ album. The joint rhythm section of Yuki on drums and the late Mick Karn on Bass gave that album so much punch. Sad too, the sudden passing of Jeff Beck. I attended his concert in York last summer as a VIP guest, (thanks to a generous gift of tickets from the Nelsonica Team.) Jeff was on good form and very loud. He played a great version of Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ which took me back to my teenage years of listening to American guitar instrumental music. Jeff, like me, had a fondness for that stuff. Coming away from that concert, I had no idea that in less than a year, Jeff would be gone. I first heard him in the ‘60s, when he was with The Yardbirds and first saw him with that group on the ’60s TV show ‘Ready, Steady, Go’ playing the song ‘Shapes Of Things.’ His Indian influenced solo on that performance made a great impression on me, akin to later seeing Jimi Hendrix’s first TV appearance, (also on ‘Ready, Steady, Go.’ ) Jeff always had his own unique tone and touch, especially with his sensitive use of the guitar’s vibrato arm. I’ve noted elsewhere in my journal entries how I met him briefly at a Classic Rock Magazine’s Awards Ceremony. It was good to shake his hand and thank him for his inspiration. Another thing adding to my low mood of late has been the further deterioration of my eye sight. On top of my Diabetes related and age related macular degeneration, I now have been diagnosed with Glaucoma. My driving licence came up for renewal and I had to take a DVLA sight test to get the licence renewed. Unfortunately, my eyesight was not up to scratch so I can no longer legally drive. I’ve been driving since I was old enough, way back in the ’60s so the loss of my licence has dealt me a really low blow. I’ve always enjoyed driving but have now lost the freedom and independence that owning a car allows. Now I have to rely on Emiko to take me anywhere, though I have to accept that sometimes she may not always be available to do so. Emi hates driving anyway, whilst I loved it. One of life’s ironies, I guess. To try and keep my mind off darker thoughts, I continue to pursue my endless recording session. The list of completed tracks now far exceeds the list I posted in last year’s journal entry. I’ve been on a roll, recording both vocal and instrumental tracks. A huge amount of work done and I need to start selecting and assembling tracks into some sort of coherent album form. The newest album I’m working on will be titled ‘Guitars Of Tomorrow.’ The title speaks for itself. But I also have tracks set aside for an album called ‘Starlight Stories’ and one titled ‘Fables Of The Future.’ However, the next release this year will be ‘All The Fun Of The Fair’ which I completed towards the end of last year. It awaits packaging artwork which I have been somewhat lax in preparing but plan to make a start on this very soon. But there are still a handful of albums from the last five or so years which have yet to see the light of day. Again, artwork has to be prepared for these before they can be scheduled for release. Lots to do. Bought a new microphone a couple of months ago. It’s called ‘The Amethyst’ and is made by the JZ microphone company. It’s got a lovely warm vintage sound and I’m very impressed by it. Have been reading, (with great difficulty due to my impaired eyesight, ) Bill Frisell’s biography ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ which I’ve enjoyed and found it resonating with my own life. I’ve also recently bought a biography of Merle Travis which I will attempt to read soon. Now I must end here as typing is increasingly difficult, even using an enlarged font size. But, as always as the evening begins, I will be switching on my studio and engaging with my music. A life saver in many ways. Tonight I’m mixing a new track titled ‘Mr Wizard Takes A Trip.’ This one will be allocated to the ‘Guitars Of Tomorrow’ album. All for now. I’ll try not to leave it so long ’till next time.

Three days ago, (Sunday 3rd July,) I spent just over seven hours in the accident and emergency department of our local hospital after suffering a very nasty fall. It was just before 1 am on Sunday morning when Emiko brought my attention to a large moth which had settled on one of her flower arrangements in our dining room. Not wanting to harm it I carefully caught it and ran to the front door to release it outside. In my haste and in the dark, I tripped over the door step and found myself hurtling to the ground where I hit my head violently on the stone flags outside the door. I felt my head crack and immediately blood gushed from the top of my head like a fountain, cascading over my face. The blood flow was profuse and frightening. Emiko rushed to my aide helping me to get up off the ground and brought kitchen towels to apply to the wound but the blood kept flowing, soaking towel after towel and refused to stop. A 999 call was made to summon an ambulance and I was told to apply a wet towel to the wound and to press down hard on it until the ambulance could get to me. A 40 minute wait was what we were told to expect but the ambulance turned up after 30 minutes. The crew checked my blood pressure and heart rate with a portable monitor. The right side of my upper lip had swollen up and my teeth at that side hurt as a result of bruising to my gums. I had badly grazed my right forearm and elbow and sprained my right wrist. The little finger on my right hand also hurt and I had grazes to my right thigh and knee. The ambulance crew said that I needed to go to the hospital’s A+E department but that I should be prepared for a wait of several hours. Emiko asked if she could come with me but they said no, so I walked shakily to the ambulance, still clutching a wet towel to my head. As the ambulance drove to the hospital, various details were logged onto the computer by one of the crew. Soon, the ambulance arrived at the hospital and I was taken into the reception of the A+E department and told to sit with other patients awaiting treatment. After a couple of hours I decided to ask at the reception desk how much longer I would have to wait to see a doctor. They told me that it probably would be another six hours. I said that my wound was still bleeding so they called a nurse who taped a gauze pad to the top of my head. Time dragged on. More casualties of different kinds arrived and sat in the waiting area, mostly young people who looked the worse for wear after a Saturday night of substance abuse or fighting. Eventually, some hours later, a doctor called my name and I followed him to his consultation room. He was a very pleasant, youngish guy who carefully inspected my wounds and put me through various tests to assess any brain injuries. He then told me that he would try to pull the head wound together with a special ‘glue’ but needed a second opinion. He left the room and returned with a lady who examined my head wound and said that there was not enough loose skin to pull the sides of the wound together but suggested trying to seal it with ‘steri-strips.’ The doctor then went to get these strips, cut them to size and carefully stuck them to the top of my head, apologising for the pain I experienced while he did so. A gauze pad was then taped on top of this before he said that I was free to go. I ’phoned Emiko who drove to the hospital to pick me up and take me home. It was around 20 past 8 am when I walked through the door where I had fallen just before 1 am. There was dried blood on the stone paving slab, on the carpet in the hall and on the dining room and kitchen floor. I was tired and suffering from the after shock of the whole thing. Next day, Emi changed the gauze pad on the top of my head for a clean one. There was still some bleeding going on but nowhere as much as when it first happened. The pad has been changed every day. I now have a GP appointment on Friday for the wound to be checked. My lip is still a little swollen and eating is somewhat painful because of the soreness in my teeth but I’ve been told that this will subside in time. I’ve had some mild headaches and bursts of pain from the would but have taken Paracetamol as instructed by the doctor. My wrist has almost recovered. I’m not allowed to wash my hair though so it is still matted with dried blood. The experience was a shock to me and thinking of it now brings a shiver, but I suppose it could have been worse. It certainly came at a bad time as I was supposed to be doing an interview with Mojo magazine tomorrow but it will have to be postponed until my GP checks the healing process and gives me the all clear. I haven’t been able to work in my studio since the accident, having been told to rest and avoid stress. Four days without touching a guitar is not like me at all. But I have a great deal of material ‘in the can’, even more than that noted in my previous journal entry, so it’s not like I need to record at the moment. There's much more I’d like to comment on, particularly the debacle surrounding Boris ‘Greasy Pig’ Johnson who is such a pathetic cretin, but all that will have to wait until next time. I’m going back to the sofa to watch tv and take more Paracetamol.

A fair, (or unfair,) amount of time has passed since my previous journal entry back in January. So much has happened since then, not least the devastating war in Ukraine due to the illegal invasion by Russia. The barbaric atrocities of the Russian army trample on all notions of honour or humanity. It’s heartbreaking to witness the suffering of the Ukrainian people on television news channels night after night. Russia’s Putin is a man without a soul, feeding outrageous lies to his people, an insidious, sly monster for our times. Where this will all end is impossible to predict, but I pray it ends with Ukraine being able to retain its independence and sovereignty. We can only hope. Went to Wakefield cemetery to lay flowers on my Mum’s mini-grave on the second anniversary of her passing in April. It’s now two years since she left us. And still she features in my dreams almost every night. My brother too passed away in April, in 2006. Their loss, along with the loss of all my early family, haunts me constantly. I still find it hard to come to terms with. The eye surgery I mentioned in my previous journal entry has been completed. My left eye was operated on in January and my right eye also underwent surgery in late February. The operations were surreal affairs, with local anaesthetic so I was aware of the whole process being performed. It wasn’t particularly painful, but certainly uncomfortable and very stressful. Any improvement to my vision is only slight but may become a little better when I’m allowed to get new prescription glasses. Have to wait for the go-ahead for that from the eye clinic. I’ve had three eye injection sessions since the operation, the first of which was incredibly painful. Horrific in fact. They’ve been very careful to administer extra aesthetic drops ever since. Emiko and I have, unfortunately, contracted Covid recently, though we are now, finally, testing negative. I caught it first, and Emiko caught it from me three days later. Where I picked it up from I have absolutely no idea. We’ve both been incredibly careful to avoid it and have steered clear of catching it through the entire first two years of the pandemic, always wearing our face masks, always using hand sanitiser and trying to keep our distance from people. But the Government has, (prematurely in my opinion,) relaxed the restrictions and people now seem to be not taking proper care anymore, foolishly acting as if it’s all over, which it clearly isn’t. At the supermarket we are among only a handful of people still wearing our masks, the majority are simply acting as if the virus is non existent. Perhaps that’s where I picked it up? Anyway, we had a very rough few days suffering with it, despite being fully vaccinated, and it took us a couple of weeks before we shook it off and eventually tested negative. We still have some lingering effects from it though, particularly fatigue. I’m hoping this isn’t ‘long Covid.’ But it’s not like me to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, but that’s what has been happening. My energy seems very low for part of the day, though I’m managing to continue working in my studio at night when I feel up to it. And on that level there has been a lot of productivity with 53 new tracks completed so far. Some of these have been set aside for two new albums: ‘Marvellous Realms’ and ‘All The Fun Of The Fair.’ But the running orders are still undergoing changes and will probably remain in flux right up until the last moment. At some point in the near future I will have to decide how to deal with the remaining tracks from these sessions. There are definitely enough tracks left over for at least another couple of albums. I still, of course, have several unreleased albums sitting in my archives from the last five or six years. ‘Electra’ will be the first of these to see the light of day. It was meant to be released last month but my Covid infection delayed me being able to take the tracks over to John Spence at Fairview studio for mastering. (John also had a Covid infection a little earlier than myself.) However, I have now tomorrow afternoon booked with John at the studio and, once the album tracks are transferred to Fairview’s computer, they can be mastered and hopefully delivered to the factory for manufacture in the coming week or so, (once this extended Jubilee bank holiday is over.) Had a brief listen to a couple of the other of my archived albums today, ‘Phantom Fuzzbox’ and ‘Stupid-Serious.’ I was surprised by how good they sound. I haven’t heard them for a few years so it was like coming to them with the ears of a stranger. I think ‘Stupid Serious’ might be the next archive release, after the release of the newer ‘Marvellous Realms’ album . It’s fair to say that I really could sit back and not record anything more for quite a while as there is so much material awaiting release...but that would be frustrating and no fun for me at all. I simply love and embrace the recording process, and the unbounded creative dreaming that goes with it. Every day, my guitars seem to call out to me, the studio does too. I can’t imagine a day going by when I wouldn’t want to ‘make a mark’ on the virtual recording tape. It’s a joyous thing, though somewhat demanding of time and thought. But, if it’s sometimes difficult, it’s always deeply rewarding and fulfilling. It’s what I live to do. Lots of domestic duties constantly bringing this creativity down to Earth though. Django needing a vet’s very expensive attentions, car troubles, exterior house painting requiring setting up, increasing cost of living issues, guitar repairs in need of doing, etc, etc. Maintaining the creative lifestyle of a musician is not always plain sailing, though I’ve been lucky enough, (so far) in my career. And that despite some distressing and difficult moments over the years. But I’m blessed to have been able to follow my dreams for so long and to, hopefully, have those dreams continue and resonate with others. Music is a wonderful, magic thing... I could write more, particularly about this country’s lame duck/greased pig prime minister who seems to follow the old Trump style of governing this nation, albeit with added bluster, buffoonery and witlessness. But I’ll end here as I have more work to accomplish in areas that might hopefully be more kind and beneficial. So here is a list of the 53 tracks I’ve recorded in recent months and which will eventually reach the ears of those who care to hear: 1: ‘BEAMS OF LIGHT.’ 2: ‘SOME JIGGERY POKERY.’ 3: ‘A COMPASS IN MY MIND.’ 4: ‘IN THE BRIGHT TWILIGHT SKY.’ 5: ‘ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR.’ 6: ‘A MAGIC FRAME OF MIND.’ 7: ‘FAST FORWARD, SLO-MO.’ 8: ‘RUNNING FROM MY OWN SHADOW.’ 9: ‘MAN OF DREAMS.’ 10: ‘SHAPE SHIFTER.’ 11: ‘SIGNALLING AS WE GO.’ 12: ‘THE WEATHER SONG.’ 13: ‘STARS AND HALOES.’ 14: ‘BEEP BEEP BEEP.’ 15: ‘THE CLOUD ENGINEER.’ 16: ‘A DISTANT MEMORY.’ 17: ‘THIS MAY SOUND STRANGE.’ 18: ‘A LITTLE WOOZY.’ 19: ‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’ 20: ‘ATOMIC CORAL.’ 21: ‘MEMORIES AND RECOLLECTIONS.’ 22: ‘PUSH THE BUTTON, SPIN THE DIAL.’ 23: ‘ELEVATOR TRANSCENDANT.’ 24: ‘CHELSEA FLASH.’ 25: ‘IT’S A LONG TIME BETWEEN DREAMS.’ 26: ‘MADAME MIDNIGHT.’ 27: ‘THEME FROM AN ENGLISH ECHO CHAMBER.’ 28: ‘HERE ON EARTH.’ 29: ‘THE SILENT HOUR.’ 30: ‘WIND IT UP AND WATCH IT GO.’ 31: ‘AZTEC HELICOPTER.’ 32: ‘KEEP YOUR TELESCOPE FOCUSSED ON THE STARS.’ 33: ‘MARVELLOUS REALMS.’ 34: ‘ONE A.M.’ 35: ‘DRAGONFLY WINGS OVER STILL DARK WATERS.’ 36: ‘ECHO MIRROR ONE.’ 37: ‘DRIVING A BLUE CAR TO THE STARS.’ 38: ‘WHOOPS! I’M GOING BACK IN TIME.’ 39: ‘GLORIOUS MARCH TO THE GATE OF SPRING.’ 40: ‘AFTER THOUGHT.’ 41: ‘ONCE I DREW PICTURES WITH LAKELAND PENCILS.’ 42: ‘IMAGINARY MUSIC.’ 43: ‘NEVERNOON.’ 44: ‘THE GOLD BEYOND THE BLUE.’ 45: ’THE ILLUMINATOR.’ 46: ‘MONDO BRAVADO.’ 45: ‘THE INVISIBLE KID IN THE CORNER.’ 46: ‘SPOOKY DOINGS.’ 47: ‘THE HOUSE OF MORPHEUS.’ 48: ‘DANCE OF THE SONIC CULTURE GODS.’ 49: ‘THIS RIVER.’ 50: ‘THE MYSTIC.’ 51: ‘ALLOW ME TO INSIST.’ 52: ‘DOCTOR SONAR’S WAITING ROOM.’ 53: ‘IN MY IMAGINATION.’

8th of January, 2022, and a long time since my last journal entry. Such a lot has happened since then, including Christmas and New Year. One event was the final internment of my dear Mother’s ashes in November. Her ashes had remained at the funeral home since her cremation in 2020 as we were unable to get the remaining members of the family together for the internment because of the Covid pandemic. But time quickly passed and things haven’t really got much better on that front, so we decided to go ahead. Her ashes were placed in a ‘mini-grave’ in Wakefield Cemetary, right in front of my brother Ian’s grave, which is what she wanted. There was just myself and Emi, Ian’s son Julian, my eldest daughter Julia and my grandson Luke present. Just five of us. Julian picked up Mum’s ashes from the funeral director and brought them to the cemetary. It was a sad but somewhat surreal experience as Julian arrived at the cemetery with a carrier bag containing a green plastic jar or urn in which Mum’s ashes resided. It seemed a totally utilitarian object, not at all special or beautiful but Julian explained that this was a standard thing nowadays as the container was designed to not only be green in colour but also to be green in terms of eco friendliness and was meant to break down in time. A very kind man from the cemetery staff had removed the black pebbles from the surface of the mini grave and unscrewed the bolts that held the metal plate in position over the cavity. The plate was removed and, after we all held the jar containing the ashes for a few moments, Julian lowered it into the grave. We stood in silence contemplating the significance of the event. It was so strange, I found it hard to associate that humble green plastic container with the mortal remains of my Mother. If there was some form of spiritual afterlife I hoped that it wouldn’t be here in this small cavity in the ground, but ‘out there’ somewhere, everywhere, all enveloping, all around us. A subtle, sublime energy released from the physical confines of the corporeal body. Emi and I returned to the cemetery just before Christmas to place seasonal decorations on both Mum and Ian’s graves. There were many such decorations throughout the cemetary, people remembering their loved ones at Christmas. Lately, Mum often appears in my dreams, and in these dreams in which she appears I never seem to question her ‘aliveness’. She is simply there, as she always was, just my Mum. I dream of the dead a lot these days, my father, my brother, my two cousins, my musical friends who have left this Earth: Harold Budd, Alan Quinn, Charlie Tumahai, Ian Parkin and others...they all appear in my dreams, but mostly my mother and father and brother. Sometimes the dreams are slightly disturbing, always disconnected yet somehow linear. They can resemble a David Lynch film, but also a fairytale. God knows what’s going on in my subconscious... December marked the first anniversary of Harold’s passing. I miss his letters and postcards and emails but most of all the sound of his voice. What a lovely man and a great artist he was, and how priveleged I was to be his friend. Another sad note: I learned of the death of another friend, Tony Baker, on the 23rd of December last year. I first met Tony a good number of years ago when he was a teacher at York College and asked me if I would give a talk to his students about my experiences of being a musician. I was nervous about doing this but I agreed and actually went on to deliver similar talks at other educational establishments around the country. Tony and I became friends and went on to collaborate on some things including an exhibition at Flannels Gallery in Leeds. Tony played guitar and sang and had a band who I played a couple of numbers with at his 50th birthday party. He was a lovely guy, very talented, passionate about art and music and I’m so sad that he’s no longer lighting up the world. He was younger than me and should have had many more years to give to his family and loved ones. I want to turn away from mortal thoughts, but I’m feeling exeedingly mortal at the moment. I have eye surgery coming up on Monday, (10th January,) which I am absolutely dreading. (Perhaps ‘terrified’ would be a better word for how I feel.) My eyesight has continued to deteriorate, diabetic macular degeneration and age related macular degeneration being the two main culprits. Reading has become very difficult indeed and I really should not be driving anymore. Emiko does the bulk of the driving, particularly at night when the headlights of other cars dazzle, or when the sun is low during winter. But on top of the macular degeneration, I have cataracts too. The purpose of the surgery is to remove one of the cataracts and implant an artificial plastic lens in my left eye in an attempt to improve my sight a little. But the consultant said that, even if it works, the improvement will be very modest. But he thinks it’s worth a try, so I reluctantly agreed to have the operation. But tonight I’ve been looking through the pages of complications and risks that can occur from this type of surgery and it makes frightening reading. Am I doing the right thing? Too late now to back out...10 o’clock Monday morning is the moment of truth. Now, more positively, the six CD ear book that is the ‘My Private Cosmos’ album has been released and has been given a very positive reception from fans. The whole package looks very good indeed and comes with a postcard of one of my drawings and an engraved signature guitar pick. Creating this album with its 94 songs and luxurious packaging was a real labour of love, but one which I think was worth all the effort put into it. Also released in December was another new album titled ‘Mixed Up Kid’, so it’s been a very productive year in some ways. 2022 is set to follow suit with a series of releases of never before heard albums from my archives. And already I’ve just completed another brand new album, tentatively titled ‘Man Of Dreams’ (though this title may yet change.) I quietly celebrated my 73rd birthday in December, though thinking back on it now I honestly can’t recall if we did anything special or not. That shows just how inconsequential the whole thing was. Time flows on and on until it stops... Christmas and New Year were equally subdued, partly due to the ongoing Covid pandemic but also to a certain lack of enthusiasm on my part. I just couldn’t seem to drum up my usual Christmas spirit for some reason. The Christmases of my 1950s childhood were magical, sparkling, joyous occasions, but these days the tinsel has rusted somewhat. Even our Christmas Tree lights gave up the ghost a couple of days after we had assembled and decorated the tree. Must remember to buy a new set for next year. Well, there’s much more to tell but most of it I’ve forgotten as it has been so long since I last wrote. Must try to write a little sooner next time, all being well... A FLYER FOR ONE OF THE PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED ALBUMS FROM MY ARCHIVES. MY MOTHER'S GRAVE ON THE DAY THAT HER ASHES WERE INTERRED. EMIKO MADE THE FLOWER ARRANGEMENT OF ROSES AND APPLES.

In these pandemic times, human activity has been curtailed, and rightly so when considering the mortal threat posed by the Covid 19 virus. Of course, Emiko and I have had both shots of the vaccine, which has proved very successful in reducing the number of hospitalisations and deaths throughout the UK. Nevertheless, it’s still possible to become severely ill from Covid, even if you’ve had a double dose of the vaccine, so I’m somewhat concerned about the government’s plan to lift all restrictions next Monday, especially as I’m in the extremely vulnerable group due to age and pre-existing health conditions. Currently, the number of people infected is rising again, and very sharply too. Hospitalisation and deaths are also on the rise. This new ‘Delta’ variant of the disease is far more contagious than the original strain and now accounts for 99% of all new infections. And the more the virus remains in circulation, the more opportunities it has to further mutate, perhaps becoming more and more immune to the vaccine. Yet, even though restrictions are still in place right now, I see people acting with little or no regard to social distancing, hand sanitising or mask wearing in public. They seem to either think it’s all over or they’re totally ignorant of the dangers. The government are saying that when restrictions end on the 19th of July, the need to wear a face mask and continue social distancing will be down to individual responsibility, but they trust that the public will do the right thing. Well, I certainly wouldn’t bet on that. So Emi and I will continue to wear our face masks and try to stay away from crowded indoor gatherings. Better safe than sorry... On a happier and more personal note, I’ve been playing my new ‘62 limited edition re-issue Gretsch White Falcon guitar a lot on my current recordings. I’m really enjoying the guitar which is beautifully built and sounds great with its vintage spec Filter-tron pickups. The only downside is that it has small, half moon ‘neo-classic’ fretboard position markers which are difficult for me to see as a result of my macular degeneration. The condition of my eyesight has deteriorated even further, despite recently getting new glasses. I was back at the eye clinic last week for more injections, (in both eyes,) and the sight reading tests showed a quite dramatic reduction of vision, particularly in my right eye. It gets harder and harder to see clearly. It’s all very depressing. Nevertheless, I continue to record new music. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve amassed a huge number of tracks for the ‘My Private Cosmos’ album, far more than I need, probably enough for three albums at least. But as I’ve noted before, the more tracks I accumulate, the harder it gets to choose which ones to put on the album. One way to deal with it, is to make it another double album of course. I’m in two minds about that. Many of the songs are complex and lengthy and so may need repeated listens to fully appreciate. Keeping the number of tracks to a manageable amount may help speed that process. But on the other hand, that would leave so many other curious and interesting tracks out. I’m certainly not ruling out the double album route. We’ll see... Meanwhile, I’ve been doing promotional interviews for Cherry Red Records who are releasing a luxury 16 disc box set of Be Bop Deluxe’s ‘Live In The Air Age’ album, due for release next month I believe. One of the interviews was for ‘Prog Magazine.’ The set features many more live shows than were on the original album so it will be a ‘must have’ item for fans. I haven’t received my copy of the box set yet but was offered the opportunity to hear the digital files of all the tracks a while ago. As some people might guess, I politely declined. I can’t think of anything more time consuming than listening to 16 CDs of 44 year old live recordings. Perhaps when I’m old and grey I might take the time to listen to them, for old times sake, but right now there’s so much new and exciting music to deal with. (Actually, come to think of it, I’m old and somewhat grey now!) It’s strange how we perceive ourselves as still young and vital, (until we look in the mirror.) I remember doing the first of the live concerts at the Clothworker’s Hall in Leeds a few years back. Looking out at the audience I couldn’t help thinking, “why are all these old people coming to see me perform?” Then I realised that I was at least ten years older than they were...a sobering realisation! Time is like quicksilver, smearing the years, making a blur of events, people and places. Where does the time go? Down a very deep cosmic rabbit hole I reckon... And so, back to ‘My Private Cosmos.’ Can’t stop the recording process quite yet, though not not too far to go now, hopefully. Here’s the latest list of possible tracks that I have to choose from: ‘I Was Speaking With Orson Welles.’ ‘The Dusk Before The Dark.' ‘Kingdom Of The Sky.’ 'Silver Sparks And Coloured Stars.' 'Merry And Bright' 'An Acre Of Sunshine.' 'Friday In The Future.' 'Mechanical City.' 'The Listening Station.' 'Thunder, Perfect Mind.' 'Ghosts Dance In Ghostland.' 'When The Wind Blows All Away.' 'Fantastico.' 'The Super Sensualist.' 'Driving Through England.' 'The Astronomy Of The Heart.' ‘Light Rain.’ ‘Days Of Wonder.’ ‘My Private Cosmos.’ (Long version.) ‘Under Fading Stars.’ ‘The Memory Museum.’ ‘Coasting.’ ‘Osram Diadem.’ ‘In The Land Of Nothing Doing.’ ‘I Watch The World.’ ‘There’s A Star Somewhere.’ ‘The Light In The Mirror.’ ‘Hang This Moment On A Sigh.’ ‘The Universe Is Fast Asleep.’ ‘Far Side Of Nowhere.’ ‘Mists Of Time.’ ‘Another Rainy Day. ‘When We Were Beautiful.’ ‘Lanterns Are Lighting.’ ‘In The Chapel Of Her Sparkles.’ ‘Through My Window.’ ‘Seven Keys To This City.’ ‘Haunted.’ ‘With All The Will In The World.’ ’Dreaming Of Another World.’ ‘Helios In Memoryland.’ ‘This Dreamlike World.’ ‘Ghost Trains Travel On Phantom Tracks.’ ‘The Navigator.’ ‘Silver Stars Will Shine,’ ‘Driving Through England.’ ‘I Recall Jets At Dawn.’ ‘Time’s Tide.’ ‘Gazing Through Golden Windows.’ ‘Your Secret Sign.’ ‘They Tell You This, They Tell You That.’ ‘Celluloid Ghosts.’ ‘The TV’s On The Blink.’ ‘The Infernal Machine.’ ‘Living On The Moon Tonight.’ ‘Set Your Dials For Dreaming.’ ‘Lightning Strikes The Steeple.’ ‘Catalogue Of Dreams.’ ‘This Clockwork World.’ ‘Magic And Mystery.’ ‘My Private Cosmos. (Part one.)’ ‘The Roy Rogers Radio Ranch.’ ‘Old Brown Town.’ ‘Kirkella Bells.’ ‘Glittering Figures.’ ‘Time Stops Right Here.’ ‘Some Days It’s Orange, Some Days It’s Blue.’ ‘And All The World Was Ours.’ ‘I Dream Of Giant Telescopes.’ ‘The Trees Are Full Of Whistling Birds.’ ‘The Spectral Waltz Of Venus.’ ‘The Crystal Gazing Room. (No Sleep For The Alchemist.)’ ‘A Dip In The Sparkle Jar.’ ‘On An Ocean Of Dreams.’ ‘Techno-Punk Vs I Got Rhythm.’ ‘Are You Listening?’ ----------------------------------------------------- Ok, time to get back to it....

It was 15 years ago today that my brother Ian passed away on the morning of his 50th birthday. He would have been 65 today. Emi and I have driven over to Wakefield again to place flowers and a card on his grave. When we got there we found that someone had already put flowers at his headstone so we placed ours between them, along with a birthday card which had an illustration of jazz musicians on the front. It was a very warm and sunny day in direct contrast to the day he was buried there which was dismal and bitterly cold. Sad memories that haunt me still. Ian is always in my heart and so often in my dreams. Earlier today I gave an interview to ‘Planet Rock Radio’ which involved me choosing ten records which had inspired my earlier days as a guitarist. The choices were nor exactly ‘rock’ music based but I tried to at least choose tracks which were loosely in the genre. Not all ten will be featured though. Obviously ‘The Shadows’ were an early inspiration to me but the track I chose seems to have been dropped. Duane Eddy made it though, as did Albert King, The Yardbirds, the Beatles, The Byrds and the Beach Boys, (though the latter, apparently, had never been played by the station.) I think the stations remit is fixed on the rock genre to the exclusion of all else. Not surprising with a name like 'Planet Rock' of course! The interview required me to buy a USB microphone and headphones for my computer to make a connection to the station’s recording system. I duly bought these items from Amazon but there was a lot of ‘faffing’ about to get them to work properly. And, after a lot of trial and error, it transpired that the link to the station wouldn’t work unless I downloaded and installed Google Chrome, an app I don't use. There then followed a hair tearing process to get this application installed and working but finally, after much cursing, the connection was made. And, talking about hair tearing, I finally got my lockdown locks cut the other day. My hair had grown down to my shoulders and I resembled an aging hippie, not a look I was keen to expose. All neat and tidy now though, thanks to a visit from ace snipster Steve Cook. Also had another eye injection session at the hospital, this one lasting two and a half hours. My eyesight continues to deteriorate and the scans were not good. I required an injection in both eyes and the one into my right eye was excruciatingly painful. I’ve never experienced such intense pain on previous occasions so I don’t know why this one was so bad. The left eye injection was more like what I’ve been used to, a bearable amount of pain and discomfort, but the right eye was simply unbearable and I nearly jumped off the hospital bed with the acute pain it caused. I tried to not make a fuss but, even now, my right eye feels very sore and I’ve been experiencing a slight, sickening headache. On a more positive note, my personal copies of ‘Dazzlebox’ have arrived and the package looks really good, though I haven’t found time to listen to the album yet to check out the pressing. It should be released to the public next week I’m told. Meanwhile, I’ve continued to record new tracks for ‘My Private Cosmos,’ which may be the next album. Already enough material in the can for it but still trying to get a final shape together, a sort of cohesive concept or feel. I think this is going to be a special one...eventually. Time to get back to it, even at this late hour...

April 11th 2021. It was exactly one year ago today that my Mother passed away. It doesn’t feel like a whole year has gone by, the memory is as vivid as if it was only yesterday. But it’s a year that has flown like no other. Emi and I drove to Wakefield this afternoon to place some Spring flowers on Mum’s grave, though, as I noted in an earlier journal entry, her ashes have yet to be interred there. Now that the lockdown restrictions are slowly easing, we’re hoping that this will happen before too long. There is never a day goes by without me thinking about her. There’s a heavy feeling of sadness that continues to haunt me and will do so for the rest of my days. I miss her so much. I’ve been reflecting on the number of people I’ve lost over the years, both family and friends. It’s quite shocking and sobering, there are so many cruel departures, the most recent being my dear friend Harold Budd. That I’ve managed to get this far is a blessing that I’m extremely grateful for, though I guess it’s more to do with luck that any notions of ‘self-care’ or leading a healthy lifestyle. But creativity brings its own kind of energy to the table and slows the inevitable slide into oblivion. At least that’s what I grasp at in my darker moments. Time may show that to be little more than a naive illusion. Today’s journey to Wakefield, once again, brought back the daily trips we made to the hospitals that Mum was in for those last months of her life, then the rehab centre, and then the care home before briefly recovering enough to go back to her own home where, after what seemed like an amazing improvement in her condition, she fell ill again but this time did not recover. The weather today was contradictory, bright sunshine but a chill wind with occasional hail and even a little snow. It was bitterly cold in the cemetary as we placed the flowers in the stone holder on Mum’s grave. Both my Mum and brother Ian passed away in the month of April, Ian on April 23rd 2006, 15 years ago now. And that too feels like only yesterday. Time is a trickster. We will return to the cemetery with flowers for Ian’s grave on the 23rd just as we have done every year for the last fifteen years. We would always take my Mother with us and I can still see her standing by Ian’s gravestone as Emi and I cleaned it and laid flowers. Mum would gaze at it, lost in remembering, and finally reach out to touch it, as if she was placing her hand on Ian’s shoulder. That simple gesture was always deeply moving and brought a tear to my eye. But life goes on and everyone bears their own sadness and loss as best they can, though it’s far from easy. Here at home, in an effort at distraction, I’m slowly making my way through a mass of tracks recorded on my Cubase software system. These recordings cover the entire period since the system was installed, right up to the present day. Already ‘New Vibrato Wonderland’ and the upcoming ‘Dazzlebox’ double album have taken tracks from this archive, but I’m now attempting to assemble a future album, an album which currently bears the title ‘My Private Cosmos.’ The trick is to select tracks which feel as if they belong together or at least relate to one another in some way, either conceptually or tonaly With such a diversity of tracks covering so many different moods, it’s not an easy task. Nevertheless, dealing with it takes my mind off more troublesome issues. It’s a kind of sanity saver. I desperately need a haircut. My ‘lockdown locks’ are seriously out of control. Emi says I look like a mad scientist. Albert Einstein or maybe the guy from ‘Back To The Future’. Must try to call Steve Cook this coming week to see if he can come over to snip it all away. Apparently it will be ok for hairdressers to operate again from tomorrow. Struggling to read 'Dino', a biography of Dean Martin by Nick Tosches. Its beautifully and poetically written but my struggle is not with the text nor with the author's prose but simply because of my inability to see the words on the page, my eyesight now too poor to decipher anything at a normal font size. I never expected that, at this time of life, one of my greatest pleasures would be slowly stolen from me by macular disease, And so it goes. The new abnormal. Hey ho...and on we go... My Mother's grave, 11th April 2021. My brother's grave, 11th April 2021.

A cold and rainy Sunday here in our part of Yorkshire. It’s ‘Mothering Sunday’, known simply as ‘Mother’s Day’ to most people. This year’s Mother’s Day is particularly poignant for me as it is the first time, in my 72 years as a son, that my Mum is not here for me to present her with a card, a gift and a hug. But, we drove over to Wakefield to visit the cemetery where her ‘mini grave’ is located, even though her ashes are not interred there yet. Mum’s funeral was in May of last year but we couldn’t arrange a gathering of the contemporary members of the Nelson family to place her ashes in the grave. Covid, the lockdown and travel restrictions made this difficult so her ashes still reside at the funeral parlour, awaiting a time when we can safely gather to celebrate her life. We’re hoping that this will be possible around May, one year after her funeral. Emi had made a small hand-tied bouquet to place in the little flower holder on Mum’s grave and I wrote a Mother’s Day card which we fixed to the headstone with Blu-tack. Standing there in the cold wind brought back memories of the day we buried my brother Ian in 2006. (Ian’s grave sits just behind Mum’s.) That day in 2006 was bitterly cold too, with a freezing wind ripping across the cemetery. I stood next to Mum, holding on to her as Ian’s coffin was lowered into the ground. We shivered and shook from the combination of chill air and profound sorrow. I’ll never forget how desolate and hopeless we felt. Then 14 years later my Mother departed this earth too, leaving me as the only surviving member of the Nelson family that I grew up with in the ’50s and ’60s. My father, mother, brother, grandmother, great grandfather, great grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles are all gone. And so many close friends too. One minute, there they all are, laughing and joking and talking, then, one by one they disappear, never to be seen again. Right now, Emi and I are back home and I’m once again sitting in front of my computer to type up these words. My little home studio continues to be a place of refuge for me though, in some ways, not exactly the healthiest of environments. I miss the trips to Whitby and other places in North Yorkshire we used to travel to before lockdown entered our lives. Perhaps by late summer things will have improved enough for us to once again venture further afield. In terms of creativity, things have been busy. I’ve finally chosen tracks and a running order for the double disc instrumental album ‘Dazzlebox.’ This will be the second album I’ve released from the mass of tracks I’ve recorded on my relatively new Cubase software system. But, yet again, I’m unsure about the way this system sounds. One day I think the tracks sound fine, then on another day I’m wracked with despair, wishing my old hardware based system was still working. I really can’t be sure of what I’m hearing anymore. Of course, I could just be over reacting, feeling paranoid for no real reason at all. Anyway, the tracks are now with John Spence who will prepare the final masters for manufacturing. I’m hoping he won’t have any problems with them. At the same time I’m also working with Martin Bostock on the packaging artwork for the album. It will be a triple fold digi-sleeve with an 8 page booklet. Quite a lavish affair. Had an email from Mike Robinson at Eastwood guitars yesterday. He’s thinking of doing another run of my signature Astroluxe Cadet guitar with a few changes to differentiate it from the first version. I’ve emailed him some suggestions in relation to colours and pickup choices but will wait to see how practical these might be. There’s a certain amount of compromise needed if the final purchase price is to remain affordable. Well, it’s now 6 pm and I have a track to work on that I started yesterday, so I better get back to it. Here in this eternal recording room, the music never stops... My mother's 'mini grave with Mother's Day flowers', photo taken by Emiko this Sunday afternoon. A draft of the Dazzlebox cover by Martin Bostock. Another draft, which I'm finding myself preferring. A third draft...I very much like this one too...

As the lockdown drags on, so does my lockdown blues, nowhere to go apart from trips to the supermarket for food supplies and bottles of wine. Weather has been too cold of late to take much exercise other than a couple of hundred yards walk down the lane and back. Not much fun. Things were briefly more interesting a couple of weeks back when Emi and I got our Coronavirus vaccine shots. We’re both over 70, plus I have underlying health conditions, so we were in the second group of people to receive the vaccine. I must admit that I was impressed by the entire operation and efficiency of the medical staff performing the task. Two huge marquees had been set up in the old Park and Ride car park next to Tesco’s supermarket and cars were directed to parking spaces from which a short walk to the marquees brought us to a brief wait until we were directed to one of several ‘pods’ where a couple of NHS staff dealt with us. One staff member asks a few questions and checks details on the NHS computer system then the other one, (in my case a very kind lady doctor,) prepared the vaccine and injected it into my upper arm. All relatively painless. We did, however, suffer some side effects, (flu’ like symptoms, energy loss and headaches,) but these only lasted for just over one day and we’re fine now. One slight matter for concern is that our second ‘booster’ shot won’t be given until May 1st. As I understand it, the second vaccination is meant to be administered three weeks after the first but the government is not adhering to this timescale in an attempt to give as many people as possible the first dose. But, regardless of the vaccination, we will still need to continue to wear face masks and maintain social distancing. The vaccine doesn’t prohibit anyone from catching the virus, it only reduces the chance of serious illness and death. Apparently you can still carry and transmit the virus to others, even though you might not know that you have it. It’s clearly going to be a long haul to bring back some sort of ‘normality’ to people’s lives. And, until the whole world is vaccinated, this horrible disease is still going to find vulnerable targets. Nevertheless, the vaccination program seems to be going very well here in the UK. The mass vaccination centre which Emi and I attended is working continuosly, every day, from early morning to late at night. It’s a gargantuan task but one which the NHS is performing tirelessly at the moment. I’m so grateful and glad that we have the NHS here in the UK. I hate to think what would happen if things were otherwise. While on the subject of the NHS, I had to attend the hospital eye clinic last week for my regular eye injection. My previous appointment was early in December last year, so I’d gone a welcome eight weeks without having an injection. However, my eyesight has deteriorated considerably during that time and the scans at the hospital confirmed that the condition was worse. So, the doctors have decided that I need more frequent treatment and I’ve been put back on a four week cycle of eye injections, which isn’t good news. I’ve been enduring these regular injections direct into my eyes since 2015 but I still dread having them. It’s a very unpleasant experience and time consuming too. The whole process can take two to four hours out of the day and 24 hours to fully recover from the blurred vision and soreness that inevitably follows. But it is supposed to slow down the descent into blindness, so worth enduring. At least, that’s what they tell me... With little else to do except occasional supermarket vists and hospital appointments, I’ve kept up the pace of my daily recording sessions and have amassed even more material for future albums. I’m currently putting the final tracks together for ‘Dazzlebox’, which will be a double instrumental album. I’ve been undecided as to whether it should be a double or a single album. There are so many good tracks that it seems to demand being a double, but on the other hand the tracks are so rich and densely packed with ideas that I worry that listeners might feel overwhelmed by the scale of it all. It certainly won’t be an ‘instantly’ digested thing. It will require time and patience to find a way through it. Nevertheless, a double album it will be and I’ll just have to trust that people will spend sufficient time with it and, hopefully, find lots to like. I’ve worked out a running order for disc one and have now turned my attention to disc two. I have a new track ‘under construction’ for it, which I may get finished tonight or tomorrow. Once that track is mixed I’ll then make decisions about which tracks to include on disc two and in what order they should appear. Then it’s a matter of sending them off to John Spence at Fairview for mastering before turning my attention to the packaging artwork. Once I’ve chosen the images they’ll be sent over to Martin Bostock for layout and text work to be completed, and then the entire project will go for manufacture. So, I’m guessing the earliest it will be available will be end of April or early May. But it could even be later. We’ll see... Almost 5pm now, time to tackle that track. BILL PHOTOGRAPHED AT HOLY GROUND STUDIO IN THE LATE 1960s. BILL RECORDING 'NORTHERN DREAM' AT HOLY GROUND STUDIO.

I realised, as a very young child, perhaps no more than five year’s old, or perhaps even younger, that human life was finite and that a time would come when my own life would end. How I knew this I can’t exactly say, but these were the thoughts that passed through my infant mind back then, in those dusty, dreamy, supposedly innocent days of the early 1950s. Maybe I couldn’t quite appreciate the magnitude of those thoughts at that time, though I knew they didn’t bode well, not just for me but for those that surrounded me. The fragility of life, it’s brevity and unpredictability, was something I was instinctively aware of, even at that very early stage of my life. I’ve never been able to set aside those thoughts and now they seem more pertinent than ever. Life stretches on infinitely when we’re young, the terminus seems so remote, our ultimate destination millions of timeless miles away in the tick tock distance. But how quickly that distance is traversed and the years accumulate and recede in our rear view mirror, more behind us now than ahead. And here, in this wintery English lockdown existence, the world closed off, closed down, socially unavailable, time seems to be passing, paradoxically, both slower and faster. With no familiar routines to follow, (a Friday evening visit to the village pub for dinner, a Sunday trip to the coast, an afternoon spent walking the streets of the town in search of bookshops and galleries,) one day becomes difficult to distinguish from another. I’m awoken by Django, (our cat,) at 6:30 am, demanding food and to be let out into the garden. I attempt to ignore him but he is persistent and I give in, donning slippers and, descending to the chilly kitchen, eyes blurred with sleep dust, open a pouch of Whiskas before unlocking the door for Django to exit the house. Returning to bed I can’t get back to sleep, mortal thoughts crowding my mind. But suddenly it’s 10:30 and I realise that, despite a couple of hours of restlessnes, I must have finally dozed off. The remnants of a dream spin away in my head, a strange dream, as they inevitably are these days. Strange dreams for strange times. Then it’s blood test and insulin injection time, allowing 20 minutes for it to ‘take’ before my usual breakfast of two pieces of toast and a small bowl of strawberries and blueberries. The strawberries not good at this time of year, being hard and tasteless and usually from Egypt. I watch the news on tv, BBC and CNN, as Covid-19 cases soar around the world and Donald Trump perpetuates yet another self-serving lie while Boris Johnson stutters and splutters and tries to bluff his way out of the debacle that is ‘Brexit.’ It seems that Covid is not the only cruel virus that plagues us. Then a hot bath in an attempt to wash off the remains of the dream and the nightmare of the news. Then what? Perhaps an hour spent creating images for album packages on my computer, answering emails, responding to posts on my website, or, today, writing another journal entry about nothing in particular and everything in particular. Soon it’s dusk, then it’s dark. Lights illuminate my studio and I switch on the recording equipment. Dials flicker, dynamos hum and I pick up from where I left off last night, another track for another world. Before dinner, another blood test and one more insulin injection. We eat in front of the television, watching more of Trump’s horrorshow, a storming of the Capitol building by an insane mob of far right thugs intent on murder and mayhem. Out of order and out of their minds. After dinner it’s back to the studio to work on a mix or to start a new track. 10:30 pm rolls around and I go downstairs and, like a moth to the flame, watch tv again. Then, before retiring to bed, I return to the studio one more time to check out the evening’s work. Inevitably I hear something I need to change or to add to and before I know it two hours have passed and it’s almost 2 am. Bed and a book to stop the music whirling like a tonal tornado in my head, though reading has become nearly impossible due to my increasingly failing eyesight. It’s a real struggle but I manage to read, with spectacles and a magnifying glass, a few pages of W.G. Sebald’s ‘The Rings Of Saturn’ before my eyes tire. I turn off the bedside light and surrender to the next strange dream. And so it goes... Repeat, ad infinitum. BILL NELSON AND HAROLD BUDD IN THE GROUNDS OF MONK FRYSTON HALL, YORKSHIRE IN THE EARLY 1990s. PORTRAIT OF HAROLD BUDD TAKEN BY BILL NELSON IN LISBON, PORTUGAL, EARLY 1990s. HAROLD BUDD AND BILL NELSON PERFORMING AT 'THE CLOTHWORKER'S HALL', LEEDS, YORKSHIRE IN 2018 FOR BILL'S 70TH BIRTHDAY CONCEERT EVENT.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, 8th of December, 2020, I lost one of my dearest friends and the world lost a unique and wonderful composer and musician. Harold Budd passed away in a California hospital bed, alone due to the Covid restrictions which prevented his loved ones from spending those last hours by his side. It was the middle of Tuesday afternoon when my ’phone rang. I’d just finished having lunch with my son Elliot, so Emiko went to answer the call. I could immediately tell something was wrong from the way her voice fell. I took the ’phone from her hands as tears started to stream down her cheeks. On the other end of the line was Elise Fahey, the beloved partner of my friend Harold Budd. Through sobs Elise told me that Harold had passed away just two hours ago. She was heartbroken, as was I. The shock was devastating, even though I had known that Harold was seriously ill. I had been exchanging emails with Elise for a week or two after she had written to tell me that Harold had suffered a stroke on the 11th of November and was in a hospital rehabilitation unit. Harold’s communication skills had been impaired by the stroke but his mind was still shining bright. But then his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to ER, suffering from pneumonia and breathing problems. He was put on oxygen and antibiotics, though a test for the Covid virus came back negative. Over the next couple of days his condition sometimes seemed to improve a little but other times deteriorated. Elise was managing to speak with him via ’phone calls and a couple of video calls. I sent a message to Harold via Elise and she told me that he perked up when she read it to him. By now though, Harold was on the maximum amount of oxygen and was tested again for Covid. Elise said she was waiting for the results of the test. Two days later, I got the call from Elise to say that Harold had died. The test results had been positive. It seems that Harold had caught the virus from a fellow patient in the rehabilitation centre who had earlier tested positive. Harold was one of my dearest friends and a mentor to me. I looked up to him with respect and admiration. Over the years we had spent many hours together, laughing at the silliest things, viewing the surrealism of real life with a giggling, absurdist humour, usually accompanied by a bottle or two of red wine, the effects of which rendered us like two drunken Zen monks, one foot firmly on the ground, the other dangling hopelessly over the edge of some delirious abyss. I first discovered Harold Budd in the late 1970s when I was recording the Red Noise album ‘Sound On Sound’ at the Townhouse Studios in London. One lunchtime I had gone into the West End to browse the album racks at Tower Records and it was there that I came across an album titled ‘The Pavilion Of Dreams’. It was by Harold Budd. The album’s title instantly appealed, and when I looked at the back cover the individual track titles did too. I bought the album unheard and made my way back to the studio where I asked John Leckie, (who was working on the Red Noise album with me,) to set up a record deck connected to the studio monitors. We placed the stylus into the grooves of ‘The Pavilion Of Dreams’ and were entranced. It was a work of such aching beauty, like nothing I’d ever heard before. I became a huge fan. Later, in the early ‘80s, I was asked to contribute a track for an album titled ‘From Brussels With Love,’ which was to be released in cassette form by Belgian label Les Disques Du Crepuscule. Other artists on the album included Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and Harold Budd. Harold’s track was titled ‘Children On The Hill’ and mine was titled ‘The Shadow Garden.’ I was thrilled to have a piece of my own music sitting alongside one by Harold Budd. A few years later I was to discover that Harold had been intrigued by ‘The Shadow Garden’. He was living in London at that time and, through a mutual friend called Kevin Cann, asked to meet me. Harold travelled up from London to Yorkshire with Kevin and we met at my (then) home near Selby. We instantly hit it off, beginning a friendship which has lasted well over thirty years. During that time Harold moved back to America but whenever he had the opportunity to be in England he would come up to stay at my home in Yorkshire. We would take Harold to places of interest such as Castle Howard and the North Yorkshire Moors. Harold loved the ruggedness of the moors, the windier and wetter, the better. On one occasion I arranged for us to give two concerts one at an Arts Centre in a disused church in York, the other at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. Harold also invited me to record with him in New Orleans at Kingsway Studio which was owned by Daniel Lanois. The studio was in a beautiful old 1848 mansion in the French Quarter. Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson and R.E.M. had recorded there, amongst many others. It was a residential studio and we stayed in the bedrooms which were on the second and third floors. I found New Orleans fascinating and the ambience of the studio magical. We would take lunch and dinner breaks at nearby bars and restaurants, absorbing the local ambience. The album we recorded there was titled ‘By The Dawn’s Early Light’ and Harold told me, some years later, that those sessions were the best and most memorable experience of his career. Pedal Steel guitarist B.J.Cole was one of the musicians on the album but he had to leave early to go back to the UK for a prior engagement. Harold and myself continued to work on the album with the other musicians and, one day, whilst I looked in a room containing some of Daniel Lanois’ vintage guitars and amps, I saw a pedal steel guitar sitting there. I had never played pedal steel before but sat behind it and started to figure out what the various pedals and knee levers did. I managed to work out a little riff and was playing this when Harold passed the door of the room, stopped and looked in. “That’s great” he said, “We should do something with that.” And so we set a little drum machine at a slow tempo and recorded my pedal steel part over it, Harold improvising piano around the pattern. I overdubbed some electric guitar and the tune was given the title ‘The Place Of Dead Roads’ from the book by William S. Burroughs. My first attempt at playing pedal steel immortalised on that album track. Harold and I performed together in Portugal. I remember a radio interview we did in Lisbon where the presenter asked us what kind of music we would be playing at that night’s concert. Harold’s quick and hilarious answer was “The kind that people don’t like.” One of the pieces we pereformed at that concert was titled ‘Johnny Cake.’ Harold had devised a chart made up of a grid, each part containing an enigmatic instruction or the name of a chord. The idea was to move around the grid in a specific order but at different points in time, freely interpreting the instruction that the musician landed on. These concerts were Harold and myself performing as a duo, so the interplay could be quite stark at times. For ‘Johnny Cake’ I prepared my acoustic guitar in a manner akin to John Cage’s ‘prepared piano’, inserting knives and forks, (found in the concert hall’s dressing room,) between the guitar’s strings. The resulting sound added a strange tonality to the piece. A short concert tour with Harold in Japan was memorable for bringing about a profound change in my personal life. I won't go into details other than to say I was in a state of confusion due to a romantic entanglement. Harold counselled me saying, "Life is not a rehearsal, Bill..." Those words brought home the hard reality of the decision I had to make. And so, difficult as it was, I made that decision and have been grateful to Harold for those words ever since. Harold and I were later invited to perform at a music and arts festival in Mexico City. I flew out from England with two guitars, a couple of digital processors and my wife Emiko. We were ensconced in a luxurious Mexico City hotel for the week of the festival. Harold and I were to perform towards the end of the week, both in solo and duo form, but after only the first two days of the event, the promoter ran into financial difficulties and the remainder of the festival had to be cancelled. As we were not due to fly home for several days and our hotel rooms had been pre-booked, we stayed on and treated the trip as a holiday. Harold and I explored the city’s art galleries and had a very good time. I remember, with particular fondness, Harold, Emiko and I going into a Cantina filled with Mexican families one Sunday lunchtime. We sat at a small table with a basket of bread and a couple of bottles of red wine, consuming the bread, dipped in the wine, while an acoustic Mexican band played ‘Ranchera’ music on a small stage at the back of the room. A wonderful afternoon that I’ll never forget. Harold had two sons to his first wife and one son, Hugo, to his second wife Ellen. Terrance, one of Harold’s eldest sons, stayed at my house near Selby for a week in the ’80s, his first trip to England. In the eary 2000s Emiko and I spent a few days with Harold, Ellen and a very young Hugo one Easter week in York. We took them out to Castle Howard for the traditional Easter Egg hunt. It was a bright, sunny day and I remember Harold remarking on my sunglasses, which he really liked. Ellen was, at that time, diagnosed with cancer and some time later sadly lost her fight with it. Over the years Harold wrote me many letters and postcards which I’ve kept and cherish. At one time, before emails, faxes were a quick form of communication and we often exchanged those, (though their ink has now faded to near illegibility over the years.) In one letter that I wrote to Harold, I included a little line drawing, a ‘half-face’ as Harold referred to it when he wrote back to me, in his always exquisite handwriting, to tell me that he had framed it and it was now displayed on his wall alongside artworks by several of his favourite artists. Visual art was something Harold was tremendously passionate about and his knowledge of it was wide and deep but never pompous or pretentious. I can remember, on one of our trips to Castle Howard, Harold engaging one of the official guides in a conversation about several of the 17th Century paintings hanging in one of the Castle’s rooms. I was surprised that he knew so much about them as I imagined such paintings would appear somewhat obscure to a resident of California, but Harold was informed and knew his stuff. In May of 2005, Harold invited me to take part in what was going to be his ‘farewell’ concert in Brighton. The concert featured various artists including John Foxx, Jah Wobble, Steve Cobby, Theo Travis and Steve Jansen. It was here that I first met Theo Travis, a musician who I have subsequently worked with in my ‘Orchestra Futura’ live improvisation project and my ‘Gentleman Rocketeers’ band. The Brighton concert was a great success and it seemed to mark the end of Harold’s career as a performer. He told me that his future intention was to concentrate on composition, particularly writing string quartets. We continued to communicate, now mostly by email though there were still hand written letters and cards sent from him to me. He was living in a rented, isolated house out in the desert near Joshua Tree, and his letters told of his love for that environment and how Coyotes would appear at his door at night, how clear the desert night skies were and how he was sure he had witnessed UFO activity high above the house. After Ellen’s death, Harold had more or less lived a solitary life, but, despite the ‘farewell’ concert, had come out of his self-imposed retirement to perform live again, albeit only occasionally. Then I got an email from Harold that was full of light and optimism. He had met a French girl, an artist called Elise and fallen head over heels for her, and she for him. He was invigorated, renewed, a new man. Elise was much younger than Harold but clearly adored him. I was so happy for him. I continued to get emails containing photographs of Harold’s excursions into the desert area, taken by Elise, and was so pleased to see his smiling face. In 2018 I decided to celebrate my 70th birthday with a farewell concert of my own. I had been suffering with the permanent loss of hearing in one ear, prostate problems, diabetes and associated issues such as macular degeneration and diabetic foot concerns. I had been performing annually at the Nelsonica events which had become increasingly complex affairs. I decided to bow out of live performance to concentrate on recording music. When Harold heard of this he said he wanted to be there. He’d recently suffered a bad fall and damaged his hip and shoulder and was experiencing difficulties with mobility and pain, so I wasn’t sure this was a good idea. But he insisted he was going to come to England for the concert and would bring Elise with him. So in December of 2018, Harold Budd flew to the UK to not only attend my concert as a spectator but also to perform as an honoury fourth member of ‘Orchestra Futura’ alongside Theo Travis, Dave Sturt and myself, joining us for three improvised numbers. To have Harold there at all was wonderful, a true example of his generous friendship and our mutual respect for each other, but to have him join in with the performance was the icing on my 70th birthday cake. Nevertheless, I was a little shocked by Harold’s apparent frailty. The last time I had seen him was at a concert he’d given in Leeds, a few years previously. He was fit and robust then, and after that concert we retired to a nearby pub along with Steve Cobby (who we had both recorded with some years before,) to enjoy each other’s company. But now, in 2018, Harold seemed frail, much thinner and unsteady on his feet. The fall he’d suffered had clearly impacted his health. The day after the concert Harold and Elise came to stay in our village at a B+B establishment that we often used for friends visiting us from far afield, our own house’s spare room now being filled to the brim with guitars and obsolete recording equipment. We took Harold and Elise out to Castle Howard for lunch and for Elise to see the splendours of John Vanbrugh’s 1701 architectural masterpiece. December is a good time to visit Castle Howard as the building is lavishly decorated with festive trimmings. But when we entered the house, there was a flight of stairs leading up from the entrance to the main hall that Harold felt he couldn’t climb due to his hip pain and so he and I decided to sit in two chairs at the foot of the steps whilst Elise and Emiko went on to do the tour of the house. Whilst we sat there waiting for their return, Harold told me the whole story of how he met Elise and how he couldn’t believe his luck at finding her. He considered himself blessed to share his life with Elise and, once again, I felt so happy for him. Later that evening we had dinner together in the best pub in our village. The next day we took Harold and Elise to the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Harold was impressed by the building and its collection of works by Barbara Hepworth and other artists. He looked at everything with immense interest and Emiko took a couple of photo’s of us. After driving back to York we had dinner at the Loch Fyne seafood restaurant in town, laughing and joking and enjoying each other’s company, just as we had done for so many years. The following day we took Harold and Elise into York to wander the streets filled with festive Christmas market stalls, then to a cafe bar for refreshments and finally to the station to put them on the train to London, and from there they would catch their flight back to California. It was a poignant farewell. I sensed that this might be the last time that Harold and I would be able to see each other face to face. I had no idea of his future fate but I realised that his frailty would prohibit him from travelling internationally. I was just so grateful that he had braved the trip to attend my concert and to spend time with us as a true friend. And as it transpired, that was indeed the last time I would meet with my dear friend Harold, though we continued to exchange emails. The last time we communicated directly was not long after my mother passed away in April of this year. Then I became preoccupied with the clearing of my mother’s house, a long and deeply traumatic process, and I fell into a depression about everything, not helped by the Coronavirus pandemic. I received a photograph of Harold wearing a black face mask. I was glad he had taken the step of doing so, unlike so many of his fellow Americans. I kept meaning to write and ask how he was dealing with the current situation but didn’t want to bring him down with my own problems. And then, of course, I was alerted to Harold’s condition by Elise’s emails, all of which led to yesterday’s fateful call. Harold’s music was sublime, poetic, warm, achingly beautiful, but also intellectually sharp and precise, like ice carved by sunshine into delicately adorable shapes. His touch on the piano was sensitive and subtle, capable of the greatest tenderness. He often spoke of the ‘loveliness’ that he was chasing, an absolute and undeniable affirmation of transcendent beauty. I was privileged to sit alongside him and add my guitar to his piano playing, but as wonderful as those moments were, my most precious memories of Harold are those when we spent time together as friends. We always found something amusing and enlightening to spin tales about. He was a beautiful soul and I will miss him profoundly. Harold and Bill at The Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield, December 2018. Harold with Bill, Dave Sturt and Theo Travis at Bill's 70th Birthday concert at The Clothworkers Hall in Leeds, December 2018. Harold playing the piano at Bill's 70th birthday concert in Leeds, December 2018.

Once again, a long time since my last journal entry. It can’t be avoided any longer, so I’ll try to bring things up to date in as succinct a way as possible. The reluctance to write about my personal situation has been caused by a continuing depression due to the passing of my mother and the difficult, inevitable aftermath of having to clear her home of furniture, bric-a-brac and a lifetime of ephemera. A deadline was attached to this task as the house keys had to be handed back to her stepson, (who was bequeathed the property by his father,) by the end of August. Dealing with this was traumatic but when the cut off date came, we had disposed of almost everything, many items of furniture being given to charity shops along with various decorative items, lamps, kitchen implements and so on. A few items of furniture were given to a friend of Mum’s who was grateful to have them. A washing machine and some clothes were also given to my late brother’s wife. Emiko and I mainly hung onto various small, nostalgic souvenirs that Mum had saved from the 1950s, some of which related to my childhood and my late father, though we did manage to bring Mum’s small fridge freezer home to supplement our own less than reliable one. This now sits in our kitchen, a constant reminder of the trips we made to the supermarket with her every Saturday when we would stock the fridge with Mum’s weekly supplies. As mentioned in a previous journal entry, Mum retained a stylish 1950s bedroom suite that my Father had bought when we lived at Conistone Crescent on Eastmoor Estate, during my childhood. It comprised two large wardrobes, a matching dressing table and bedhead with attached side tables. I was very reluctant to give this away because it held great sentimental value for me, as well as being a nice design from that period. It also had a connection with my very first electric guitar, an Antoria solid body model. I think I’ve told the story before but forgive me for telling it again, just in case you missed it: The guitar, which was to be a Christmas present from Mum and Dad, had been hidden in the back of one of these wardrobes, unbeknownst to me. At the time, I was aware that I was to be given an electric guitar for Christmas but didn’t know what make or model it would be. I suspected, some days before Christmas, that the guitar was probably hidden somewhere in the house, so while my Mother was out shopping and my Father at work, I made a sneaky search of various cupboards, hoping to get a look at the guitar before the official ‘unveiling’ on Christmas Day. It was then that I discovered the guitar was hidden at the back of one of the two wardrobes in my parent’s bedroom. I carefully took it out, saw that it was an Antoria and posed with it for a brief minute in front of Mum’s dressing table mirror, marvelling at how the guitar looked. My only ‘proper’ guitar up to that point had been a second hand Zenith acoustic guitar and although the Antoria wasn’t the Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster I’d dreamed of, it was, nevertheless,a genuine electric guitar and I was absolutely thrilled with it. I carefully placed the guitar back in the wardrobe, hiding it again behind the clothes, hoping that my parents wouldn’t notice that it had been moved. And of course, when I was eventually given it on Christmas Day morning, I acted suitably surprised. I confessed to my Mother, in much more recent years, that I’d actually had hold of the guitar before the Christmas gift was officially given to me. The wardrobe and the dressing table mirror played a special role in my life as a young guitarist, and that’s why parting with those particular items of furniture, which my mother had retained for so long, was a particularly sad experience. I would have hung on to them, but there was simply no way that we could have made space for them in our already overcrowded home. So, a charity shop was approached to take the bedroom suite but, when the removal men from the shop arrived, they were unable to get the wardrobes down the stairs due to the stairlift which had been installed towards the end of Mum’s second husband’s life. (Her stepson’s father. George.) A week later, my daughter Julia and my grandson Luke came up again from London and managed to dismantle Mum’s bedroom suite and get it downstairs. The charity shop was contacted again and they came to collect. All went well until they attempted to carry the larger of the two wardrobes out to the van. When they tried to lift it, it started to come apart, and so they refused to take it. It was left in Mum’s dining room in a sorry state. along with a couple of other large items of furniture that we eventually couldn’t dispose of. We had no option but to leave it behind when we finally locked up the house for the very last time. Turning the key in the door and driving away from the house where Mum had lived for so many years was deeply upsetting. Emi and I shed tears before we exited the place, realising that this was the end of an era. We picked a few flowers from her garden and spoke briefly with a neighbour who thought highly of Mum, and then started the car. I turned to look at the dining room window, which was the room in which she had died, then drove away, never to return. Somehow, even though Mum had passed away in April, making these trips back to what had been her home to deal with her belongings had provided us with a familiar connection to her. It was sad and yet somehow comforting to be in the space where we’d so often spent time with her on our regular visits. Sitting next to her on the sofa, drinking tea while I glanced through the Wakefield Express newspaper catching up on events in the town I was born in. We would reminice about our early days as a family when my father was still alive. So many warm memories and marvellous times. I photographed the gradual process of dissolving the house’s contents. I intend to assemble these into a poignant video at some point in time, combined with camcorder footage I took whilst travelling to Wakefield to visit Mum when she was in the rehabilitation centre last year, along with some shots of the outside of the care home that she briefly stayed in before finally returning to her own home in February, prior to her passing in April. I’ll need time to assemble all this material, to put it into some sort of meaningful order and write and record some music to underscore it. It will provide a poetic memorial in some way, perhaps uncomfortable for me to view but a reminder of what she went through and what we, as a family, went through with her. It was actually at the start of October, last year, that Mum fell ill and was admitted to hospital, (now already more than one year ago.) She very quickly deteriorated and there were moments when we thought we’d lose her. She remained in hospital for roughly four months before she was sent to a rehabilitation centre and, after that, to a care home. It was the end of January that she eventually got back to her own home, where she wanted to be. Things seemed to improve, but then deteriorated again until the end finally came on 11th April. She passed away at home in the previously mentioned dining room that had been adapted as a bedroom for her. Eight months on, I guess I’m still grieving. I miss her terribly. Adding to this is the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic which has brought so many troubles to the world. Infections and deaths are on the rise again almost everywhere, particularly in the USA, and it’s increasingly hard to see light at the end of this dark and deadly tunnel. Emiko and I have had to curtail various elements of our lifestyle to try and protect ourselves from this insidious disease, particularly as we’re of a certain age, plus I have other underlying health conditions to contend with, which make me even more vulnerable. Sadly, the fatigue caused by the necessary restrictions seems to have led a certain percentage of people to behave recklessly, and the problem has been made worse. As a direct result, the country is once more being put into a widespread lockdown situation. Many people seem to have deliberately ignored the social distancing and mask wearing protocols, much to my, and others, dismay. It’s a disrespectful, ignorant and arrogant attitude which puts other people at risk of serious illness or even fatality, (not to mention the burden on our NHS services.) And whilst on the subject of ignorance...I’ve been watching, with a mix of amusement and revulsion, the increasingly desperate attempts by the so called ‘President’ of the United States, Donald Trump, to secure himself a second term as the leader of a country that is suffering tragically as a result of his total incompetence and egotistical self interest. America has lost so much standing in the wider world as a result of Trump’s crooked four years as a President. I remember him saying that he wanted to ‘drain the swamp’ of political corruption in America. What a joke! How can he drain the swamp when he is the swamp! God forbid he manages to swindle his way into another four years. The Republican party should hang their heads in shame. So much hinges on tomorrow’s election. Other things: My eyesight continues to deteriorate and reading becomes increasingly difficult. Typing these words is problematic and I have to constantly review what I’ve written to check for typos. I’ve had to bump up the size of the text that I’m now using so that I can at least spot any keyboard mistakes that my poor vision creates. As for reading books and magazines, it’s become a slow and difficult process with much of the joy taken out of it. Black text on white looks like pale grey on white to me and, even with the aid of glasses and a magnifying glass, I find it hard to distinguish the narrative without straining and re-reading. It results in a very slow process and is incredibly frustrating for someone who has always found so much pleasure and illumination from my lifelong collecting of books. Meanwhile, as an antidote to all the above, I’ve continued to write and record new pieces of music using the Cubase recording system that was installed in my home studio last year. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m still not entirely convinced by it, but I’m slowly coming around to accepting it for what it is. I suspect that my long history of working with recorded music has put certain expectations in my mind, (and ears,) that are somewhat confounded by such a clinical and cold digital, virtual environment. There are many advantages, of course, but equally many downsides. Nevertheless, I’ve amassed, at the time of writing, 180 new tracks. Not all of these are individual songs though as that number includes alternate mixes of quite a few pieces, but there are still well over 100 individual new titles. Sorting through all of them, choosing the best mixes and separating them into albums with working running orders is going to be a major task. I’ve been thinking that the first of these new albums should carry the title ‘New Vibrato Wonderland’, which implies a kind of optimism, (despite the fact that there is also a melancholy, reflective aspect to some of the songs.) The problem is, as soon as I finish one track, I want to immerse myself in the process of creating another one, trying to get closer to what I hear in my head. I start with a certain idea in mind but end up somewhere else entirely. The music seems to have a mind of its own and shows little respect for my initial intentions. Perhaps that is absolutely fine and ok. I’ve lost the ability to stand back and judge it in any objective, or even subjective sense anymore. Maybe I never had that ability in the first place. What emerges, at the end of the day, is a reflection of a moment in time, a kind of struggle, with all its emotional and intellectual highs and lows. Try as I may, I can’t seem to impose any preconceived ideas on it. The music resists and demands to be left to its own devices. And maybe that’s all that is possible, so I must try to be content, accept it and move on, one step at a time. Sometimes though, it seems pathetic that ‘artists’ agonise over this stuff, as if any of it really matters. But it’s undeniable that it does matter in some way to some of us, and will continue to do so. For what it’s worth, it’s my life and my joy. The wardrobe mentioned in this journal entry...

Spent the last three days over at my mother’s house again, trying to make a little more progress with the task of sorting through her belongings. My eldest daughter Julia and Grandson Luke travelled up from London to lend a hand and they have both been incredibly helpful. They managed to take many of Mum’s clothes to a charity clothing shop, some of which was of no use to the shop so will have to be sent to a waste/recycling depot, but about half of the clothes were deemed useful and will hopefully raise some income for the various charities. I think, no, I know, that Mum would have approved of her clothing being disposed of in this way. But there was one jacket in Mum’s wardrobe that I wanted to keep as a personal remembrance of her. It’s a blue, kind of ‘checked’ jacket that she wore at the Clothworker’s Hall concert event in 2018, the event that was held to celebrate my 70th birthday. I have photographs of her at that event, wearing that very jacket whilst watching my performance. It’s a deeply touching memory for me as it would, sadly, be the last time that she was able to come to see me playing. Julia also took some of Mum’s mobility apparatus to the care home that Mum had briefly been in at the start of the year, and they were grateful for the donation. I’d called a house clearance company earlier last week and arranged for a guy to call and have a look at Mum’s furniture with the possibility of buying some of it, but he was careful to only pick some of the more valuable pieces and then didn’t offer what they were worth. He seemed more interested in getting me to pay him to remove the less valuable items to the council tip. I told him I’d think about it, but I don’t intend to let him have the stuff. Actually, there are two items of furniture that belong to me personally that I’d stored in Mum’s garage, several years ago. One is a 1930s Art Deco ‘Sunray’ display cabinet that used to sit in my own library/study in Haddlesey House in the late 1970s. I loved that cabinet and managed to hang on to it when I divorced in the early ’90s, hence it being stored in Mum’s garage since that time. For a while back then, due to the divorce, I didn’t have a place of my own to live but Mum let me stay with her for a while. I then moved to Japan to be with Emiko and lived in Emi's Tokyo apartment for a year. We then came to England and rented an apartment at Gateforth, near Selby, and later were married. At the latter part of the ’90s, Emi sold her apartment in Tokyo and, with the proceeds, bought the house where we have now lived for over 20 years. Unfortunately, there is no space for my Art Deco Sunray cabinet here as Emi shipped much of her furniture over from Tokyo when we first moved in. (The house is not large and is already filled with stuff, including far too many guitars.) So, basically, the Deco cabinet stayed locked in Mum’s garage, along with a 1920s oak wardrobe I’d bought. So, now I’m looking for a buyer who might appreciate the piece and give it the home it deserves. It’s a very attractive thing and totally evocative of its period. I might try to offer it up for sale on my Dreamsville website as it may also appeal to any fans who would like to own something that once sat so handsomely in my own personal library/study at Haddlesey House in the 1970s. It requires ‘feeding’ with restorative furniture polish after its sojurn in Mum’s garage, but is otherwise ok. Just needs a little tender loving care. Meanwhile, our dining room continues to fill up with memorabilia and sentimental items that I’ve brought back from Mum’s. Where to put it all is an ongoing problem. There are quite a few items that I remember from my 1950s childhood that she had held onto, mostly pieces of glassware including a Deco patterned glass bowl that I remember Mum serving custard from when we lived at 28, Conistone Crescent on Eastmoor Estate, when I was just a kid. Mum’s baked jam puddings with custard were a favourite of mine in those long ago years. Can’t eat them now of course due to my Diabetes, (more’s the pity.) Also in the garage were several cardboard boxes filled with magazines and similar ephemera which I’d also stored at Mum’s for safe keeping after the divorce. In one box was a number of old ‘Rolling Stone’ magazines from the 1960s featuring now legendary and sadly deceased musicians on the front cover. This was Rolling Stone magazine’s most vibrant and influential period. Also in the box was a lot of ‘Zig Zag’ magazines from the late ’60s, early ’70s with artists such as Captain Beefheart and The Edgar Broughton Band on the front cover. I need to set aside some time to wade through all these vintage publications and perhaps scan some items to present to fans via my website. Another box contains early ’70s copies of the American magazine ‘Guitar Player’ with people such as Joe Pass on the cover. And yet another box has very early copies of ‘The Face’ magazine, which was stylish and hip when it was first published. But now, despite shifting much of this stuff from Mum’s to my house and making inroads into winding up her day to day life, such a lot remains ‘in situ.’ I’m currently faced with the enormity of what to do with her furniture, some of which, as I’ve previously mentioned, has great sentimental value for me. Some of the decorative ‘knick knacks’, pieces of porcelain, crockery, unused electrical items, framed prints, kitchen stuff, DVD’s, CD’s etc, we’ve wrapped up in newspaper, ready to take to charity shops where their sale might hopefully benefit one needy cause or other. But even shifting and transporting all this stuff is going to be difficult for Emi and I. One thing that has hit home during this sad time is the realisation that, no matter how timeless I might feel mentally, in physically terms, I’m in my 70s with some serious health problems. Therefore, unfortunately, it’s quite hard to deal with all this stuff as if I were a young man. And, aside from that, the emotional impact is deep and debilitating. Sometimes it all becomes too much to bear. Driving away from Mum's house the other day, I remembered how she would stand at the door and wave to us as we drove away after visiting her every weekend. I looked ’round at the door as we left the other day and, of course, she was no longer there. Well, ‘that’s life.’ And from the moment we’re born, we’re dying. As the old Buddhist Dharma says: ‘Death is caused by Birth,’ and, yes, I get that totally, but it’s what we do in this fleeting moment of our performance on life’s tragic stage that matters. And what matters most is to love and be loved... EMIKO, MUM, JULIAN AND JULIA AT MY 70th BIRTHDAY CONCERT IN 2018,

I’ve been reluctant to write a journal entry for a while. I’m still very depressed about losing my Mum and can’t find much positivity at the moment. Feeling down and disheartened... I’m currently trying to deal with Mum’s belongings and have been travelling to Wakefield a couple of days each week to continue sifting through a lifetime of her stuff, trying to decide what to throw away and what to keep. There’s a lot of it and it’s not been easy. I’ve brought back a few car loads of memorabilia and paper ephemera from her cupboards, drawers and boxes, plus some items of crockery, glassware and kitchen utensils that I remember from my childhood in the 1950s. It's not easy to find space for everything here, but some items, whilst inconsequential to anyone else, have a great deal of sentimental resonance and value for myself. In a spare bedroom there were tons of boxes of reel-to-reel tapes that I’d stored at Mum’s many years ago when I’d become divorced and had no place of my own to keep them. I’d forgotten just how many tapes there were, from ¼ inch stereo mixes to four, eight and sixteen track master tapes from my home studio in the‘70s and ‘80s, plus some two inch multitrack master tapes, (the latter very heavy to carry.) It took four or five trips in the car to bring them all back here from Wakefield. I haven’t had time to go through the tapes in detail but there are quite a few ¼ inch stereo monitor mixes from the tour that was recorded for Be Bop Deluxe’s live album. These are not multi-track tapes, just raw stereo recordings straight from the front of house mixing desk, so the quality or balance won’t be great, but they may make interesting listening and might cover shows that were not chosen for the official live album. There are also master tapes for the soundtrack of the ‘Dream Demon’ film and some other film and tv master tapes. Plus odds and ends of solo home recordings, live backing tapes and so on. Of course, one of the problems in dealing with all this material is that they’re on various different tape formats and I no longer have the machines to play them back on and, in the case of multi-track tapes, to mix them. I need to find somewhere that has the facility to copy them across to a digital platform that would be compatible with my Cubase system, but that is going to prove expensive and time consuming. Dealing with Mum’s furniture is proving to be more of a headache. I’m planning to contact a house clearance company to see if the majority of it can be taken by them, even though there are some items that go back to my ‘50s and ‘60s period. In particular there is a very nice bedroom suite that my Mum and Dad bought in the late ‘50s when we lived at 28 Conistone Crescent on Eastmoor. It comprises two large wardrobes, a big dressing table, bed headboard and side tables. It’s in a kind of grey Melamine finish, quite unusual and stylish. It’s a very nostalgic and sentimental thing to me. When I was a boy and was told by my parents that I would be getting my first electric guitar for Christmas, I couldn’t wait. And when Mum and Dad had gone out into town, I searched the house to see if I could find where they might have hidden the guitar. Various cupboards were explored but with no luck, then I tried the wardrobes. Nothing in the first one other than clothes, but in the second wardrobe, behind the clothes, was a brand new Antoria solid body guitar. I took it out, posed in front of the dressing table mirror with it for a minute or two, then carefully placed it back behind the clothes in the weardrobe. On Christmas day I had to pretend I was seeing it for the very first time. Anyway, those wardrobes are just one of the things that must now be disposed of. I’d dearly love one of them but we simply have no space for it, so it will have to go along with the rest of the bedroom suite and other items of furniture. One thing that has proved fascinating whilst sorting through Mum’s things has been the discovery of old photographs and documents relating to different generations on her side of the family. I’ll attach some to this and future journal entries but there is also an excellent thread on my website’s forum in which a fan has researched my geneology on my Mother’s, (Griffiths,) side of our family. He’s done a great job of piecing things together from census and marriage records, tracing my ancestors as far back as the early 1800s. It brings to life what I previously could only speculate on and I now feel a real connection with my great grandparents and great, great grandparents and even further back than them. The only thing is that I wish my Mother was still here so that I could share this new-found knowledge with her. After my Dad died in 1976, Mum continued to live on Eastmoor Estate but later, in the ‘80s, met George, (a widower,) who she married. Mum and George then occupied the house on the edge of Flanshaw Estate where she has lived, since then, until she passed away this April. The house is not owned by Mum, it was left by George to his son and daughter, with some other property and assets, when he died, some years ago now. Mum was allowed to continue living there but only until her own passing, so the house reverts to George’s offspring now, who are both middle-aged. Mum was married to George for almost 30 years, helped raise his kids, looked after George when he became seriously ill, and cared for him right up to his death. But since their Father died, his son and daughter have never once been in touch with my Mother to ask how she is. Not a word from them until the other week when George’s son contacted my nephew Julian to ask how soon we could hand the keys to the house over to him. I guess that speaks for itself... I’ll change the subject: Another discovery in the spare bedroom at Mum’s was a box filled with old posters of different sizes. The posters advertised gigs and record releases from various times in my career, some going back to the earliest days of Be Bop Deluxe and some even before that. They’re all back here now and some would look nice framed but I have next to no wall space available to display them. A few years ago, the Nelsonica team helped me to put an exhibition of my artwork and memorabilia together at an event held at the Clothworker’s Hall in Leeds. Maybe this is something we could repeat at some point in the future so that these vintage posters could be shown to fans. But the Coronavirus pandemic might not allow this for quite some time yet. Emiko and I have been very lucky so far in that we’ve managed to steer clear of the virus, (despite one of our next door neighbours coming down with it,) But it’s still a tremendously worrying situation and especially risky because of our age and my existing health problems. Some of the lockdown measures have been eased and more easing is planned by the government soon, but I question the wisdom of this. Already there is a big increase in cases in Leicester which has been forced to close shops and schools again, only a couple of weeks after they were given the ok to reopen. The evil virus is still in circulation and deaths are still occurring at far too high a rate. People are becoming complacent. Not enough are wearing masks or observing the social distancing rules. At the supermarket yesterday, I only saw one other person wearing a face mask, apart from Emi and myself. And some people, mainly younger ones but some older ones too, seem not to care about keeping their distance. It’s irresponsible and annoying. America, of course, is showing us just how dangerous, (and stupid,) ignoring these rules can be.They are experiencing a massive increase in Covid-19 cases and some states are now having to go into lockdown again. Trump and his government have bungled the whole thing, advising states to open too soon and not insisting upon the necessary measures to contain the spread of the virus. The numbers of cases and deaths over there is staggering. If there’s anything good resulting from this, I guess it is that Trump’s ratings have plummeted and there’s a good chance that he won’t get re-elected. One thing that America doesn’t need right now is another four dismal years of Donald Trump pretending to be ‘President.’ What a corrupt, self-serving egomaniac. Here at home, my evenings are spent in my studio and the new tracks I’ve recorded are piling up. Enough to fill three albums at the moment, I think, though I’m still finding it difficult to judge their worth. This system is certainly taking some getting used to, though I’ve got my head around the operational basics of it now. But I do miss my old Mackie hardware and mixing desk. I really should start sifting through all these new tracks and choose which mixes work best and try and assemble an album and get it off to John Spence to master. And I’ve still got ten or so albums that were recorded on my old system waiting to be mastered too. There hasn’t been any eye injections since March as the hospital suspended the monthly procedure due to the Coronavirus situation, but I’ve now been given an appointment for them to commence again. My appointment is for 7th July. Not looking forward to that but I have to admit that my eyesight has noticeably deteriorated these last few months due to the lack of treatment. So, even though it’s not a pleasant experience, I’m hoping that it will stop things getting any worse for a while. Now it’s time to do a little more studio work. My great Grandmother, Jane Griffiths, (seated,) and what could be my grandmother, or at least someone who looks very similar to her. One of these is a Griffiths. Another Griffiths family member, but I've no idea who... And yet another ancestor of mine, but nothing written on the back of the photo' to identify him...

It’s another hot day here, the sun is blazing in through the skylight of my studio and onto the computer screen, making it hard to read what I’m typing. I need to cut a big piece of card to tape to the skylight to keep things in the shade. An occasional cloud blocks the sun for a minute or two, but it doesn’t last and the glare returns. Because of my injured ankle, I haven’t been able to take my daily exercise but decided to walk, (with the aid of a walking stick,) down the lane outside our house today. It proved to be very uncomfortable as my ankle still pains me, but I need to try to exercise as my blood-sugar levels have been too high of late. Regular but gentle exercise is essential when you have diabetes. It helps keep the sugar levels under control. But stress and anxiety raises them... The day before Mum’s funeral, we suffered another car breakdown. We were just about to go to the village Co-op in Emi’s car but it wouldn’t start, or at least it tried to but spluttered out. I think it could be a return of the engine problem we had on the motorway a couple of months ago. This time it happened in our back garden so we’re lucky that it wasn’t while we were driving to Wakefield for the funeral. That would have been a total disaster. Anyway, we used my car instead. I’ve been in touch with the garage where we have our cars serviced and repaired. They’re closed due to the pandemic but I’ve emailed the garage’s owner and he will come out to our house early next week to try and, hopefully, fix it. I’ve been working on a song that has a tongue-in-cheek lyric about the current lockdown situation. It's kind of funny but quite groovy too. When it’s finished I might put it on my website for fans to listen to for free. Must create a video of some sort for it though. I still haven’t sorted through the memorabilia I brought from my Mum’s house. I keep putting it off, probably because it’s still an emotionally raw time for me. But there are a few more photographs amongst it that might fit into the tribute memorial video I’m making for the website. Emi had created some beautiful flower arrangements for Mum’s funeral. (See photo’s attached to this journal entry.) She had included some flowers picked from Mum’s garden and our own garden. After the funeral we took the flowers to my brother Ian’s grave at Wakefield’s Cemetery and laid them in front of his headstone. He died in 2006 but it seems like only yesterday that Mum and I stood by his graveside, brokenhearted, watching his casket being lowered into the ground. Mum, Emi and I have visited Ian's grave quite often since that day, bringing new flower arrangements and cleaning the headstone. We are going to try and arrange for my Mum’s ashes to be interred next to Ian’s resting place, which is what she had asked for. For now though, her ashes will be kept at the funeral home until such time as we can have a formal internment and a family gathering to celebrate her life. Unfortunately, no one knows when the current social distancing restrictions will be lifted, so it could be some time yet before a proper gathering will become possible. So now, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s just me, the last living member of a family that was established in 1948 when I was born. All other family members are gone. There’s no one left from the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s that can reminisce with me about those happy times. One thing I do know is that the child I once was is still here, inside me. No matter how old we get, a part of us remains a child, sometimes lost and frightened, sometimes wide-eyed and playful, but always with the fear of losing our parents. Now this journal is done for today. I have to take a prescription to the doctor’s surgery. I’ve run out of some of the essential medication I need. Should have done it a couple of days ago but... other things on my mind. Mum with Whiskey, the West Highland White Terrier our family had in the early 1960s. This photograph was taken at the caravan site at Skipsea on the East Coast of Yorkshire where my parents had a caravan. The Austin Cambridge car was my Dad's. One of the flower arrangements made by Emiko for Mum's funeral. Another floral arrangement made by Emi for Mum's funeral. And another flower arrangement made by Emi for Mum's funeral. My son Elliot and myself at the crematorium after Mum's funeral service. My grandson Luke holding one of Emi's flower arrangements at the Crematorium. Mum with my eldest daughter Julia. Photo' taken backstage at my 70th birthday concert at the Clothworker's Hall in Leeds, 2018. Mum talking with Elise, (Harold Budd's partner,) backstage at my 70th birthday concert in Leeds, 2018.

Struggling to get to grips with yesterday’s funeral. A terribly sad and disturbing farewell to my Mum. None of it felt real somehow. Experienced through a filter of denial, it was like viewing a strange movie of which I was a distant spectator, watching it all unreel, artificial, unable to grasp that this was really happening. But, oh so sadly, it was. Heartbreaking. Only ten people were allowed to attend, due to the Coronavirus restrictions, but a few people stood outside the Crematorium, listening to the service on loudspeakers. Even this seemed somehow surreal. I had chosen two pieces of music to be played at the service, but they were faded out fairly quickly due to the 20 minute limitation on the whole event. The first piece was one of my Mum’s favourite tunes, Freddy Gardner’s recording of ‘Body And Soul’, a wonderful saxophone piece with full orchestra accompaniment. It was very special to my Mum because my Father played it when she first met him. He based his style on Freddy Gardner’s. It’s also the first recording I ever remember hearing as an infant. The second piece, played at the end of the service, was ‘A Dream For Ian,’ one of my own tunes, written for my late brother when he passed away in 2006. Mum said that she was always moved by the piece whenever I played it at the Nelsonica events. It seemed fitting because she had loved Ian so much and the recording was a way of bringing Mum, Ian, me and Ian’s children together in some nebulous way. It was a humanitarian service with no religious overtones. Just a brief dialogue encapsulating the main points of her life, read by a man who had the job of being the celebrant. Although he had never met my Mum, he gave a sincere testimony, based on the information he had been given by Julian and myself. Under the circumstances, it was the best that could be done. At the end of the service, I stood before Mum’s coffin, adorned with the beautiful flower arrangements that Emi had lovingly created in the preceding days. I’d printed out and framed a photograph of Mum, a photo’ of her from around the time when she became pregnant with me. The photo’, in its frame, stood on the coffin as we filed out of the crematorium into a bright, sunny day. The contrast between the bright, warm weather and the dark sadness in my heart was profound. The few family members stood in the car park, unable to hug or come close due to the social distancing rules, but, nevertheless, trying to communicate something, anything, about Mum and themselves. I always feel like an outsider at such times, unable to open up and emote. I don’t know whether it’s because I feel inadequate or simply because I’m something of a loner. Or maybe I want to appear ‘in control’ of my emotions and not show my feelings. My music has always been the true outlet for my emotional and intellectual life, but I guess that’s a poor substitute for the real thing. These things bother me far more than others might realise. I’m not very good at small talk, or maybe the shyness of my childhood has never really left me. My brother Ian, on the other hand, was always far more adept at socialising than me, a talent which I envied. He was always able to put people at ease. There were two people who stood outside the crematorium during the service who couldn’t gain entrance due to the restrictions. One was Susan Quinn, the wife of my late and much missed friend Allan Quinn, and the other was Wendy, (originally Wendy Morgan...I’m afraid I don’t know her married name.) Wendy is the daughter of a couple who were good friends of my Mum and Dad in the ‘50s and early ‘60s and Wendy said she always thought of my Mum as ‘Aunty Jean’, even though she wasn’t her real Aunt. Wendy lived near my parents house on Eastmoor, back in those long ago days. I have fond memories of visits to their house but had lost touch over the years, until more recently when we had bumped into Wendy and her own family whilst taking my Mum shopping to a supermarket in Wakefield. Wendy was tearful and upset about my mother’s passing but I was pleased to know that Mum had made such a warm impact on Wendy’s life. And here, I must pause this journal entry as it’s late and I’m exhausted after a day of ups and downs, plus the aftermath of yesterday’s funeral...I’ll attempt to continue tomorrow.

It’s three weeks today since my Mother passed away, approximately around 1:30 pm, the same time that I’m starting to write today’s journal entry. Those three weeks have been a surreal blur and seem to have flown so fast. I’ve received many kind condolences from fans and friends and some warm ‘phone calls from a few people who I haven’t been in touch with for some years. It was lovely to speak with Kate St John and Susan Quinn, (the wife of my late friend Alan Quinn who passed away three years ago.) It’s impossible, at the age of 71, to not be acutely aware of human mortality and the brevity of life. My Mum was just 20 years older than me. I guess there’s some consolation in the fact that she lived to the age of 91. My Dad died in his 70s and my brother on the morning of his 50th birthday. Still, a long life or not, the hard fact remains that we deeply miss our loved ones. I’m still finding it hard to grasp that my Mum is no longer there for me. Sometimes though, the realisation hits hard and emotion overwhelms. Other times I catch myself thinking that I’ll call Mum to clarify some distant memory from my past, or just to see how she’s doing, then realise she’s no longer there on the other end of the ‘phone. Mum's funeral will be held on the 7th of May. Quite a while since her passing, probably due to the number of Coronavirus deaths. It will be held at the Crematorium in Wakefield but there are strict limitations on attendance, close family only and social distancing rules apply. I’d almost completed a tribute video to show at the funeral service but have now been informed that screening it is not possible, so I’ll finish it and post it on my website as a permanent memorial to my mother. I’ve created a lengthy piece of music to accompany it too. I’m still limping around the house due to the twisted ankle and damaged knee that I sustained when I fell on the 21st of April. The ankle swelling has gone down a little but is still painful. A few days ago my toes on the same foot turned a dark bluish purple. My regular podiatrist appointments have been put on hold due to the current lockdown but I’d been given an emergency number to call in case I had any issues. As I’m on the podiatrist’s ‘high risk’ list, (due to my diabetes,) I called the number to seek advice. The duty podiatrist answered and I explained what had happened. She asked me to photograph my foot and email the images to her, which I duly did. It was not a pretty sight. 20 minutes later she called back and asked a few more questions then said there was not much that she could do and suggested that I call 111 and see whether they might arrange for me to go to hospital for an X-Ray, (though she added that this might not be possible in the current situation.) Otherwise I was told to monitor the foot. I opted to keep an eye on it. Today, the discolouration to my toes has begun to fade, so I think it’s just bruising. My ankle is still nagging me though. These things can take a long while to properly heal. So much trouble from one fall... As a result of these injuries, I haven’t been able to go over to my Mother’s home in Wakefield to continue sorting through her belongings but, despite not being fully recovered, I’m thinking of going tomorrow to see if I can do a little more. Meanwhile, I’ve tried to continue to do some work. Mum would not have wanted me to give up on my music. I've made a list of the songs I’ve recorded on my relatively new Cubase software, a surprising amount of material. The songs were not particularly ‘fussed’ over, they were simply vehicles to get to grips with the software, to learn how to use it and to test out its features. Nevertheless, they’re interesting enough as compositions, although I’m not sure about the recording quality quite yet. Maybe I just can’t tell, too close to it, etc. Anyway, I’ll gather them into a couple of albums later and eventually see what fans of my music make of them. Here are the titles of the tracks I’ve completed so far, in no particular order: ‘GAZING THROUGH GOLDEN WINDOWS.’ ‘HAUNTED.’ ‘MOONLIGHT RIDER.’ ‘THEY TELL YOU THIS. (THEY TELL YOU THAT.)’ ‘UNEARTHLINGS.’ ‘WITH ALL THE WILL IN THE WORLD.’ ‘SECRET SIGN.’ ‘ANCIENT ANGELS WATCHING ME.’ ‘BLUE SPIN.’ ‘ANTIQUE GODS.’ ‘CELLULOID GHOSTS.’ ‘DREAMING OF ANOTHER WORLD.’ ‘GHOST TRAINS TRAVEL.’ ‘DRIVING THROUGH ENGLAND.’ ‘HELIOS IN MEMORYLAND.’ ‘HI-TONE SATURDAY.’ ‘I RECALL JETS AT DAWN.’ ‘IN THE MIDDLE OF A DREAM.’ ‘SEVEN KEYS TO THIS CITY.’ ‘SILVER STARS WILL SHINE.’ ‘ASTRONOMY OF THE HEART.’ ‘THE HOUSE OF A HUNDRED CLOCKS.’ ‘THE INFERNAL MACHINE.’ ‘THE NAVIGATOR.’ ‘THE TV’S ON THE BLINK.’ ‘COMIC CUTS.’ ‘THIS DREAMLIKE WORLD.’ ‘TIME’S TIDE.’ ‘BILLY’S BLUES.’ ‘SOMETIMES/THESE TIMES.’ Here are some snapshots of my studio, taken today in a state of work disarray:

I’ve been putting off writing this journal entry for a little while, but it can’t be avoided forever. It’s now almost two weeks since my beloved mother passed away, but those two weeks have done little to ease the pain of losing her. I sometimes feel I’m gaining control of my emotions, but that feeling comes and goes, only to be replaced by a deep despair. One minute I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll never be able to sit and talk with her again...the next minute I’m unable to accept that very same fact. I’m living in a surreal world where she simultaneously exists and doesn’t exist. To be honest, we thought we were about to lose her last year. At the beginning of October 2019 she was rushed into hospital in Wakefield with a suspected heart attack. I received a phone call from my nephew Julian to say that he’d called an ambulance and that she had been taken to the accident and emergency department at Pinderfields hospital. Emi and I drove over there from York as quickly as possible. We found Mum in the A+E department, connected to various monitors but in a stable state. Like myself, she hated the idea of being in hospital and seemed more anxious about her surroundings than the condition of her heart. Later she was moved onto a ward and we found her sitting, dressed, in a chair at the side of her bed. She seemed to have recovered fairly well and would be discharged in a day or two. We brought her some magazines, fruit and biscuits, and over the next day felt more positive about the outcome. Then, on our next visit to the ward, she was nowhere to be seen and her bed had a different patient in it. After enquiring where Mum was we were taken to a private room where Mum lay, semi-conscious in a bed, hooked up to monitors and drips. We were told that she had a severe chest infection, probably pneumonia, a urine infection, and several other problems. The next days, weeks and even months became a nightmare, a rollercoaster of slight improvements followed by further dramatic deteriation. Most of the time she seemed unconscious, or semi-conscious, and when awake was suffering from delerium and confusion. It was at this point that we feared that she had reached the end of her life. We travelled to Wakefield every day to sit at her bedside for a few hours, willing her to get well. It dragged on mercilessly with no apparent improvement. Then, one day, we were told that she had been moved downstairs to a different ward where we found her in yet another private room, but slightly more conscious and a little bit improved, though still clearly very ill. The next day she was moved from the private room onto a ward with six beds occupied by other elderly ladies, some of whom were prone to bouts of strange behaviour. Mum was in a bed beside a big picture window with a reasonably pleasant view but, once again, her condition oscillated between poor to deeply worrying. One of the problems had been that she wasn’t eating and drinking enough, dehydration being a major concern along with low blood pressure. She had been given fluids intravenously but now water on her lungs and heart were an issue and she needed medication to try and deal with that. It was a difficult balancing act. Over the next few weeks we made our usual daily trip to Wakefield to spend time with her, sometimes feeling hopeful, sometimes feeling incredibly worried and depressed by it all. Then one day, she was moved from Pinderfields hospital to a hospital in Dewsbury as the bed at Pinderfields was desperately needed for another patient. Once again, she was placed in a ward with other elderly ladies, some of whom seemed to be suffering from either dementia or other mental confusions. Mum too had her bouts of delerium during this time. It was deeply distressing. Our daily journey to spend a few hours with her was taking even more time out of the day due to the added milage to get to Dewsbury from York, along with increased traffic congestion at certain times of the day. Some days we were unable to visit her due to my own essential hospital appointments or when I had to perform my November 9th concert at The Clothworker’s Hall in Leeds. The concert had been planned for some months prior to Mum falling ill and tickets had been sold and some of the audience were travelling from the USA and other countries, so it was impossible to cancel it. Mum had been hoping to attend the concert but now there was no way this was possible. The last concert of mine that Mum had attended was in 2018, a concert which was held to celebrate my 70th birthday. Though frail, she wanted to make the effort to be there and thoroughly enjoyed herself. A lovely and touching moment happened at that concert when Mum was helped to walk out of the Clothworker’s Hall by my nephew Julian. The entire audience stood up and applauded her and she waved them all goodbye with a big smile on her face. She was so thrilled and pleased by that spontaneous act of kindness. It’s a memory that will stay with me forever... After some weeks in the hospital in Dewsbury, at the end of November, Mum was deemed well enough to be moved to a rehabilitation centre on Eastmoor, in Wakefield. The idea was that she would be given help to try and regain some mobility with a view to returning home. Unfortunately, progress in this regard was not forthcoming and she remained bed bound, which in itself created problems with bed sores. Mum had to spend Christmas and New Year in the rehabilitation centre which robbed her of the traditional Boxing Day visit to our home in York where she would enjoy a festive feast and exchanges of gifts with Emi, Elle and Elliot and myself. Instead we went to visit her at the rehabilitation centre, doing out best to cheer her up but she was clearly depressed about the whole thing. It soon became apparent that she was not making sufficient progress to warrant being in the rehabilitation unit but neither was she fit to go home so an intermediary stage was put in place for her to receive ‘respite’ care at Earl’s Lodge, a care home literally next door to the rehab centre. Here she did make a little progress, gradually spending more time sitting in a chair by her bedside and watching television. Her general condition seemed to improve but she desperately wanted to go home. It was decided that a private care company would be employed to call at Mum’s house four times each day to deal with her needs and prepare food, etc. So finally, on the 12th of February, nearly five months after being admitted to hospital, she returned to her own home. In the more familiar and comforting environment of her home, she seemed to make more progress, the carers coming in everyday to ensure that her needs were taken care of. She gradually regained some mobility, being able to get up from her chair and slowly walk around the room with the aid of a walking frame. We were so pleased to see this improvement in her condition. Emi and I continued to make regular visits and to take care of her supermarket shopping needs every weekend, though without Mum accompanying us as she used to do before her hospitalisation. But, sadly, this brief period of improvement was not to last. Mum fell ill again with what was suspected to be a return of the urine infection. A blood test was done which revealed that her kidney function was also not good, and so her medication was changed. This all happened as the Coronavirus lockdown was implemented, though Mum didn’t have any Coronavirus symptoms. She began to eat and drink very little and became much weaker. A doctor couldn’t call to attend to her due to the pandemic lockdown restrictions but prescribed antibiotics remotely. My nephew Julian volunteered to stay with her at the house and tried to provide her with a reassuring presence but she deteriorated very quickly. It became evident that she was suffering a lot of discomfort and her pain management medication was stepped up. We managed a couple of Facetime calls to her, via Emi’s iPad and Julian’s laptop. One of these calls was slightly encouraging as Mum seemed more aware of us on the screen and managed to share a few words and even a little smile. I telephoned a few times each day in an effort to talk with her but this became ever more fruitless as she became weaker and weaker. On Wednesday the 8th of April we decided to break the Coronavirus travel restrictions and make the journey to Wakefield to see her in person. There was very little traffic on the motorway but the journey was filled with apprehension and worry about how Mum would be. On arrival we found her in the bed which had been installed in her dining room, eyes closed and quietly groaning. I held her hand and spoke with her but I don’t know if she realised I was there. The district nurses arrived with protective clothing on to administer Morphine and, once this was done, Mum seemed to slip into a deep sleep and was apparently much more comfortable. I sat watching her breathe and stroked her brow for a while. We later travelled back home to York in silence, feeling very worried and sad. Over the next two days, phone calls to Julian revealed that there was little change. Morphine was still being given to make Mum more comfortable. The doctor had said that if Mum was taken to hospital she would have more chance of dying there than at home, plus she would be alone as no visitors were being allowed under the lockdown restrictions. In any case, Mum had made it very clear, at the start of this latest illness, that she did not want to go back to hospital. I think she’d had more than enough of that. On Saturday, 11th April, around 1:30 pm, I received a call from Julian to say that Mum had stopped breathing. Although I knew that this moment had to come, I was devastated. Mum was the last link to my childhood of the early 1950s. My father passed away in 1976, my brother in 2006, my grandmother, aunts and uncles a long time ago and my two cousins died in more recent years. Now there is nobody left from my late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s family, except for myself. I can no longer pick up the telephone and ask Mum to confirm or correct a memory I might have of various incidents that happened in distant times when I was just a boy. But that's life, (and death,) though far from easy to accept. During the latter years of her life, Mum had even more of a presence in our lives than before. She leaves a huge void that no one else will ever fill. For just over 71 years she has fretted over me, cherished me, been my champion. Always non-judgemental, kind, compassionate and selfless. A truly wonderful person who I deeply loved and will miss profoundly. I'm very grateful to my nephew Julian and his wife Lyndsey for all the help, love and care they've given Mum these last months, they have been a source of strength and comfort to both Mum and myself. I know that my brother Ian would have been so proud of Julian. Mum when she was a young girl in the 1930s. Mum at 'Whelk Coppers' a house we rented for a holiday at Sheringham in the 1950s. Mum in the 1940s. Mum, Bill and Mac, late '80s, early '90s? Mum with Julia, Bill and Emi, sitting on Ian Nelson's memorial bench. Mum and Emi on the Hepworth Gallery bridge, Wakefield. Mum applauding at Bill's 'Plectronica' concert, 2018. (Photo cropped and enlarged from a much larger photograph of the audience, taken by Martin Bostock.)

Despite the Coronavirus lockdown, I had to go to the hospital this morning for my monthly eye injections. I’d had a call from the eye clinic a couple of days ago asking if I’d had any symptoms of the virus. When I said I hadn’t, I was informed that my eye injections would still take place and that I should keep my appointment, but that my usual afternoon time slot had been changed to a morning one as they were not doing afternoon sessions for the time being. Emiko needs to come with me for these injections as it’s impossible for me to drive after the deed has been done. You get extremely blurred vision, sometimes black ‘blobs’ in front of your eyes and a quite painful stinging sensation when the anesthetic begins to wear off. So Emi has to drive me back home afterwards. The trip across the city to the hospital usually takes around three quarters of an hour. Traffic can often be very dense and we always allow for that. Today, however, it felt like driving through a ghost town. Very little traffic at all and almost no one on the streets. Nor was there a queue at the hospital car park, so we didn’t suffer our usual panic about getting to the appointment on time. On entering the hospital’s main area, things were also different from our previous vists. Besides the absence of visitors, there was a uniformed security guard who stopped us at the door and asked if we had an appointment. I explained that I had but he said that Emi was not allowed to go to the eye department with me and would have to wait in the foyer. The whole proceedure normally can take up to three hours, especially when there are a lot of other patients to deal with, so I felt sorry for Emi having to wait on her own. I set off to climb the stairs to the eye clinic but was stopped at the bottom of them by a nurse wearing a surgical mask. She asked me if I had experienced any symptoms of the Coronavirus. I told her I hadn’t. She then applied a very high tech looking thermometer to my forehead and glanced at it. My temperature must have been ok because she waved me past and I climbed the stairs to my destination. The corridor in the eye clinic was remarkably empty, apart from one other patient. Chairs had been placed two meters apart. (Normally these are bunched up together and all occupied.) The usual sequence of events is as follows: First you are called into a room where your blood pressure is taken, then a wrist band with your name, date of birth and hospital number printed on it is fitted. Then you have to do a sight reading test, a task I find increasingly difficult to complete correctly. After this, drops are put in your eyes to dilate the pupils. You then return to the corridor and await your name being called for the customary scan of your eyes. This requires looking into an electronic device, one eye at a time, which then scans each eye in detail. All fairly painless so far. The next step involves another wait in the corridor, (sometimes for an extended period of time,) to see a consultant eye doctor. There is one doctor there that I prefer to all the others. Her name is Susan and she always takes time to chat with me and explain things and is very kind. When you enter the doctor’s room, your eyes are examined with a device a bit like a horizontal microscope. This gizmo also shines a bright light into your eye. The doctor asks you to look towards the ceiling, then down to the floor, then left, then right. The same routine is then applied to your other eye. After this examination, the doctor turns to her computer screen on which are displayed the results of your earlier scan. The digital image shows the amount of fluid present at the back of the eye. This fluid is basically blood seeping from ruptured cells at the back of the eye and it is this that causes the loss of vision clarity and eventually the loss of sight itself. I have both Diabetic related macular degeneration and age-related macular degeneration, plus cateracts in both eyes, so my sight is being attacked by three separate problems. The doctor then decides, on the basis of this examination, whether you need to have the injection in just one of your eyes or both. Usually, I require it in just the right eye but in more recent months I’ve occasionally had an injection in both eyes. After the doctor there is another, quite long wait until you are called into the injection room where two surgically masked and gowned doctor/nurses perform what I like to call ‘the eyeball piercing ritual.’ This is not exactly a pleasant experience and, no matter how familiar it has become to me over the last few years, I dread the entire thing. But back to this morning’s appointment: There was no eye test, no blood pressure reading, no scan and no doctor’s examination. The doctor came and stood in the corridor the obligatory distance away from me and explained that, because of the current situation, I would be going straight for my injection without any preliminary examination. Furthemore, I would be injected in both eyes as this might be the last injection for about twelve weeks. Once things ease up with the Coronavirus situation, then the injections could resume at their usual frequency...provided they do ease up. Well, this is a kind of double edged sword. On the one hand I’m glad to be given a temporary reprieve from the monthly eyeball piercing ritual but on the other hand I’m worried about how my eyesight will fare without the regular injections of the drug that attempts to keep my leaking blood vessels under control. Anyway, I thanked Susan for her care, wished her well and went to get my injections. This time there were three gowned and masked people in the injection room, all female. They introduced themselves and indicated for me to clamber onto the reclining ‘bed’ beneath the intensely bright lamp...and the ritual began. Having this done to both eyes takes some time as the preparation is quite involved. Lots of local anaesthetic is dripped into the eye, a mask with a hole for the eye is applied and a plastic clip then pins the eyelid wide open so that it’s impossible to blink. Then more anaesthetic drops, then iodine to stop infection, then a mark placed on the eyeball with some sort of pen to provide a target for the needle to aim for. Then the preparation of the drug and finally the injection proper begins. The needle enters the eye and the plunger is pushed. The drug swirls around your vision as the needle is held in place for what seems an eternity. Then it’s removed and you are asked how many fingers the person performing the proceedure is holding up. After this you are allowed a minute or two to get your breath back before the same thing is done to the other eye. And, despite the anaesthetic, you can feel the needle enter the eye and there is a sharp stab of pain. So, for the rest of the day, my vision has been blurred and my eyes feel very sore, but I know from past experience that this will be better tomorrow. Sadly, the situation the world finds itself in at the moment probably won’t... On a more positive and creative note, I’m about to mix another new track which will go either on ‘The Navigator’ album or on the ‘New Vibrato Wonderland’ album. Must try and reveal the titles of the tracks completed so far. Perhaps in the next journal entry...maybe.

We are living in the future, though not the flying car wonderland of my boyhood comic books but a frightening, dystopian nightmare, more akin to a Quatermass style drama than any crystal towered, utopian dreamworld. The Coronavirus crisis has brought home how fragile human life can be when confronted with something so unknown and insidious. That a tiny virus, invisble to the human eye, can bring the world to a near standstill is both astonishing and deeply worrying. Emiko and I are in the ‘most at risk’ category. We’re both in our 70s and I have diabetes, (and other health issues,) which makes me extra vulnerable. We’ve continued to try and go about our usual life these last few weeks but it’s become increasingly apparent that this is now not possible. So, from today, we are going to self-isolate. One of my concerns around this is that I can no longer go to visit my mother and will have to hope that her care workers can continue to provide the high standard of service they have given her since she returned home after being hospitalised for several months. She’s doing ok, considering. Her mobility is much better now than it was, though nowhere as good as it was before her illness...but it’s wonderful to see her being able to stand and walk around the room, albeit with the help of her Zimmer frame and the careful eye of her carers, or one of her family. But, because of this Coronovirus emergency, the family now, unfortunately, needs to keep as much distance from mum as is possible to avoid any potential contamination. My nephew Julian and his wife Lyndsey have been an enormous help, liasing with the care workers and dealing with minor emergencies as they have arisen. Emi and I live some distance from Wakefield and it isn’t possible to get to mum quickly when something goes wrong. Julian has been superb in that respect, living so much nearer to Wakefield than us, and I’m very grateful for his care. As with any national crisis, this unforseen event has brought out both the best and the worst in people... There are empty shelves in our local supermarkets due to panic buying. Emi and I have found it hard to get hold of certain essentials due to this. We were not looking to buy more than we normally would, but so many empty shelves have made this virtually impossible. Essential items such as bread, milk, paracetamol, vegetables, hand sanitisers, toilet rolls and some tinned foods have become very hard to find. In some ways it’s predictable, knowing how primal human nature is beneath the civilised veneer, but it’s also unforgivable given the circumstances. It’s leaving nothing for the health workers who are under so much pressure at this point in time and can’t get to the supermarkets regularly due to their essential work. (Not to mention the problems it causes for those of us in our senior years and in the higher risk category.) There have even been people hoarding essentials such as toilet paper and then selling them for exhorbitant prices on the internet, profiteering from the anxiety of others. I even saw a video of a man, apparently carrying the Coronovirus, captured on someone’s phone camera, licking the handles of supermarket trolleys to deliberately spread the virus to other shoppers. Whether this was a genuine video or not, I can’t say, but it looked real enough... I noticed the other day, that there were supermarket staff spraying trolley handles with disinfectant outside of our local store. On the other side of the moral coin, I’ve been touched by the kindness of friends, neighbours and strangers who have volunteered to try and bring food and medication to our door during our isolation. And, though pubs and restaurants are all closed, one of our village pubs is cooking heathy soup every Wednesday afternoon to deliver to people in the village who might need it. A very nice, charitable act. Well, this is where we are. A new and dark reality that respects no borders or boundaries. I just hope that as many people as possible can be spared the anguish of losing their loved ones, and also the financial worry of losing their livelihoods due to the dramatic impact this virus is having on various sections of our economy. Meanwhile, (that word again,) I’m trying to stay sane by continuing to work in my studio, still struggling with Cubase’s idiosyncracies but, hopefully, making some sort of progress. ‘The Navigator’ album is on the drawing board and ongoing. It seems to be an alternatively satisying and frustrating affair, (though I have lost all ability to judge whether it is any good or not.) I still miss my old Mackie hardware based system and wish the company had continued to support, develop and evolve it, but that was not to be. And so now, I’m truly stuck in the virtual realm. Despite my misgivings, I’ve recorded a lot of tracks, almost enough to fill two albums. So, I’m thinking of releasing a companion album to ‘The Navigator’ titled ‘New Vibrato Wonderland’ which will contain the extra material. But I’m still working towards this... Last week, Emi and I were driving to Wakefield when we suffered a serious and dangerous breakdown on the M1 motorway. We were on our way to my mother’s in Emi’s car, travelling in the middle lane of the motorway at high speed, when the car’s engine suddenly stopped. Somehow I managed to freewheel across the lanes of fast moving traffic to the hard shoulder where the car came to a stop under a bridge which carried the M62 overhead. The noise from passing cars and trucks was horrendous, making it difficult to hear what was said on the phone when we called the AA breakdown service. It was cold too as we stood behind the nearest crash barrier to wait for the AA to arrive. The rescue came after a three quarters of an hour wait. The car was loaded onto the back of a truck and we climbed into the warmth and relative quiet of the truck’s cab. The AA man then drove both us and the car back to our home in York. We had broken down only a few short miles from Mum’s house but our visit had to be called off. Once we reached home, the car was unloaded from the truck and another AA team arrived to try and fix it. After 30 minutes of trying they gave up. Apparently the fuel pump had completely packed in, so the car was towed to the garage where we get our cars serviced. But by this time the garage had closed so the car was left on the forecourt and its keys put through the garage letterbox. I telephoned the garage’s owner and informed him of the problem. The next day the car was again inspected and, just as the AA guys had said, the fuel pump was found to be the culprit. A new fuel pump was ordered and the following day we were able to collect the car, (and a bill for almost £300,) from the garage and, fingers crossed, all is now well. Nevertheless, the actual breakdown on the motorway was a nerve wracking experience. Thank goodness we came out of it unscathed. Just took a moment’s break from typing this journal entry to watch part of the 6 o’clock evening news. There are some horrific scenes of Italian hospitals overun with victims of the Coronavirus..and footage of coffin manufacturers working overtime. According to the experts, the UK is just two weeks behind the trajectory of the outbreak in Italy. Let’s hope that everyone heeds the official advice and stays home... Another announcement coming from the government in a little while, so I’ll end here and hope all readers of this journal will stay safe and support each other as much as possible during these unprecedented and harrowing times.

With these almost daily visits to my mother in Wakefield, I'm finding an opportunity to see parts of the City that have strong, personal resonances for me. This was where I was born in the late 1940s and grew up through childhood, teenage years and on into early manhood. Sadly though, Wakefield has become something of a ghost town for me, though not in the sense of an abandoned, empty, tumbleweed place. The town is populated heavily enough, yet to this 71 year old kid from yesteryear, it is tragically haunted by the ghosts of buildings long demolished, remodelled or cowed into dusty corners by tall modern architecture and circled by restructured, re-directed roads. Inevitable, I guess... Driving through the City is a strange, almost dreamlike experience as it seems so familiar yet also weirdly alien at the same time. Things appear displaced or 'not quite right.' For Wakefield’s inhabitants, born in more recent eras, this will not create such a pronounced effect I guess, but for me it feels sad and somewhat disturbing. I drive past what was once the location of Marriot’s Buildings on Westgate End where I was born, but now see only a flat roofed early 1970s block of nondescript, scruffy shops, though the narrow passageway that ran down the side of Marriot’s Buildings from my Grandmother’s house onto Westgate End still, miraculously, exists. As do the old buildings to the left of the passageway, including what, in the 1940’s and early 50s, was once a grocer’s shop that sold, amongst other things, dead wild rabbits, hung up on hooks, displayed outside the shop, glassy eyed and forlorn. These unfortunate creatures were sometimes bought by my grandmother to cook and eat, once they had been skinned and cleaned, a procedure she often carried out whilst sitting on her back door steps, outside the stone floored kitchen. It was a house which had neither electricity, nor hot water, nor any indoor sanitation whatsoever. Marriot’s Buildings was not just dark but a relic of a darker, early industrial time. Further up Westgate, at its junction with Ings Road, once stood the textile mills of Stonehouse’s and George Lee’s, the latter mill being where my grandmother worked for many years. The site is now a row of ‘Sofas For Us’ and ‘Poundstretcher’ type stores, but in my imagination I can still see the ghosts of female workers clocking in to their shifts in the noisy interiors of the mills, where machines and looms rattled and shuddered in the steamy, hot and noisy gloom. Only a few yards from where these mills once stood, just a little further along Ings Road, is the site of Ings Road Secondary Modern School, where I was a pupil in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s. The school has long gone now, of course, demolished and replaced by the inevitable chain company outlets such as ‘Curry’s’ and the now defunct ‘Toys R Us’. But it was here, on this spot so many years ago, that I gave my very first public performance as a fledgling guitarist at the school’s Christmas party concert, along with fellow pupil Ian Parkin. We called ourselves ‘The Strangers’ and later ‘The Cosmonauts.’ But the school’s hall, where we nervously performed, is now nothing more than a drab car park. So too is the Woodwork classroom of the school, (where I constructed the beginnings of an electric guitar but never completed it,) an outbuilding which once stood close to the railway bridge on Ings Road, beneath the railway embankment where we, like many other young boys in the ‘50s, stood in awe as powerful steam locomotives, ‘Streaks’ and ‘Windys’, steamed majestically past, pulling carriages full of people travelling from London into the nearby Westgate Station. The names and numbers of these steam engines were ticked off in our Ian Allen Locospotter’s books which we always carried, stuffed into our school blazer pockets or brown leather satchels. Ghosts...ghosts everywhere. The site of Wakefield’s old, Victorian Art School building, where I spent several happy, enlightened and influential years alongside fondly remembered fellow students, well, that building is also now long gone. Initially replaced by a modern engineering educational annexe to Wakefield’s Technical College, but even that has been done away with and a brand new ‘Business Studies’ Centre now occupies the site. (Or something along those lines, I’m not entirely sure of its real purpose.) Throughout the town there are locations like these: The site of the old Corn Exchange, a wonderfully imposing building, demolished heartlessly in the 1960s, its heritage seemingly ignored and disrespected by an indifferent City planning department. At the time though, we were all thrilled by the C+A store that took its place for a while. For a while... The site of Wakefield’s Mecca Locarno ballroom where, in my early and later ‘teens, I enjoyed sitting on the balcony of the dance hall, close to the venue’s big Altec Lansing speakers, thrilling to the sounds of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly, and later dancing to Chubby Checker, or Little Eva, or Junior Walker and The All Stars, or Wilson Pickett, or even The Dave Clark Five’s ‘Glad All Over’. And yes, that building, which played such an important part in my life, is now no more, nothing but a ghost, lit by remembered mirror balls, conjured up by the phantom smells of cheap Brylcreem hair oil, Old Spice aftershave, fried onions, hot dogs and Coca Cola syrup mixed with water served from a shiny machine at the Mecca's coffee bar. It was here, amidst the seemingly ‘grown up’ atmosphere of the dance hall, that I met my first serious girlfriend, Lynne Holiday, (though the relationship lasted only a few years, despite our vow to become engaged.) The space the Mecca ballroom once occupied was eventually taken over to accommodate Wakefield’s ‘The Ridings’ centre, a large shopping mall, though already now an anachronism, struggling to live up to its initial promise, and even to survive as a viable retail outlet. How quickly the revisions of the past transition to ghost town status. There are so many more examples I could mention: the demise of the old Regal Cinema, the demolition of the Sun Lane swimming baths, the once thriving and magical Wakefield market, the 1950s architectural style of the old bus station, so many lost shops, lost meeting places, lost memories, nothing but ghosts now, faint echoes from my personal past. Everything becomes ghost-like eventually, even the latest, most brilliant things fade and pass away in time. Nothing is permanent, nothing can be held on to, except, perhaps, in memory...and even memory fades to emptiness in the end... We all live in spectral cities, walking the streets of our past, haunted and haunting, shadows in the rain...

As usual, I’ve been pre-occupied with my mum’s situation. Thankfully, things seem to be working out reasonably well for her so far. She’s home and receiving visits from carers, four times a day. The care company staff appear to be thorough and, well, caring, and worth the cost of the care package. Her mobility is still fairly limited, basically walking, (with assistance from the carers and a Zimmer frame,) from her bed in the dining room to her chair in the lounge where she spends the major part of her day with a blanket over her knees, watching TV and receiving visitors. It’s a great improvement from her condition when she was in hospital though, and it’s a relief to see her regaining, to some degree, her confidence and mental sharpness. Here on the home front, things have been a little difficult. There’s been a noticable downturn with my eyesight and my regular hospital visit and scans last Tuesday confirmed this. The doctor said I needed injections in both eyes this time, which is never welcome news. But, I’d expected as much as my ability to read and see clearly has recently become more problematic than before. (And it was pretty problematic to start with.) The real worry came the day after the injections though. I was concerned with the appearance of dark, spidery lines at the edge of my vision in my right eye, as if I had a number of ‘hairs’ obstructing my vision. These dark lines seemed to sometimes float from the edge of my vision to a central position, albeit briefly. What also was worrying was a flashing light that moved around my eye when in a darkened room. All of this became apparent on the Wednesday after the eye injections, but I thought it might just be a reaction and would resolve itself. The next day, (Thursday,) however, the condition was exactly the same. There was no chance to deal with it though as I was scheduled to take part in a filmed interview about my soundtrack for the ‘80s movie ‘Dream Demon’ which is shortly to be re-released in a digitally remastered version. Two guys from the company in London involved in the re-release had booked tickets to travel up to Yorkshire to interview me on camera, so it was impossible to postpone the interview. The movie, (by director Harley Cokeliss,) and my soundtrack to it, was created 33 years ago now and, to be perfectly honest, it was a struggle to remember much about how I came up with the music. Most of the soundtrack is made up of ‘ambient’ atmospheres, all keyboard generated. I recorded it in my ‘Echo Observatory’ studio in Haddlesey House where I lived at that time. The simple analogue equipment I had at my disposal back then was very primitive compared to the newest digital software systems, but after all these years, it still sounds reasonably compelling and adds to the surreal and twisted nature of the film. Here and now though, I’m still working on the recordings that will emerge as ‘The Navigator’ album, sometime later this year. Slowly getting more familiar with Cubase though still frustrated by it. I’ve also selected, at random, one of the many archived albums that have been awaiting a release, and ‘The Jewel’ will be the next one. It has now been mastered by John Spence at Fairview studio, and I’m about to begin the process of putting some artwork together for its packaging. The album was actually recorded in 2016 but has laid dormant for some years, (as so many other unreleased albums of mine have.) It’s an instrumental album, not exactly what I might think of as ‘easily accesible,’ (though I’m sure some fans will disagree with that statement.) It’s an album of abstract guitar improvisations with ambient jazz interludes. Hopefully an album that will slowly worm its wicked way into listener’s ears. Not sure, at this stage, whether to release this album as a physical CD or as a Bandcamp digital download. To a certain degree, it’s a ‘niche’ album, one that will appeal to fans of my more introspective guitar work. It’s certainly not a ‘rock’ album. Nevertheless, those who enjoy less mainstream music may find that it resonates with them. And now I’ve spent far too long typing out these words, struggling to see the digital ink on this virtual page, so I’ll post it on my website and then get on with some recording. A new track to mix tonight.

A storm is raging outside my window this February Sunday afternoon. It has been given the title ‘Storm Ciara’ by the Met Office and is causing flooding and travel disruption all across the UK. Emi and I were planning to make our daily trip to Wakefield to visit my mother who is now in a respite care home but the severe winds and rain have caused us to stay put. Our garden is becoming flooded and the sewer seems to be bursting and bringing foul water to the surface. Mum has been in the care home for about three weeks now after leaving the rehabilitation centre on Eastmoor where she spent Christmas and New Year. She made little progress in the rehab centre, failing to regain enough mobility to warrant continuing her stay there, but she was told that she wasn’t fit enough to go home either. Respite care was suggested as the safest course of action, hence her current situation. The care home she is in is right next door to the rehab centre on Eastmoor, so we’re making the same trip each day to Wakefield from York to spend time with her, trying to keep her spirits up. However, because of Mum’s determination and insistence about going home, a care package has been arranged and a hospital bed installed in the dining room of her house, (along with other neccesary equipment,) and, all being well, she will finally return home next Wednesday, just over four months since she was admitted to hospital. Whilst this will come as a relief to her it will be slightly more stressful for members of her family as there won’t be the 24 hour care afforded by being in the care home. Of course, she will have professional carers call on her four times per day but will be alone through the night. But as she said, she won’t know how well she will cope with this arrangement unless she tries. So, it’s fingers crossed time... As a consequence of our regular visits to Wakefield and the amount of time it’s taken out of each day, I’ve found it very difficult to allocate sufficient time for writing these journal entries. This is the first one to be posted for several weeks and each evening, on our return from Wakefield, I’ve attempted to get as much work done in my studio as possible. The creation of new music has been further slowed by the fact that my Cubase software recording system is far more time consuming to use than my old Mackie hardware, which was more immediate and less convoluted. I am now much more conversant with the Cubase system’s operation but I’m still frustrated by its, (to my mind,) unnecessary complexity and the need to constantly look at small text in endless drop-down menus on screen. (Not helped by my diabetes-damaged eyesight which has deteriorated even more of late.) Nevertheless, despite this I am managing to record new music and have now enough tracks completed to make up a new album. I need to sort through these tracks and put them into some sort of running order. Once that is achieved, the next step will be to create the artwork for it. I’m thinking of calling the album ‘The Navigator’ as it will basically be a record of me trying to navigate my way around an unfamiliar recording system. I plan to make this a download only album to see what fans make of the new process. I’ll let the album ‘jump the queue’ ahead of all the other albums awaiting release but will also decide on which of those other albums gets released next fairly soon, (perhaps simultaneously with 'The Navigator.'). And whichever album I eventually choose, it will be released as a physical CD. The Isana Black Pearl guitar that arrived damaged on my birthday in December was finally replaced by the Thomann company, (though this was frustratingly delayed by the Christmas and New Year holidays.) The replacement Black Pearl arrived from Thomann undamaged this time but the guitar’s action, at the top of the fretboard, was unusually high so I took the instrument to Gordon White of Single Coil Guitar Repairs in Leeds to sort it out. Gordon has done an absolutely spot-on job and the guitar now plays beautifully. I’ll be using it tonight on a new instrumental I’m hoping to get underway. The sky outside briefly brightened about an hour ago and the rain temporarily stopped but now it’s as black as night and pouring it down again. I can hear the wind blowing strongly in the background. Meanwhile, the turbulence is not limited to the weather: Since my previous journal entry, we have a new prime minister in the unlikely, and in my case unwelcome, shape of Boris Johnson. It’s hard to believe that the Tories were voted in yet again after the controversy and problems they’ve created over the last several years. That they won the election with such a large majority boggles the imagination, especially as many Northern ‘working class’ folk, supposedly staunch Labour party supporters, betrayed Labour and voted for one of the most right wing governments we’ve been landed with in years. There was an interview on television with a Northern chap who was asked why he voted Tory. This man had never voted Tory in his life, always being a Labour supporter. His reply to the question was that he wanted ‘change’ whilst pointing to the empty shops on his high street as one example of why this change was needed. When the interviewer pointed out that he’d voted for the same party that had been in power for years and was perhaps responsible for his woes, the man looked blankly at the interviewer and muttered, “we need change...” As someone once said, ‘never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups...’ And while we’re on the subject, Donald ‘I’m the greatest president that’s ever been in the entire history of the entire world’ Trump managed to worm his way out of his impeachment trial by not allowing any witnesses to testify to his wrong doings. America has become a country ruled by a narcissistic tin-pot dictator, it seems. And we here in the UK need to be very wary of similar tactics becoming the norm here. What a world... An Isana 'Black Pearl' guitar, identical to the one I bought as a 71st Birthday present to myself. Will this be the next physical CD album release? Quite a few to choose from in the archives! A flyer for the 'Old Haunts' album. This one shows Blackpool's 'Winter Gardens' where I went

Once again, not long back from visiting my mother at the intermediary rehabilitation centre in Wakefield. It's upsetting to see her so demoralised and depressed by her ongoing situation, although we do our best to keep her spirits up. Sadly, she's not making sufficient progress in terms of her mobility and is feeling low because of it. Mum's due to be allowed to go home soon, but I'm very worried by the fact that she hasn't really advanced enough to be able to exist safely at home on her own, even with the care support that will need to be put in place to support her. Her mental faculties have certainly improved and she exhibits less of the confusion and delirium that was evident whilst she was in hospital these last two and a half months. But at 91 years old, I expect it's too much to hope that she might regain the quality of life she enjoyed before her recent illness set in. Nevertheless, I live in hope that things might improve a little bit more before she has to face life without wall-to-wall 24/7 care. This stuff is hard to deal with and a real challenge, especially for a 71 year old such as myself with serious health issues of my own. All we can do is try... Here at home, it's been hard to sort out all our usual Christmas duties, though we've done our best. My son Elliot travelled with Emi and I to visit my mum at the rehab centre in Wakefield on Boxing Day. Whilst there, I took Elliot to see the house at 28 Conistone Crescent on Eastmoor Estate where I grew up from the age of three years old in the 1950s.. The house still exists although the Estate is somewhat worse for wear after all these years. Still, my memories of my 1950s childhood on Conistone Crescent are full of warmth and happiness, especially at Christmas time when my parents made the day magical. After we got back to York, Elliot stayed for dinner, which gave us an opportunity to chin-wag and reflect on life's peculiarities and madness. My daughter Elle has moved to Rye and so couldn't make it to York for Christmas and, of course, my eldest daughter Julia and Grandson Luke live in London, so, Elliot was my only direct contact with my much loved offspring. Elliot is a very talented musician and his work always surprises and makes me think. He could enjoy a career as a composer of film music if only he wasn't so 'purist.' (Composing for film requires the ability to compromise and take other people's ideas on board.) I guess, though, that some people could level the exact same criticism at me. I'm a 'take it or leave it' kind of musician. All my children are incredibly creative: My daughter Elle is both a songwriter and an imaginative artist and my eldest daughter Julia works as a caster of sculptures. My Grandson is studying Architecture at University and shows great promise. I'm incredibly proud of them all and so pleased to see that they have found a niche in the arts, no matter how precarious an artist's life can be in today's climate. I'll always be glad that some of my passion for creativity has found its way into their DNA. Art is its own reward, regardless of financial concerns. As for my own work, it's been difficult to achieve much due to the time spent travelling to Wakefield and back each day. But there has been some slow progress, hampered at times by the Cubase software recording system being unfamiliar and often head-scratchingly uncooperative. I'm experiencing one of these mysterious tech breakdowns at the moment, but finding ways around it, (though they're tremendously frustrating, limiting and time consuming when all's said and done.) But, we're almost at the end of the year now, just a couple of short days away from the seismic shift to 2020... Unfortunately I have an important hospital appointment on New Year's Eve, for one of my regular eye injection sessions, an attempt to slow what may well be an ultimate decent into blindness. As I've mentioned previously in this journal. I dislike these injections with a vengeance, but the alternative is not good. They have to be endured. Just a drag that this month's eyeball piercing ritual will be carried out on New Year's Eve. My eyes take a full 24 hours to recover and regain clarity afterwards. No fun... Yes, here we are on the verge of 2020, a year that seemed, when I was a child, like science-fiction, so far, far away in a distant utopian future, but how far, as a human race, have we really advanced? Is this the future, or a far uglier past? Right now, I don't know how to address that question... One more thing: The problem with the broken Isana Black Pearl guitar that I'd received from Thomann on the 18th December has still not been resolved. After sending several photo's to Thomann they are now claiming that the damage was done during transit and are supposedly arranging for UPS, (who shipped the guitar,) to come and inspect the packaging. A long drawn out procedure it seems. Sadly, Christmas and New Year have delayed this inspection and it looks as if it may be several weeks before the situation is resolved and a replacement guitar sent to me. So frustrated and disappointed by this... Oh, another thing worth mentioning: The New Year's Honours List has been announced...And, unsurprisingly but equally distastefully, Boris Johnson's Tory government seems to have given a knighthood to his despicable, hard-right wing pal Ian Duncan Smith, a less deserving individual is hard to imagine. Heaven help us, I fear we're living in dark and corrupt times...

Today i'm supposed to be 'celebrating' my 71st birthday, though, so far, it's been rather strange. I spent three and a half hours this morning, standing and shivering, in a freezing, frosty garden with fog all around, holding a ladder whilst an electrician fitted three new security lamps to the top edge of our house. I'm now starting to feel the onset of a cold or something as I haven't really been able to get warm since. At the end of our lane a car had skidded off the road and ended up on its side in a ditch. There was no sign of the driver. Dangerous conditions. We were due to travel to Wakefield this afternoon to visit my mother in the rehabilitation centre, as we do every day, but when the time came for us to drive to Wakefield, the fog hadn't lifted so we decided not to risk the journey, particularly as my degenerated eyesight finds driving in such conditions extremely precarious and Emi is not a confident driver either. So I called my mother, (who has a phone by her bedside,) and apologised that we couldn't get there today. She was obviously disappointed, (as was I,) that I couldn't get to see her on my birthday. We were planning to take a day off from the daily visits tomorrow so that we could attempt to catch up with some desperately needed Christmas shopping, but I've promised mum we'll try to visit her instead to make up for today's postponement. It looks like she will be in the rehabilitation centre until sometime in January when there's a chance that she will finally be able to go back home, though carers will need to be put in place and a bed brought downstairs as there is no way she could get upstairs to bed, even with the stairlift that is already in place. She is very much bedridden, I'm afraid. The other disappointment today came when a new guitar arrived from the Thomann retail outlet in Germany. Last week I decided to treat myself to an ISANA BLACK PEARL archtop guitar as a combined birthday and Christmas present. I thought it was a good time to order as the UK will be leaving the EU soon and, once that happens, the price of the guitar will probably go up and import duty will definitely have to be paid. Anyway, the guitar arrived today via UPS delivery. It was packaged inside a strong, plush lined hard case which was itself inside an inner and outer strong cardboard box. After removing the two cardboard boxes and opening the guitar's case I was shocked to see a large split or crack at the join of the headstock and neck of the instrument. (I've attached a photo' to this journal entry so that you can see the damage.) Actually, it's much worse than it looks in the photo as the wood has raised up above the crack and made the guitar unplayable. I can't imagine that this has been done in transit as it was well packaged. I suspect that the guitar has been sitting in its case in the Thomann warehouse where the damage may have been done, either there or at the actual manufacturers. Whatever, it's terribly disappointing... I've emailed Thomann with photo's of the damage and I'm awaiting a reply and a remedy. The guitar is packed up, ready to send back to Germany in the hope that it can be replaced. It certainly would be difficult to repair, and I wouldn't be happy with a repair anyway. So, that's been my birthday so far. It's now 6:35 pm and rain has started, lifting the fog. Emi and I have a table booked for 8pm at one of our favourite restaurants, so that will be the first relaxing moment of the day and a chance to enjoy each other's company and 'de-stress' for a couple of hours. Tomorrow it's back to the madness... Bill at a Retro Fair, earlier this year. Hot Rod Racer! The broken neck of the ISANA BLACK PEARL guitar.

Not long back from Wakefield's Rehabilitation/Remedial Centre where Emi and I visited my mother this afternoon. She seemed a little more 'with it' today and not as confused as the last few times we had been to see her. Her condition is variable, some days she appears to be picking up, on other days she slips back into a quiet depression and confusion. She continues to be bed bound and is suffering from back pain and bed sores, which is not surprising as she has been in hospital (and now the rehab centre,) for well over two months. Her blood pressure is a worry at the moment...it's too low and the concern is that if it continues to be that way she will have to be transferred back to the hospital where it can be dealt with. Actually, a few days ago she had to be rushed to the hospital's accident and emergency department as a result of her trying to get out of bed unaided. She fell and hit her head on the wall of her room at the rehab centre. She was discovered laying on the floor by her bed, unable to get up. Thankfully, checks at the hospital's A+E department showed that no serious damage had been done, just bruising to her forehead. Nevertheless, the incident was of great concern to us and we've tried to make her aware that she should never try to get out of bed unaided until her strength and mobility improves considerably. If nothing else it shows that she still has a certain amount of determination. The drive home tonight was plagued by high winds, rain and even hailstones. But it wasn't as bad as the other night when it took us three hours to get from Wakefield to York due to an overturned articulated truck blocking the Eastbound lanes of the M62. The tailback stretched for miles, three lanes of traffic at a total standstill. It took ages for the truck to be pulled to one side of the motorway so that a single lane could be opened up. When we eventually got to the place where the truck was overturned, it was being cut up into sections by a team of men with acetylene torches. Due to visiting my mother almost every day for the last couple of months, I've found it difficult to achieve much in terms of work and have not even started on anything connected with Christmas, apart from creating my annual Dreamsville video Christmas card for my website. I've worked a little on this each night, often working late, but it is finally finished and was uploaded to my website's 'Essoldo Cinema' section today. (Which is nested inside the 'Gallery' section.) I managed to film York's festive lights and have created a piece of music to accompany the video. The music is the first public example of a recording using my new Cubase recording software. Both film and music are a little rough around the edges but, in the time that was available to me, it's probably the best I could achieve It's titled 'The City Dreams Of Christmas' and is now available to watch at www.billnelson.com Have yet to drag the Christmas Tree out of the shed and set it up, ready for decorating. Always a big job as the decorations are many and elaborate. Will I manage to do it this year or not? If not, it will be the first ever Christmas that I've not enjoyed the sight of the tree in full glory. Must make the effort, regardless of being depressed about mum's condition. General Election in two days time. Sadly, for the Tories at least, it seems to be all about Brexit rather than more important domestic policies. Those who vote Tory just because they want to 'get Brexit done,' will not only be getting Brexit done but shooting themselves in the foot when the Conservative agenda shoves ordinary working people further into the ditch. You can be sure that I won't be voting for the horrendous Boris Johnson and his gang of lying toffs, (nor for 'rictus grin' Farage's boring Brexiteers.) To hell with the pair of 'em... Nearly dinner time and a glass or two of red wine to blur the edges of my disdain and despair. My birthday coming up soon too...71 years old. Can hardly believe it. This last year has literally flown by. Faster and faster, the whirl of the world condenses time and space. Feeling dizzy on the dial indeed.

Mum was finally moved from the hospital in Dewsbury to the Queen Elizabeth Rehabilitation Centre on Eastmoor, at the end of last week. She was given a room there much quicker than we'd expected as there were several people ahead of her on the waiting list. The centre seems very nice, bright and cheery and mum has a bedroom with a small tv mounted on the wall. The rehabilitation centre aims to encourage mum to regain a little of her mobility after being bedridden for almost two months. Having said that, she is still in bed and unable to leave it without some serious assistance and a great deal of pain. At 91 years old, getting over the problems caused by the long hospitalisation is going to be a big ask. She is suffering from low blood pressure at the moment, which is an additional worry. Also still not eating very much so has lost a lot of weight and is very weak. The Queen Elizabeth Rehabilitation Centre seems like the best place for her at this point in time. It has a full-time, 24 hour nursing staff in attendance. We've been visiting her daily, as usual, with just a day or two off for me to attend my own hospital appointments. As I've mentioned in my previous journal entry, the rehabilitation centre is located on Queen Elizabeth Road on Eastmoor Estate, where I grew up in the 1950s and '60s. My parents and I moved there from my grandmother's house, (Marriot's Buildings,) when I was just three years old. We moved into a brand new ground floor flat on the Estate, No 28, Conistone Crescent. The flat still exists and is literally only a couple of minutes drive from the rehabilitation centre where mum now is. When we left the centre after visiting her yesterday, I drove Emi the short distance to Conistone Crescent to see the old flat where I grew up. I've taken Emi there previously but wanted to show her how near it was to the place where mum now is. It was twilight when we drove from the centre to Conistone Crescent, a golden/turquoise light somehow adding to the sense of nostalgia I have about the area. My childhood was, in the main, a happy one and my memories of living at 28 Consistone Crescent are populated with warm and gentle images. Christmas, in particular, was a magic time for me there as a child. Wonderful, happy memories of Decembers spent in the flat on Eastmoor with mum and dad and my younger brother Ian. And here we are, mum and I, the last surviving members of the original 1950s Nelson family, (in less than perfect circumstances, sadly,) back on Eastmoor Estate after so many years have passed, reminiscing and remembering... I'm hoping, (and for what passes as praying in my virtually religion-free life,) that mum will regain some of her health and physical comfort over the next few weeks and will eventually be able to return to her home. She will clearly need some sort of care package putting in place then, but we will try to deal with that when the time comes. Whilst on the subject of December and Christmas: I need to find enough time to compose and record a piece of music and create a video to accompany it for my traditional Dreamsville digital Christmas card. It may not be possible to achieve this year, due to the ongoing trips to Wakefield and other duties, but we'll see. Even buying, writing and sending domestic Christmas cards will be difficult this year, one way or another. Meanwhile, the UK general election looms on the 12th December. Those who vote entirely on the basis of 'Brexit' will, I predict, be making a fatal mistake. Brexit, in my opinion, is the least of the problems affecting the UK right now. The Conservative government has caused ordinary people so much suffering and trouble and its poisonous, overlong tenure needs to be ended once and for all. On this morning's Andrew Marr BBC tv interview, Boris Johnson came across as a fool and a charlatan. A mouthy, 'bull in a china shop' man attempting to bluster and blunder his way through and around pertinent questions, questions which he clearly had no ability to answer. His seemingly popular appeal totally baffles me. Are people really so gullible, so ill-informed, so easily taken in? I've heard interviews with 'people on the street' who are planning to vote for him, but merely because he's 'a character' and wants to sever ties with the European Union. I can only hang my head in despair and disbelief. What a joke...(well it would be if it wasn't so tragic.) Let's hope that this empty headed buffoon and all his pathetic, self-serving ideas will bite the dust once and for all. Let's end this nonsense...

It's been hard to find time to update my journal entries of late, due to spending several hours each day with my mother who is still hospitalised and not very well. A couple of weeks ago she was transferred from Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield to a hospital in Dewsbury, which adds another half hour or so onto our travelling time, (depending on traffic,) for our daily journey from York, (and back.) Mum has just about got rid of the infections that were left after her initial illness but is now suffering from the effects of being bedridden for the last seven weeks. This is not being helped by her reluctance to eat and drink, both of which she needs to strengthen her muscular system after such a long time in bed. She is finally on a waiting list to be transferred to a rehabilitation centre on Eastmoor, (an area where she and I lived in during the 1950s,) but there are a number of patients ahead of her waiting for a place too. Hopefully, when she is finally transferred, things will be put in place to help her transition from there to her home environment. It's been a very difficult and somewhat frustrating time as there have been various, inexplicable errors in the system which should have ensured the transition to the rehabilitation centre sooner. We've lodged complaints and received profuce apologies but, no matter how sincere these are, the problem has not been solved. Perhaps this is all caused by the massive underfunding of the NHS due to Tory government indifference. (Which is only just one of the reasons why I will not be voting Tory in the upcoming general election.) Anyway, the stress and worry of the last seven weeks is proving to be a drag on my own health, though I'm trying my best to hold up. Nevertheless, I'm finding it debilitating. The six hours that visiting the hospital takes out of each day means that I'm not only behind with my own work but behind with domestic issues too. I got a speeding ticket the other week and the convoluted paperwork with that, and other issues, has had to take a back seat. (Got caught doing 37 miles per hour in a 30 zone. Not exactly the 'boy racer' zooming madness of the kind we see around here so often.) Apart from all these issues, I've been trying to deflect demands for me to travel to London to take part in video interviews for the re-issue of the 'Modern Music' album by Cherry Red/Esoteric Records. It's not that I don't want to help out by doing these interviews, it's just that I'm finding it difficult to find time, (and a certain amount of enthusiasm,) to take a day out from hospital duties to travel down to London to carry them out. Ironically, whereas London seemed like a dream destination when I was a teenager, now going there feels like an unwanted, detested chore. The traffic congestion, crowds and hard-nosed attitudes of shop assistants and so on, seems to have little to do with the kind of world I dreamt of living in all those years ago. Maybe the kind of world I'd like to live in is just a lost fantasy. But, I have to admit that the world of the 21st Century seems not to be in harmony with the projected 21st Century vision that was promised during my youth. The problem, as always, is with people and their reluctance to change. I'm trying, despite the continuing preoccupations, to make inroads into recording new music. Not much achieved in this regard, but a new song ready to mix on my Cubase recording system, (after it failed me miserably for some weeks (before, inexplicably, starting to work again.) Still not happy with the system, far too convoluted. But, I guess I'll get more used to its complexities as time goes on, no matter how unwelcome they may be. Now? I'm away to get drunk... Bill at the 'Great British Music Festival' in the 1970s. Bill's live performance equipment... Bill's original Gibson guarantee card that came with his father's purchase of his Gibson ES 345TD guitar in the early 1960s.

This will be a very brief journal entry, Time is against me and the 'Old Haunts' album launch party is coming the day after tomorrow. I've been desperately trying to keep everything on track but have found it hard due to concerns with my Mum who is hospitalised and seriously ill. Daily visits to the hospital in Wakefield have taken up several hours of each day so have severely reduced my preparation time for the upcoming event. Nevertheless, I've managed to create a couple of new videos to screen and am now trying to put a few pieces of artwork together to offer for sale on the merchandise stall. It's all a bit last minute though. Today I had to forgoe my hospital visit and instead had to attend a brief rehearsal at Leeds University where my new guitar tech, Gordon White, had the challenge of getting to grips with the complexities of my digital guitar processing system. Glad to report that Gordon did a sterling job and everything seemed to connect together in the correct way. I ran a couple of the numbers that I will be performing on Saturday but then called a halt to the proceedings and packed all the gear away. I have to admit that the last four, almost five, weeks of worrying about my mother and making daily journeys to the hospital in Wakefield have taken a toll on my nerves and, I guess, my health too, to a degree. I'm feeling like I'm coming down with a cold and my energy levels are low. But seeing my Mum suffering so much is not easy to bear. Anyway, I should not be spending time on writing this journal entry...there is still much to do before Saturday's performance. I just hope it will come up to people's expectations... A forthcoming album... Another forthcoming album...2020?

Mum will have been in hospital for three weeks tomorrow. Her condition, whilst only slightly improved in some areas, is less so in others, and the last few days have seen a worrying deterioration. One of the problems, (amongst others,) is her loss of mobility due to being bed ridden, plus all the attendant discomfort that such a thing presents. Getting her to eat is difficult too...she is very weak and often in pain, but refusing pain killing drugs because of an old prejudice against them. She can be very stubborn sometimes, but stubbornness is not working in her favour, I'm afraid. Emi and I have been visiting her in hospital for several hours every day, but it's so difficult to see her in such a fragile and painful condition. Getting back home from Wakefield every night, to face all the preparation needed for the upcoming launch party event on top of the worry about mum, leaves me feeling drained, helpless and hopeless. Nevertheless, I have managed to make a little progress: The hour long video to accompany the new album's preview playback has been completed and now only requires transferring to Paul Gilby's computer in preparation for projecting on the day. I've also, this evening, completed autographing 250 copies of the 'Old Haunts' CD, which will be available for launch party attendees to purchase ahead of the official release date. (The signing of these CDs was not made any easier by the fact that many of them came shrink wrapped. Not the easiest thing to remove and it certainly slowed down the signing process.) I've also settled on a set list for the live performance. It includes a new piece titled 'Antique Gods'. It also would have included a couple more new pieces but I just haven't had time to get over to Fairview for John (Spence) to master them. The set includes a few old favourites and a couple of tracks that have only had a limited hearing previously. There are 12 pieces to perform in all. And, of course, 12 different guitars, one for each track. Deciding on which guitar would be best for which track has also occupied a lot of time and experimentation. I think I've arrived at the right choices now. One of the guitars that will feature is a new Backlund Model 200 which has a great, raunchy sound and will be used on the piece 'I Always Knew You Would Find Me.' I'll also be featuring the Backlund Model 100 DLX which was bought as a 70th birthday gift from loyal fans last year. Another guitar will be the Musicvox 'Space Cadet' model that also came my way due to the wonderful kindness of fans. And whilst on the subject of guitars, I have managed to decorate a fabulous Airline Coronando '59 guitar which has been generously donated by Mike Robinson of Eastwood guitars for a special charity auction in aid of Sara's Hope Foundation. This guitar will be auctioned at the event. I have to say that it's an excellent instrument, retailing at over £900, and I've actually used it on a new piece of music I've been working on. (I'm afraid I couldn't resist the temptation!) Unfortunately, I've drawn all over it with permanent marker pens, which may not be to everyone's liking, but for fans, it may add an extra desirability, (along with the fact that the eventual auction winner can say that the guitar was actually used on one of my recordings.) I've not yet managed to create any artwork for the merchandise stall though, but will try to make a start on this in the coming week. However, time is running out and my main focus is on my mum's health needs, so no promises, but we'll see... THE AIRLINE CORONADO '59 GUITAR WHICH WILL BE AUCTIONED AT THE 'OLD HAUNTS' LAUNCH PARTY IN AID OF SARA'S HOPE FOUNDATION CHARITY. BILL IN HIS HOME STUDIO WITH GUITAR DESIGNER JOHN BACKLUND EALIER THIS YEAR. BILL HAS CHAMPIONED JOHN'S DESIGNS FOR A LONG TIME NOW AND IS THRILLED THAT EASTWOOD GUITARS HAVE MADE THEM A PRACTICAL PROPOSITION FOR GUITARISTS WHO APPRECIATE SOMETHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY. (BILL IS HOLDING THE BACKLUND 'ROCKERBOX' MODEL.) BILL'S DIGITAL GUITAR PROCESSOR RIG AT A PREVIOUS 'CLOTHWORKER'S HALL' CONCERT. BILL WILL HAVE A NEW GUITAR TECH THIS YEAR IN THE FORM OF GORDON WHITE WHO HAS PROVIDED REPAIRS AND SET UPS FOR BILL'S GUITARS OVER THE YEARS BUT WHO HAS NEVER GUITAR TECHED FOR HIM IN A LIVE PERFORMANCE. THIS WILL BE A BAPTISM BY FIRE FOR BOTH GORDON AND BILL. THE DIGITAL RIG IS COMPLEX AND FAR FROM SIMPLE TO SET UP BUT, HOPEFULLY, THINGS WILL WORK OUT WITHOUT TOO MANY MISHAPS!