Memories and Un-memories!

12th August 2007 1.30pm

I am enjoying being back in Blackpool and at the Rebellion Festival.

Whilst last year was pretty much a process of acclimatisation, this year, everything is more familiar and it is more enjoyable for it. I really didn’t expect to be back here and now I am, it makes me realise how much I got into it last year.
We went over to the venue at lunch time and had a couple of beers in the Pirate bar, it’s actually called the Spanish bar but it is designed like a pirate galleon so I prefer ‘The Pirate Bar’, it also plays non-stop Ramones tracks (at least through the duration of this punk festival) so whenever we set out to have a drink in there I cry “Yo Ho Ho, Lets Go!”, but I guess you have to be there for the full effect.
We spend some time there just watching the punks and skins coming and going and soaking up the atmosphere, I love it! Next thing I know, we’ve got to return to the Hotel to get ready for the gig.
Because we are playing a couple of hours earlier than last year there is less time to hang around waiting to take the stage and the hours have just flown.

Once we get back, I realise that I should have something to eat before it gets too late. I am now becoming really nervous as the evening draws nearer. I have no appetite but must eat something as I'll only feel like drinking beer after the gig, it will take me ages before I will feel hungry again. We go off in search of a chip shop but could only find a sandwich shop that sold chips. I had a plate of them, they were fresh and hot but tasted like pulped paper, my throat had trouble with them because it was dry through nerves and therefore I had no saliva.

It was a joyless meal and then we returned to our hotel to get ready.

Finally, when we had made all our preparations and were ready to take the gear to the venue, I felt like I was going to pass out, it was a panic attack and I did my best to ignore it and carry on like it hadn’t happened. Clare knows the change in me though, for her it is obvious even if others don’t pick it up, she knows I am feeling deeply uncomfortable and that I will not be easy to be with until the gig is done, and if it doesn’t go well I will continue to be difficult to around for some time after.

We are asked to be backstage two full hours before we take the stage, no-one really knows why and the band think it is excessive, after all we are not trying to take a flight to somewhere sunnier and drier. I take the attitude that if I am going to be nervous I would rather be so backstage where I can see what is going on, than in a pub outside the venue just imagining the worst. The band finally turn up an hour before the performance, a time agreed with me to be the latest they should appear.

Just before they do, I am at my worse and feel like collapsing for the second (and last) time, once everyone turns up it fades and as we make ready to take the stage, I am too busy to think of it.

Once again, like last year, 999 are on before us and once they had finished and vacated the stage I took my guitars over to my side of the performance area.

Last year I looked up and no-one had moved, we had a packed house to play to, this year I look up and everyone has gone, as soon as 999 had finished they disappeared, the hall is empty!!!!

1963

I can’t recall when he died exactly, I can’t remember his birthday, I can’t remember a kind word he may have once said to me.

But what I do know is that I hated him, really hated him. My sisters hated him, my mother hated him but she was loyal to him to the end. Now we all have trouble remembering him and when we do, it is for all the wrong reasons.
Sometimes I look at my daughter and think, “What horrible things would I have to do for this five year old girl to erase me from her memory”.

If that was to happen it would be a tragedy, and yet it has happened, not to me but to him. How tragic is it when the sum of a man’s life is collective amnesia and loathing from his offspring.
Now all these years later, I feel sorry for him, I do. I cannot continue hating him, I cannot continue forgetting him and simutaniously, unconsciously hating him. For in the end it consumes you in it’s subtle and yet damaging ways.

How does this damage manifest itself?

It’s in your relationships with other people, in an unkind word, sarcasm, insensitivity and lack of patience.

When I was a boy, I spent what seemed like forever asking, pleading and whining for a bike and when I finally got one it was an ancient second hand boneshaker. That was all we could afford but because it was old, it needed quite a bit of maintenance. I couldn’t do it on my own so I relied on my dad to help me and in the end I learnt to dread asking him.

It was always so stressful.

As we would work to undo a nut or replace a brake block, everything I did was wrong and the more I got wrong the harder it was for me to get things right. He would start off talking to me in an irritated tone, then it would move to exasperation and then he would end up barking at me. Why are you touching that? Did I tell you to touch that? Can’t you follow simple instructions? It’s quite obvious what you need to do here! Where is your common sense? Can’t you do anything without breaking it. Here, don’t be such a chump give it to me I’ll do it, he would say and then snatch the tool from my hand.

As much as I have done to forget him, he is still here, inside me waiting, lurking and at times he reappears like a ghost.

For instance, my partner Clare sometimes struggles to do something on our PC, she’s not too IT literate but she does try and is improving all the time. There have been occasions when I have been tired and cannot face looking at a computer screen any longer and she has sought my help. When I have discovered what she has been doing wrong I offer advice which she sometimes mis-understands. Later when she is in trouble again I come over and I’d say something like...

Why are you clicking on that? Did I tell you to click on that, can’t you follow simple instructions? It’s quite obvious what you need to do here, where’s your common sense. Can’t you do anything on this PC without breaking it? Here, give it to me I’ll do it. As I snatch the mouse from her hand, I realise I have been barking at her and a chill runs down my spine. That’s when I get the feeling that he is in the room with me, almost standing next to me.

Almost, but he’s not, he’s in me,

I am him.

I am not going let him get to my partner or my daughter, but I cannot reach out to stop him.
The only thing I can do is change myself and I’m going to do that with forgiveness.