ROGER & FRANS PAGES

MY WEEK
 

The week started - as they do - on Monday.  A sombre day, it was Grahame White's funeral at Woking crematorium.  The chapel there is small - seats about ninety people. Grahame had in excess of three hundred to see him off.    We were lucky in that we were in early enough to get seats for the very moving service.   There were several personal tributes paid by various friends. Perhaps the most moving was from Jamie Marshall - a great friend of Grahame's since his days in Capability Brown.  Jamie said a bit about his friendship and how they had both played in Don McLean's backing band - then he picked up a guitar and sang Stand By Me,  (Lieber/Stoller)  - which was just the right sentiment in an acoustic folksy way.  There were a lot of tears, especially when they played one of Grahame's own compositions and recordings at the end.  I think we were supposed to file out of the chapel while that played, but everyone stood still and at the end there was a huge round of applause.  That's the way to go.  Among the audience were Jack Lynton (Savoy Brown; Diesel, etc); Colin Pattenden (Manfred Mann's Earth Band) ; Ray Phillips and Adrian Metcalf (Nashville Teens); Karl Green (Herman's Hermits); Paul King (Mungo Jerry); Chris Bryant and Mike Windus (Jackie Lynton Band) and Julian Carter (Blind Drunk Jules).  A  tribute to Grahame's prowess as a musician. Then we all convoyed across town to The Hare Hill Social Club at Addlestone, where the wake took place.   It rapidly moved from sombre farewell to happy and glorious celebration of all the good things about Grahame.   There were so many bands who wanted to play that they were all limited to three or four songs each, starting of course with The Jackie Lynton Band, with whom Grahame had been lead guitar for more than twenty years.  Jack started with a few words about Grahame - which to our delight contained lots of the "F" word and appeared to quite shock the priest who had joined the wake. Jack sang three or four songs, two of them accompanied by Paul King.  When Jack had finished Ray Phillips got up to sing two songs with backing from The Lynton Band and they were followed by Blind Drunk Jules - featuring - for his first public appearance ever - Grahame's twelve year old nephew on bass guitar.  Following on from Julian's band, Jamie Marshall played three or four songs and was followed by The Retros' - who were Grahame's current band when he died. They were excellent and guest featured Paul White - Grahame's son - on drums. They played real sixties retro stuff - and I even danced (with Jacky Pattenden) to one of their numbers.

Jules. Mike Windus and Ray Phillips  Windus, Lynton, King and Bryant.  (Pattenden behind in white shirt)

Grahame's Nephew

Fran and I left about half past nine, leaving the party still swinging.  Our thoughts are with Chrissy and Paul White - The week after the party must have been a very lonely one for them. I spent the rest of the week doing my usual long distance travelling - visiting Footscray in Kent, London, Stevenage and Northampton - and also managing a visit to my Mums mid week.     We've all been concerned within the family this week, worrying about Fran's sister Jenn, who had a biopsy taken from a swelling inside her sinus last week. This week she announced that the growth was confirmed as malignant and that she would be having an operation to remove it in the next week or so, followed by a period of radiotherapy.  It sounds very matter-of-fact, but it's still scary. Friday was our thirty eighth wedding anniversary - we stayed home and had a quiet romantic dinner in the conservatory with steak and champagne.  Saturday morning we were up early.  I did a lot of general tidying up in the garden, dead-heading daffodils, clearing verges, tidying the ivy and moving various plants (which will probably die as a result).  I also spent a lot of time searching the web for a decent LCD TV with built in Freeview and DVD recorder.  All those I found which looked suitable were marked "out of stock", except one, which optimistically said "allow 35 days delivery time".  I didn't order one yet.

Fran spent Saturday day having  facial treatments at Renna's Retreat.  In the evening neither of us felt much like going far so we decided to miss The Jackie Lynton Band gig in Guildford; and instead went to The Shepherds House at significantly closer Moss End, to have dinner.     Sunday was a little more adventurous.  We went to visit Wolfie, we purchased loads of plants at LongAcres Garden Centre and we visited Comet at Slough to spend all the tokens I had been awarded for my work during the London Underground terrorist attacks.  They were about to go past their sell by date so we had to use them fairly soon.   We acquired a new digital DVD recorder so that we can now record different programmes from the ones we are watching; we also got a decent loudspeaker docking unit so that we can play our iPods without earphones.  Finally we bought a new little LCD TV for the bedroom.  The latter was a bit less successful.  Many years ago we had the house wired for TV in most rooms, with a signal booster and aerial splitter up in the attic.  This lot fell into disrepair many years ago and as a result we have only ever had analogue TV in the bedroom for the last five years or so.   Today I learned that you can get analogue stations just by having a load of wire hanging around in your attic, but for digital stations (which is all the new LCD set wants to know about) you need a proper aerial.  So before we can see our new HD ready LCD bedroom TV, we need to get the aerial system re-wired.   Another project to add to the list. A quiet end to a sombre week.  Let's hope the sun shines a bit next week.

Wolfie and Fran on Sunday

THE WORLD'S WEEK