/ IN THE LAND OF THE PINK AND GREY

Copernicus in Reverse

The weather for the last few days has been bright sun with strong cool north-easterly winds and cloudless skies, but last night from all sides came the windless hiss of the summer rain. Cecily and I had just gone to bed when we heard the steady patter and looking out through the casement I could see the rich layers of sycamore leaves shaking as each drop hit them.

Earlier in the day we’d been busy in the garden where the bluebells and yellow poppies now modestly dominate. The old wall, which I told Jenny about, is finally finished and it looks very fine. It was rebuilt using the same materials and techniques that were used when it was first built some 400 years ago.

I guess we all play the part of custodians, with our shared and personal histories, at once both liberating and onerous. Of course the past is the magic which renders the present familiar and with tradition, binds us all and the generations together. But sometimes it all gets a bit too much, becomes a burden. As the past may overwhelm, so too does the country-side at this time of year with the bulk of the sheer green. I take some heart though in the fact it’s not just us - don’t think for one moment that nature is excused, that the hedgerows in May don’t remember last summers first Hawthorn blossom or that the still thought-fox forgets.

Through first eyes though, comes the activity at the museum, as diverse as anything that could be imagined (well, within reason). On the menu over the next couple of months is everything from Starters of Hip Hop Showcases and Rock Art Workshops, to Desserts of Producer Master Classes and Temporary Photographic exhibitions. Do have a look on the ‘What’s On’ section and come along to something, feed your head, and join the strong sturdy shoots of the emerald meadow as they hoist themselves skyward. And if there’s a bustle coming from anywhere, don’t worry, let the BME help the May Queen as she tidy’s up, re-organises, and makes space.

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Return to Sender

'In a leaden sky, the rain horizontal is caught by the light
As silver scratches on a tape rewound with information tipped by green
The day is old, but twice as young'

Dear Jenny,

Sorry it's been so long, you know by now what I’m like, but there's no excuse.

Since I last wrote the world has changed beyond recognition as Spring creeps from the south. The first crocuses and primroses have appeared in the garden and our new, well old, Ragstone wall is beginning to take shape. I wish you could see it. Most of my weekends recently have been spent working on the spare room, readying it for junior curator. Bees-waxing the beams is a messy job to be sure, and I'd suggest lint free cloths if you get round to it. Have you planted the Sunflower seeds yet that came from that garden in Alnwick? Pop them in a small biodegradable pot, like the ones we used to make from the Ripley Chronicle, and put them somewhere nice and bright indoors to start. In a month or so, plant them in the garden, pot and all.

Work has been a blur, stretching lines of information and hurried plans. You would have loved our trip to Hanover to see the Sennheiser Factory. Remember the walks we took alongside the Mersey with the rusting industrial cranes of the docks and the nostalgic rose red melancholy which filled us? I also remember the walks from Hayes train station to the old EMI Record Factory, down Blythe Road and past the aching magnificence of Machine Works with its broken panes. Hanover was nothing like this you'll be pleased to know - it was vibrant, efficient, and full of people so enthused by their work and by the company's rich heritage. Did you know they still hand finish, with the precision of a clock-maker, all their high end products? Coils and coils of copper wound up tight.

In the museum, the spring has brought renewed emphasis on the Public and Education Programmes. I just know you would have loved the Song Writing classes we've had with Chris Difford and Hugh Cornwell. I know because of the times you played their records on that old hi-fi in the lounge (the one that used sit on the upturned banana box, draped in a yellow table-cloth, by the window). Remember also, the time we puzzled over the lyrics to Golden Brown whilst huddled round a fire in the remains of that slate built miners hut on the Pig Pass and the times we made up songs on the car journey west?

The battery light is flashing on this old BBC B and I don’t know how much longer it will last, but I feel I've said so little when there's so much more say. It doesn’t feel like the space in between words either, or the notes left unplayed. If you've time, and you get this before April, maybe you'll come down to see Ross talk about capturing moments, or Tony talk, as only he can, about New York - the concrete jungle where dreams are made of

Until next time, yours as ever.

Peter

Every generation gets the Stone Henge it deserves.

Last year we left the rat race of London and moved to the country. One rodent vex has been replaced by another, we have mice. You kind of expect it given where we are and especially during winter, so I convinced Mrs Curator to live with it by evoking Bagpussian images of mice choirs and their inclination to fix things. Last night however I heard them and far from cutesy singing they were on the rampage. On the plains of the morning, like a battlefield, I found they'd rolled one of Junior Curators feeding bottles across the floor and shredded the teet, had a go at a kiwi and a parmesan rind on the worktop, and eaten some carrot cake. Mrs Curator had enough and off we went to buy a mouse trap (humane).

...... and so the waiting game begins.

In the village over the weekend, and outside the house, moss littered the ground. We haven't had high winds so I can only assume either squirrels or birds have been easing it from the roofs looking for bugs. As I've been preoccupied with song writing of late it made me think of Elton John as he "sat on the roof and kicked off the moss" whilst working on 'Your Song'. It was written apparently a top a building in Denmark Street, London’s own tin pan ally - a street of a thousand lyrics, hustler publishers, aspiring artists and million sellers.

Those golden days are long gone, but song writing is still very much alive and is just practised in different ways. Last week we were delighted to welcome Chris Difford to the BME for a Master class – one of the very best British lyricists and one who sits squarely in that vernacular autobiographical tradition which spans the last century – from Music Hall to Lily Allen. It was great to see such enthusiasm and youth in the audience and a delight to hear Chris talk about his work and play for us a few songs.

One thing he did talk about was other artists, beyond Glen Tilbrook, singing his lyrics and how you give birth to a song and it can take on a life of its own. Similarly, on Radio 4 last week, Show of Hands were also talking about a similar issue as one of their songs was appropriated by the far right. Their songs are in that narrative folk tradition, a tradition in which, like jazz to an extent, there are standards which are constantly reinterpreted. Think about She Moved Through The Fair' for example, a song handed down, mutated, shaped, metaphysical and moving, or 'Black Waterside'.

One of the most remade and remodelled is Ewan MacColl's 'The First Time', originally an un-tempo folk song written for Peggy Seeger. MacColl is meant to have hated the covers of this song, and to an extent I've got to agree to him (what was Elvis thinking?), but a great song is a great song right and something that can’t be caged.

Most people know Roberta Flack’s version, that slow, woozy, and sensual voyage - a song of love found and that pain, that aching pain that goes with those first flourishes. Johnny Cash's version on the other hand, goes to the other extreme - it's a song of love lost, a song for a north facing window and part colour memories of happier times. The most recent version is Leona Lewis's - each generation gets 'The First Time' it deserves.

Alongside the chestnut coppice and shaded from the sun,
the snow once laid thick like a glacier is all but gone.
It has unburdened the trees and returned the land.
Do you think they remembered (even if the memories weren’t theirs)
the summers deep green,
when then the retreat scoured valleys rock cut and shaped the north?

and did they see the flowers whose hearts were closed at your request,
breathe and move on
like the grey geese at Bight Point

The snow’s finally gone and everything seems to be working again – except my car. The BME is springing back into life too and this week Steve Levine popped over to talk about the launch of our Production Master Classes – a new series focusing on the work of these often overlooked puppet masters. He also has one of Rod Stewarts green tartan suits from the 70's btw.

Producer of Radiohead's The Bends, John Leckie, has also just agreed to take a workshop, which is great news. He was also at the controls of course for the oft mooted best debut album of all time The Stone Roses. Coincidences coinciding, former Roses bassist, Screamer, Beat DJ and general force of nature Mani also dropped in this week with his lovely wife Imelda.

There are lots of stories attached to the objects on display here, and through their very presentation in the exhibition new ones are added, new chapters in their history. I remember going to collect Mani's Rickenbacker as we were setting up the BME a few years ago, and just as I was leaving he said he also had the outfit if I was interested…..

And so after twenty minutes of banging, thumping feet and rummaging in his loft he came downstairs with an old small blue and slightly mouldy carrier bag. Tipping the bag over, out spilled the paint covered baggy jeans, polo shirt and DM shoes he wore for the 'Mind Trip' promotion. It was one of those delightful moments, one as a curator you live for. These clothes, as symbolic as Daltrey's fringed suede suit for a generation, finally breathed again and like the grey geese can move on.

Out of the loft and now in all their paint splattered finery both the outfit and bass are on display in the BME. Most times I walk past them there’s a certain age of visitor leaning close to the glass. Do they remember Spike Island or the Empress Ballroom, their paisley shirt or a school bag graphitised perhaps, or maybe just flowing down the Waterfall sitting at a mate's house with stolen street light (a memory which isn't mine)…

P.S. they often point to the debut album which sits alongside the outfit, before muttering 'best debut of all time'.

As the clocks fall back and chestnuts roast, so Summer fades to Autumn like the dog fox gone to ground. And, as each risqué tree bares its branches so the music morphs – the Rocksteady recedes and is replaced by Rachmaninov, as the Pop passes on to The Pentangle.

I don’t know what it is about Caravan's In the Land of the Grey and Pink that makes me reach for it at this time of year. Neither do I know what it is that opens and closes or for that matter what size hands the rain has – but there’s something, like a jigsaw puzzle on a tree or the thought that cant be spared, which brings it all back again. Pass Pat on the golf course and listen as Nigel blows a tune and seven paper hankies dance, or ready yourself for a glass of Winter wine and hold grandad by the nose.

Now where did I leave my.......

About this blog...

Check out the sporadic, gently jumbled thoughts, feeling and concerns of our curator Paul Lilley as he attempts to make some sense of this crazy world. Enjoy.

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