Triumph among tragedy.

It has been a very tough year for us, emotionally speaking. We have lost no less than three of our musical friends. First our dear friend Pete, then the lovely Terry Conway, and now Sarah Morgan with whom we sung at Pete’s funeral.  And then, to give us hope, we are reminded today of our most admired musical friend who has miraculously survived and is still going thirty years after he fell asleep at the wheel and drove his car at speed into the front of an approaching lorry and broke virtually every bone in his body.  All those years ago we got to know Nic Jones quite well and we must have seen him perform well over a dozen times before his accident. Once after a Saturday concert he stayed over at our house and entertained the kids all next day playing fiddle tunes while our Richard, then only  about five, accompanied him on a cardboard drum kit. For a long time after that, Nic would cross a crowded room to say hello to us whenever he spotted us at one of his shows.

You may have heard of Nic.  If not, let me just say that he is unquestionably the best folk singer guitarist I ever heard, and I have heard thousands of ‘em. Suffering from his terrible injuries and quite a bit of brain damage his recovery has been very very slow, but he is now back performing, although he no longer has the ability to play guitar which he did so wonderfully in the old days.  Today, we discover that BBC4 will be showing a programme about Nic next Friday, which is what prompted me to write this.  I have just finished watching some YouTube videos of Nic performing over the last year or two.  I found them extremely moving. On Friday Kath and I are going to need a big box of tissues.

back to boaty subjects in my next post.  Our Autumn cruise is only a week away.