It´s morning, and I have a song in my head, as ever at this time of the day. It´s ``Yellow is the Colour`` by Donovan, for some reason, which I don´t really understand. Some loose cabling again , I think, the sound from the past making a connection with the present. Or even the presence.
When I was young, I really appreciated the humble cardboard box. Not so much interest in the thing inside, but the box was really useful ! It could be transformed into all sorts of things. Space ships, houses, cars, games. All sorts. They didn´t look that great , but in my mind´s eye they were perfect. My youngest daughter has the same habit of making stuff from the ´usually discarded´. My flat - known to us three as ``Little London`` - is often strewn with carboard debris, the product of one of her ´´making´´ sessions. As a result I now have a splendid cardboard radio , a sweet dispenser ( which actually works !) , several games based on books she has read, and a lot of left over bits and pieces. And a cable stirs. ``Bits and Pieces`` was a song from the 1960`s by the Dave Clarke Five , if I remember correctly . It was the soundtrack of my young self and it still reverberates around inside my head as I survey the mess on my floor. And cables stir, and plug themselves in...
After the convent, my new life at secondary school could be a little confusing not least because all my friends seemed to be called ´John´. It was such a problem that we needed nicknames : so there was me (Carty), Jumbo, Biscuit ( what a name to be saddled with !) and the unforgettable ``Haddle``. Well, it made sense at the time. This was , to use a modern term, my ``crew`` on the good ship adolescence. And our preoccupations echoed the development of those years. First it was football. Wonderful Saturdays playing three-a-side football in Jumbo´s gigantic garden. He was a twin and they were both the sons of a vicar and his wife who lived in a beautiful vicarage in a nearby Yorkshire village. The day would finish up in their kitchen eating bacon and chips around a battered table with his mother chatting away to us. It was all seemed very bohemian, and my first taste of a lifestyle which was quite different to my own parents. John number four´s older brother was something of an artist, and a lasting impression was made on young me.
There was one friend who wasn't a John however. And this was Steve ( a knight ) who became my best friend in later years. He was a musician and a natural gifted artist who could produce amazing characatures at the drop of a hat. Later on , in the 6th form , we were to form a band called ´Buffoon´ who were probably the worst best band to come out of our little town. We had big ideas, but not a great deal of talent or equipment. I had a fuzz box for my guitar built by my friend Mr. Biscuit. It will come as no surprise that the electronics were housed inside an old biscuit tin.
Around this time, I went through quite a transformation . Long of hair and short on common sense, I replaced the bookish exam passing me with an updated version who was something of a ``1950´s mindset`` parent´s nightmare. My mother had said to me , mid o-level exam studies, ``Why don't you have a girlfriend ?`` … Taking her at her word , I set about acquiring one. Well, that's not quite true. The Geanie whom I met, acquired me. We were very close, and it lasted three years. In the summer holidays she would travel to the USA to visit a relative and we would spend expensive ages on the phone to each other. Finally, I went off to university and then spent a lot of time hitch-hiking up and down various motorways to visit her. But, as is often the case at this time of life, our relationship got stretched to breaking point and eventually snapped completely. We didn´t talk again for 25 years.
But back to the story. At the age of 18, I went off to university to study Architecture. I was by nature a musician and an artist I guess, but times being what they were and influencers doing their best to influence, architecture seemed a more practical route to actually being able to make some money from my talents. I also toyed with the idea of reading English Literature, but in the end opted for the ``mother of the arts``.
My Genie having vanished from the page, in my final year during this period there was a second fateful meeting. At a student party one night a girl smiled at me ( or at least that's how it seemed ) and I asked her to dance. She looked to me a bit like Kate Bush. She accepted my invitation and … to cut a very long story short... we spent the following 20 years together, moving down south to London and making our life there. She was a clothes designer and we were the classic child-free yuppie couple. She is now an artist. After we went our separate ways in 1999, she married and now has grown-up step children. She hails from Yorkshire, but loves London and still lives there .
My life as an architect in London often involved me pushing myself to the limit of what I could endure. The creative side is of course a joy , but the other side, the money, the business , the conflicts resulted in me feeling like I was being squashed into a shape which simply was not me. So, at the end of our biggest and most fraught project to date , with my private life in a mess, I first left my clothes designer and our flat in central London, set up on my own, met an Austrian lady , fell in love, decided I wanted to have a family, travelled to and fell in love with Austria, quit my London job and moved here. A lot of experiences in a very short space of time, although the thought of children had been mulling around in my head for a decades (my clothes designer partner had been completely opposed to this idea).
And the result of all this ? A new career path, new people, a new attitude to risk, two lovely daughters, the opportunity to be a full time nappy-changing dad, and a lot of wonderful memories. People often write about changing tracks in life, but few seem to actually do it. I did . I re-booted every aspect of my life, and in doing so , found myself. In May 2001, I put everything I had in my car and drove across countries to Austria , where I have been ever since.
Looking at it with a calm head , my life could be seen as a number of jigsaw puzzles with different images on the box´s covers. The first a painting of a young couple, endearingly clueless, the second an image of urban partnership, comfort, stability and material success, the third, a ship sets off on a voyage of discovery with family and personal growth on the chart. But along came the inevitable storm and a parting of the ways, my austrian wife having boarded her new vessel accompanied by an equally new captain.
And the forth puzzle… who knows ? I have a new piece of original music - let´s call it a soundtrack - in my head as I write. And the guitar sits on its stand, in the corner of the room.. Driving to work yesterday I was thinking of this piece of music when I stopped the car and took this photo...
Its now September , and I´m growing older. And as I stand at the prow of my ship, I am keen to get moving , to progress and enter new uncharted territory.
The church bells ring out the hour and, sitting at my keyboard, my mind sets sail.
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