This website – at least the concept of it began at the end of the last decade. A friend of mine had committed suicide and this messed with my head big time. We’d known each other since we were about 11 and spent our school years and beyond in regular contact. He was my best man at my wedding and I at his. His death and particularly the circumstances of it really hit home.
I began to question my life and this led me down a dark road of self discovery and damage to my health. I sought help from my GP to cope with the subsequent grief and low mood that followed and the grief counsellor I saw (who quite frankly was awful and kept asking me how I’d go about killing myself – something I’d never contemplated but she kept nagging about until I gave her something to write in her notes) came up with the suggestion of writing an online blog as an outlet for my grief. It’s taken a while but here it is.
My friend who died was – like me – a real music nut and from an early age we’d head around London and the home counties to see bands at every opportunity. About a fortnight before he died we’d arranged to head down to The Eden Project on a camping weekend that summer to see Levellers and New Model Army. This trip never happened, although several years later (post-pandemic) I made the pilgrimage myself.
So this blog is dedicated to Alan. A man whose company I still miss and there’s not a week goes by when I hear some new band that I know he would have loved. When he died he’d set aside a bag of cassettes for me including a bootleg of a band we’d both followed back at the end of the 80s and beyond.
His parents passed on his CD collection to me which still blows my mind. Among this was a lot of English folk and blues which I have to admit had passed me by. Even gone he still provides me with new music to listen to. Through the music I found peace and a way to get over the loss of a great friend.