It’s spring. There are a couple of daffodils in the garden that don’t acknowledge
anyone but themselves. We enjoy them and they are regardless of us. It’s a good
way to be.
The previous week 14th and 15th I filmed a documentary on the abolition of The Slave trade for Granada TV. It was directed by John Woods, an incredible guy in his fifties with the energy of someone half his age. On another note I met Tony Morris, Granada NW presenter in the picture with Lucy Meacock.
The documentary took me from the grave of a slave named Sambo, in Morecambe to the Slavery museum in Liverpool. I remember about ten years ago taking black American
jazz musicians to that same museum. They wept openly and said that there was
nothing of the kind in America. We then went on to play a packed live gig at The Blue Coat Chambers where they poured gin on the stage and mid tune started a cleansing libation. If the North West had not played such a central part in the slave trade the cities would not be the great cities they are today. They owe a lot to slavery and the least these cities can do is acknowledge the fact. The programme will be broadcast in the North West region on 27th of this month at about 7pm, or is it 7.30pm.
I stayed at The Radisson hotel in Manchester. It was once the free trade hall. I remember performing there about twenty years ago, for Anti Apartheid. The free trade hall is where “the most famous heckle of Rock History” happened. An audience member shouted “Judas” to Bob Dylan when he changed to electric guitar.
Today I will be travelling to Glasgow on a train for a BBC radio four documentary
I am making with producer Philip Sellars on the WH Auden poem Night Mail. I’m on a sleeper. Tomorrow I’ll be flying back from Glasgow. And then straight off to Italy for a
Literature festival. When I return on Saturday I’ll be in studio doing the final voice over for the slavery documentary.
This weekend I should have been at two parties, but couldn’t actually get out of the
house. Depression is what happens. I didn’t go. I couldn’t. It’s the minds or behavioural equivalent of losing the keys. I spend all my time entering rooms, knowing that I have entered them before, searching in the same places I searched before. I imagine that people would say what they always do – “where did you last leave them”. If I knew that I would be able to find them and they wouldn’t be lost! So I can save the irritation and not ask anyone about the keys. Better still, if I don’t see anyone they won’t ask. And if they won’t ask I won’t be irritated. Then I think how stupid I look, looking for keys for a month now. So there it is I can’t get out of the house cause I’ve lost the keys. This seems logical.
Better still, if I stop looking for the keys and go to bed I can sleep it away. When I go to bed I wake knowing that I am avoiding the keys and avoiding going out. Strange isn’t it. I am not writing this for empathy. I am writing it for the sake of truth as I find that truth is always a good, good thing. And a blog could reflect that. Now that I have finished this I’m off to the BBC to do some recording. Bye
This condition lasts for months and then, strangely disappears as if it was never there.