Look! That's Linda and Joan! More about them in a moment. First things first. Thanks if you joined me in a prayer to any of the multi-limbed deities of any of the world religions, because it worked. On Wednesday we enjoyed our second visit to London's Glittering West End (the Uxbridge Road) where the awfully polite and efficient staff of The India Visa Application Centre ('Ticket four zero one seven, please check your passports before you leave, enjoy your visit, step aside please') returned all 5 of our passports with a beautiful addition – a six month India Visa. Nightmare averted. India High Commission, if you're reading this, loving your work. (If you have any friends in the Syria Visa Application Office...?)
Back to today. As I write, it's 11pm. the rest of my family sleeps, we are staying at a flat belonging to some friends of friends who have now become...well...friends, having moved out of our house a few days ago. This welcome base has become our 'jumping off point'. I had to bungy jump for a TV film a few years ago in New Zealand and although this lovely coach-house flat isn't anything like a lunatic-filled cage dangling from a high wire above a cavernous ravine, the psychological similarity bears comparison. At some point you have to stop talking about it and actually walk out onto the edge and throw your self off. This week has been exactly that – we need to somehow go from 4 bedroom country cottage to...let's face it...a van. Moving out was a massive mental hurdle that forced us all to stop relying on all those little home comforts that needed either packing or storing – toothpaste, kettle, TV, clothes – without the friend's flat, our 'precipice edge', we'd still have been packing boxes an hour after the ferry leaves next Monday.
So here I am, at the and of possibly the busiest and strangest day in this whirlwind of a fortnight ahead of our departure. We 'gigged' at Strawberry Field today. I might have already told you how shortly after Jill foolishly suggested busking The Beatles as we travel the world, I came up with the concept of busking from Strawberry Field, Liverpool to Strawberry Fields, New York, simply because it has a convenient Latitudal (I may have made that word up) ring to it. So amid the crazy chaos that our lives have become, Friday the 6th of August was scheduled for that all important gig.
We had talked about doing a proper press launch. A friend who works in PR even offered to help for free. 'This Morning' he gushed, 'GMTV. The One Show. They'd love it!' I wasn't so sure. I'd thought maybe Radio Merseyside, Radio City and the Echo, but nothing more. I'd grown up just half a mile away at Mossley Hill where my dad was a curate and my mum wanted half our old church there to wave us off. A lot of people in our shoes would have welcomed all this attention, I know. And it probably strikes you as odd that two people who work in the business weren't embracing the idea of a huge media send off at the gates of Strawberry Field. But I had issues.
First, Strawberry Field (singular) is an old children's home owned by The Salvation Army. Why John Lennon tagged this old house he could see from his childhood garden into a trippy song I don't know, but he did, so it now inevitably has a huge appeal to Beatles fans. But it's closed. The Sally Army are, as I write this, still in discussions about what to do with the site having recently (according to a charming receptionist I spoke to) decided not to sell it. Well done them! I hope they can refurbish it and continue its great work in the community. What they couldn't do, however, is confirm that we had permission to park our yellow VW camper across the gate and busk to a random crowd of assembled press and distantly remembered parishioners of a nearby church. Without some authority, a press junket seemed risky. There could be builders, architects, furrow-browed Salvation Army Majors wanting to stride purposefully through those very gates. It could be awkward.
Secondly, Beaconsfield Road, L18, is very narrow. The pavement is almost none existent. A crowd of more than one man and a dog forces what few pedestrians there are to step into traffic. I've been to loads of press junkets and I just couldn't envisage one happening at the gates to Strawberry Field. Not once you added a T25 camper and us 5. At best it would result in hooting and occasional bad language. At worst, a post mortem.
Thirdly, and most importantly, we just weren't that good. At busking, I mean. We'd done a TV piece the day before for ITV1's regional news show Meridian Tonight (the one with TV legend Fred Dinage on it) and thanks entirely to the skills of a TV journalist called Victoria Bennett we had 'got away with' not looking too mad. But we really only knew a couple of songs. And we weren't very good at those. Bringing Liverpool's heritage back to the gates of Strawberry Field and murdering it before the local hacks would be about as welcome as John Barrowman warming up a Roy 'Chubby' Brown audience with songs from the shows. The reception could be cool, to say the least.
Also, by way of an aside, we'd been very rubbish at organising this 'launch day' alongside the quintilliongooglyezillion other jobs we'd had to do, so when I couldn't get a 'yes' from the Sallvation Army I thought 'let's just do what real buskers do'. So the plan was to simply rock up to Liverpool, slam the van in front of L18's most famous wrought iron gates, and do a song. Or possibly two. But no requests.
So we did. By 7.30 we were on the road, ETA 10.30. By 11, we estimated, we should have been there, nailed it, and be heading back to finish countless other undone chores like taking the last boxes to friends garages, collecting the RAC Carnet from the Post Office (whose Special Delivery we'd missed) and, oh one small thing, PACKING THE VAN. We're effectively leaving tomorrow as we're staying with friends in different parts of the country over the weekend before sailing away on Monday. If we were going on holiday for a week I'd have packed the car by now. We're going away for a year and the van remains untroubled. So with gritted teeth I drove to The North, taking some comfort and relief in the fact that at least we didn't have any press waiting for us.
At 10 o'clock The Daily Mail phoned.
They'd seen the ITV film and wanted to do the story. Even follow our diary throughout the year, they said. Great publicity, we all agreed, 'I wonder if we can get a photographer to you in Liverpool this morning' they asked. Beneath a shabby, unkempt bed-head of hair, Jill's face visibly paled.
In fact, they couldn't. They hope to sort a piece over the weekend. There is time yet for hair-straightening. So we came, we saw, we busked. I knew Beaconsfield Road was very quiet as far as pedestrians go – there's really nothing much round there, but our impromptu appearance was received very well by the only two people who walked past us as we attempted to video ourselves gigging in front of the bright red gates. Linda and Joan will always be held fondly in our hearts as the very first people on this epic adventure to listen to us perform and then donate to our UNICEF fund. We actually asked them to take a picture of us, which Linda did with such aplomb that I instantly promoted her to Chief Camera Operator, and she shot some video of us too. These 2 complete strangers not only agreed to lend a hand, they genuinely seemed to get a kick out of what we were doing. I watched them as we cantered through a couple of 'All You Need Is Love' choruses, and they were smiling so broadly, and singing along, it was astonishing. A smile of pity, I'd have expected. But these were real, joyful grins of happiness. They kept saying how we'd made their day, and you could tell they meant it. This was a profound moment. This was the first real evidence that we could actually do this...properly. All of us had absolutely no qualms about launching straight into a song, and, astonishingly, we seemed to be quite entertaining. No one threw rotten fruit. Even better, Linda and Joan, our new best friends, on hearing of our quest didn't hesitate to dig into their purses and throw a quid each in the pot to get us on our way. I nearly cried. Linda told Edie all about how she had been her age when The Beatles has flown back from their gig at New York's Shea Stadium, and her mum had got tickets for the both of them to get onto the tarmac at the airport and witness their triumphant return. I've seen that footage so many times, and here was a completely random member of the public recalling it first hand to my daughter at the gates of Strawberry Field having just applauded our busking efforts. As good omens go, I'll take that one. That's when Jill took their picture. We love you Linda and Joan, wherever you are. Thank you for giving the Beatnik Beatles the best launch we could ever have wished for.
