By Eamonn Keyes: Christmas is a special time. And Christmas 1995 was a time that was somewhat more special than
By Eamonn Keyes
Father Ted is a firm TV family favourite even almost thirty years after it was made.
It came out of nowhere, this series set around a funny but accurate story of smalltown Ireland where simple country folk are living with a waning Catholicism influencing every area of their lives, and with the religion being represented by a trio of exiled clerical misfits. Within its weekly half-hour format it hid a scathing satire on the relationship between state and religion in Ireland, managing to cover homosexuality, celibacy, corruption, nepotism, racism, alcoholism and even hinting at the then-emerging stories of paedophilia. One of the most well-known episodes is ‘A Song For Europe”.
Ted is goaded by Father Dick Byrne into attempting to write a song for “Eurosong 96” (a spoof of the Eurovision Song Contest). Ireland’s fear of winning the contest yet again and therefore having to fund the following year’s edition plays into Ted and Dougal’s hands.
They lose badly as their song is literally a monotone, so Ireland lose the contest and Ted and Dougal are humiliated by the loss to Dick Byrne.
In real life at that time Ireland had won Eurovision three times in a row, in 1992, 1993 and 1994, and the rumour was that Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, did not want another win in 1995 because of the huge staging costs of the competition for another year. A story has since emerged that it was decided that RTE ‘throw’ the contest by entering a song that would have no chance of winning the competition, and the similarities between this story and the ensuing 1996 Father Ted episode are quite remarkable.
The song was called Dreamin’ and the songwriters, Barry Woods and Richard Abbott submitted it for acceptance as the Irish entry. The song was instantly mired in controversy as it was accused of plagiarism, sounding remarkably similar to Julie Felix’s song Moonlight.
However, despite this RTE allowed it to go through, with some claiming that they were delighted with the negative publicity as few of the Eurovision juries would vote for it, even further reducing its chances. But first they had to get a singer for the song, and this is where my connection comes in.
I was a regular at the Regency Hotel in Belfast’s Botanic Avenue, particularly on a Sunday night. There were two reasons for this, the first being that I was usually gigging on Friday and Saturday nights, so it was a good way to wind down the weekend. The second was because they had a very talented pianist and singer there on Sundays, and I thought he was great. His name was Eddie Friel, and he did a lot of lesser known material that I liked.
He had a wonderful singing voice, a mixture of warm honey and gravel very reminiscent of Chris Rea, and he sang songs like Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn, I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt and many others. He had real musical gravitas and presence, with a very jazzy approach to the grand piano he played. It was a truly relaxing, cosy session.
I got to be quite friendly with Eddie over time, we’d talk about our influences and he’d tell me about the solo album of his own songs he had been working on for quite a while, we’d have a few drinks and I’d sing along softly from my chair.
Eddie Friel It was with great surprise that I heard he was going to be singing one of the songs going forward to be chosen for Ireland’s Eurovision song entry. I imagined it must be a fairly formidable song, given my knowledge of the man and his music.
I soon learned it wasn’t one of Eddie’s own songs, but had been put together by two Irish songwriters, Barry Woods and Richard Abbott. When I heard it had won and would be Ireland’s chosen entry, I was glad for Eddie, as it would put him on a much bigger stage and give millions a chance to recognise the real talent that he certainly was.
I heard the song would be played on TV prior to the competition and, intent on hearing it, I managed to catch Eddie’s performance.
Eddie came on looking very uncomfortable, with no piano, and just a stool to sit on Dave Allen style whilst singing what was described by my more direct Scottish friends as three minutes of the purest pish. Accompanied by an accordion player- a klaxon warning in itself- a dreadfully clichéd song slithered around the stage, layered with a gooey topping of clinically dead female backing vocals and a string and woodwinds orchestra that would easily make Andre Rieu sound like Napalm Death.
I could almost feel the enamel on my teeth liquify under the syrupy assault. I was stunned. What was Eddie doing? Where was his musical integrity?
Somewhere down the line Eddie decided that he had to take this opportunity and ended up going off on a complete weekend bender of poisoned chalice doubles with hemlock chasers.
Come the night of the Eurovision competition I watched as Eddie came on like a condemned man being led to the scaffold, resigned to his fate, and sang that wretched song for what was thankfully bound to be the last time ever. I was astonished when the song managed to come 14th in a field of 23, which surpassed my wildest expectations.
Norway won the contest with a song that nobody remembers called ‘Nocturne’, whilst Ireland lost for the first time in four years with a song from Hell I cannot ever forget because of its sheer awfulness. The Devil certainly does not have all the best music.
Along with many others I spoke to at the time, our fervent hope was that every record, tape and CD of the song would be confiscated and burned in an attempt to atone for this complete travesty, and that the writers would be chased throughout the land by a crazed, drunken mob with flaming torches, pitchforks and starved wild dogs until they were finally hunted down for some truly awful mediaeval punishment. But I digress.
I never saw Eddie again. unfortunately. After spending time playing piano in Van Morrison’s touring band, enough of a purgatory of sorts in itself, Eddie seems to have vanished off to Austria, where he still plays and sings in luxury ski resorts. He may just have confused ‘ostracised’ with ‘Austria-cised’. That said, I’d give anything for another one of those excellent nights in his company, listening to him sing wonderful songs in his wonderful way.
When I saw the episode of Father Ted less than a year after these events, saw the plot about losing Eurovision deliberately, a song sounding very similar to another already existing and unsuspecting entrants being used to lose the contest, it rang a bell for me.
To make things worse someone important had obviously had a word in the ear of those concerned at RTE because the next year……. Ireland won again
This follows on from a previous initial piece in the Orkney News : The Influence of Ancient Spartan Warfare in Mid-1960s Belfast
This should be read before attempting to try to make sense of what follows below, which although it might seem fantastic, all actually happened.
After the demise of the Spartans their extensive arsenal was reclaimed by the various mums and dads around the street and things were never quite the same. Never had the phrase ‘beat your swords into ploughshares‘ been so admirably demonstrated as dustbins, mops and brushes and gardening equipment came into normal use once again.
As with the fall of all great empires, such as that of Alexander the Great and Rome, the territory was split up and fought over by small groups, and at one point The Top of The Street was involved in running battles with The Bottom of The Street, as veteran comrades who previously shared their Fruit Salad, Parma Violets or Mojos whilst on campaign fought each other instead before it was all settled with a game of street football.
In the absence of empire building the nine year old veteran Spartan soldiers turned back to the usual activities of their age group, these being mainly classified as Doing Things They Shouldn’t Be Doing In Places Where They Shouldn’t Be.
Once again a matinee at the Forum cinema provided the main inspiration for this.
This time it was a James Bond movie, Goldfinger, with a character called Odd Job.
Odd Job was the Korean henchman of villain Auric Goldfinger, and in addition to his duties as guard, chauffeur, manservant and golf caddy, in the movie he breaks the thick oak railing of a staircase with a karate chop and shatters a mantlepiece with his foot. He has a black belt in karate, taekwondo and hapkido, is a master at archery and his special weapon is his steel razor-edged bowler hat, which he throws at opponents and which decapitates a statue in one scene. He is strong and silent, as he cannot speak, and looks suitably evil.
His chopping skills impressed us all, and simultaneously with this movie the Man from UNCLE started being shown on UK television, also featuring many scenes involving martial arts. This was unmistakeably the future for a nine year old Spartan hoplite at a loose end.
We discovered the local secondary school, St. Gabriel’s, had a Judo class on Sunday afternoons, and we decided to take the risk and see what we could learn.
I mentioned ‘risk’ because St Gabriel’s had a notable reputation, and it wasn’t at all good.
When your headmaster is known as Battler Boyd it hints that all might not be well in the school. Other teachers’ nicknames also did not fail to be suitably illuminating.
Charlie Lick the Chalk, Eddie Turds, ,Henry Half-A-Beard, Goof, Specky McGecky, Pigsy, Coconut and Flycatcher.
There were tales of every window in the school bus being smashed before it left the school gates, routine fist fights between teachers and pupils and full scale riots with the pupils of Somerdale, the rival Protestant school, on the main road, which lead to the schools having to stagger closing times to avoid confrontations. And this was before the Troubles.
However the lure of being taught to Judo or Karate chop opponents was too much, and several of us showed up at the Judo class, excited at the prospect of seeing sundry unconscious bodies sail through the air. The reality was somewhat different.
What we saw was what seemed to be two men in pyjamas holding each other by the lapels and trying to trip each other up. No creeping up behind your opponent and flooring him with a chop to the neck, as we had often seen Illya Kuryakin, the Russian master spy played by David McCallum from Glasgow, demonstrate in The Man from Uncle.
They then tried to get us involved and we would be thrown down by an experienced opponent and had to bang on the ground several times to show we submitted.
As Spartans obviously never ever surrendered we lasted ten minutes then left, walking out into the twilight in utter disgust. At the side of the school we noticed a ladder leading up to the low roof of a classroom block, about 4-5 metres high.
Up we went, and headed up over the flat school roof, looking for who knows what.
We hadn’t gone unnoticed, and on hearing several shouts we saw about half a dozen bigger St Gabriel’s boys from the Judo class , all clad in white gym gear with tennis shoes running quickly across the roof towards us. We headed to the ladder as fast as we could, and I reached it last.
It became obvious we all couldn’t get down quickly enough, and I was certain to be caught, so I decided the only way out was to simply jump off the roof from a standing start, right down a four or five metre drop. Why? The power of literature. I had started reading DC and Marvel comics, and having spent quite a lot of time studying Superboy and Spiderman I was pretty sure that almost everybody had some degree of super power, so I should be okay.
This lasted until my feet hit the ground, then I was literally brought back down to earth.
I was utterly stunned by the shock, and the neural connection with my legs was utterly lost.
Luckily, my super power turned out to be adrenaline, and as my legs had been pre-programmed, off they went, with my upper body balanced precariously and being dragged along for the ride. The bigger boys in pursuit were amazed I’d not only survived but could still run, and set off behind me, being well equipped for the chase in their white gym gear.
As I ran my brain managed once again to make contact with my legs and steered them towards a boggy field, and sure enough after a hundred yards or so the bigger guys gave up, their gym kits being utterly plastered with mud.
I got back home and took stock of the situation and discovered that although everything was very sore nothing was broken, although I suspect that this may have contributed to my severe back pain in later life. The other Spartans were amazed I had evaded capture.
For a while after our adventure we decided to keep to milder depredations in our street, and just like Homo erectus a million years earlier we soon discovered fire.
Initially we would have a small fire by the kerbside, with crisp bags and twigs being foraged to feed it. We felt like veteran cowboys around the camp fire until our parents caught on and more and more frequently buckets of water stopped the practice- in public at least.
We then went underground. The backs of the streets had an alley running their length, locally called an ‘entry’ where bins were left out for the bin lorry, and often cardboard boxes and newspapers would also be left out for collection- rich pickings indeed. As we were now out of the public gaze we set out on an arson spree that Nero himself would have envied, and we had much bigger fires against the brick walls outside the houses’ back yards.
We learned quickly that we needed to keep the flames less than a meagre 8 feet high as they then became visible to the house occupants and buckets of water followed with shouted threats as we ran away, jumpers over our heads to disguise our identity.
So we settled for a lower grade of fire and started using wood to sustain the burn and roast uneatable potatoes until we discovered the even more amazing properties of burning plastic. The fact that it would melt and then burn dripping liquid fire onto anything was fascinating, and we called it ‘lava’ as a result. It was fun experimenting with it on the end of a stick up to the point when someone decided to chase me and it dripped onto my leg. The pain was incredible, and then trying to remove the hardening plastic was even worse.
After it had happened to a couple of us we abandoned our arsonist pretensions completely and went on to something potentially even worse.
I can’t remember which one of us came up with the idea of making a bomb, but it certainly wasn’t me. To me a bomb was either something cylindrical dropped from an aircraft or the cartoon version of sticks of dynamite wrapped together with a fuse sticking out.
Sugar mixed with weedkiller or fertiliser was certainly not it, and I scoffed at the idea, not realising that within 7 years the IRA would be levelling parts of Belfast using just that mixture due to the sodium chlorate in weedkiller and the ammonium nitrate in fertilizer.
Off we went to the local pharmacy as it seemed it was the only place you could buy weedkiller because of its toxicity, and if the pharmacist was bemused by the sight of four 9 year olds wanting to buy some he didn’t show it. Instead we were subjected to a ten minute talk on handling precautions for poisons and which dilutions were best in which conditions for which weeds. We were somewhat bored, as all we wanted to do was blow things up, and this was definitely delaying the show.
Our gang explosives expert told us all we needed was some sugar, a paint tin, a hammer, a nail and a straw. We got these from various sheds and headed off to a patch of woodland behind some houses at the back of Deerpark Road, a couple of hundred yards away from one of my future addresses. We mixed the sugar and weedkiller together, filling the old paint tin with it, maybe three litres in total, and then put the lid back on the paint tin, hammering the metal lid round the seal until the metal rims had bent over it sealing it tight. We then punctured the lid with a nail until we could get the straw into the resulting hole, we filled the straw with some of the weedkiller and sugar mixture we had kept back and slid it in. The bomb was ready. I still didn’t believe it would work.
Someone lit the tip of the straw with a match and we all ran off to what we thought was a safe distance, giggling nervously.
The explosion at that close range was huge. As it went off I remember seeing a bright flash of flames and then the area filled with choking smoke and bits of shrapnel from the paint tin flew everywhere. It was incredible that at least one of us was not maimed, but we were untouched, but that was unlikely to last as the local residents came flying out their back gardens en masse yelling at us and off we quickly scarpered, terrified of being linked to such a serious event, where we’d surely be locked up.
It was the end of our anarchist phase, but an early introduction to our imminent future.
Luckily this indolence all came to an end with the Battle of Jamaica Street.
Unexpectedly the Bottom of The Street was attacked by interlopers from Jamaica Street. Belfast is named from the Gaelic Béal Feirste, literally the mouth of the sandbar, giving rise to the name of the River Farset, a tributary of the main River Lagan. The Farset was a large stream at this point close to where I lived, forming a territorial boundary between Etna Drive at the bottom of my street and Jamaica Street itself.
The Jamaica Street army had dropped in several breeze blocks to enable both a rapid crossing and to save their good black school shoes from water damage and had swarmed across during a street football game. Some of us were involved in the game and immediately rushed for reinforcements
We then managed to beat them back because on rushing forward we had luckily found an ‘arms dump’ on the Etna Drive waste ground, as someone had just tarmacked their front garden and left all the topsoil sods piled there. Sods were excellent on many levels. As they sailed through the air they scattered soil and grit with them, often blinding the enemy as they tried to plot their trajectory, before actually hitting them and throwing soil shrapnel everywhere, leaving the victim filthy and subject to later parental punishment as a delayed result.
We gradually beat them back across the Farset, and just at our moment of greatest triumph I saw their leader Gerard ‘Skin’ Burns, hiding in a hollow, just as he jumped up and threw something from about 30 yards away. Although Skin Burns was only about 10 or 11, he was already about 5’6” tall with an obvious moustache. My world tilted sideways and then whirled around, as the top of my head had been hit by a large stone, and I had to be escorted from the battlefield by two comrades who brought me home, the lump already rising with some traces of bleeding.
This was the ultimate battle honour, and for days afterward I bore my wound with pride, having to display it several times a day to various friends.
We never again had to suffer invasion from the Jamaica Street army, but the final blow in that conflict only came a year later when I was 10. I was being bullied by Seamus Clarke, a boy who had fought with Jamaica Street that day, and every time I went past his house he’d try to goad me into fighting him, which I refused to do despite his constant scorn.
Eventually one day he started on me again and punched me in the left arm as I walked by. That was the final straw. I swung my right fist fully round and it landed flat on his nose, which erupted with blood, and off he ran home, howling and crying. I had no more trouble.
Today the Farset runs underground in a culvert and the scene of the battle is gone with housing now in its place.
Present inhabitants will never know the historic significance of the site where they live.
The real gun battles that would soon follow would take greater precedence in their memories.
The leader of the Jamaica Street army, Skin Burns, had 2 brothers, one called John, unsurprisingly known as Fat Burns, and another known as Rocky Burns, who became a famous rag and bone man. Skin Burns was murdered by the INLA on June 29th,1991 for allegedly being an informer.
The boy I had a fight with a year after the battle, Seamus Clarke, almost deserves his own piece.
He was part of a notable Ardoyne Intermediate Gaelic Football club who won the League in 1968, having been given football strips for the very first time.
He was in the team with two other boys I knew well, Maurice Gilvary and Ciaran Murphy, a soft and gentle friend of mine.
The team photograph was taken by a Holy Cross teacher, Cyril Murray, who I knew very well, having studied under him.
After the Troubles started Seamus Clarke joined the IRA and was later convicted of 3 murders during a bombing and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1976.
He escaped from The Maze prison during a mass breakout in 1983 and was never recaptured, and over 40 years later lives in the Irish Republic, still technically on the run from the authorities.
His brother Terence ‘Cleeky’ Clarke ended up as Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams’s personal bodyguard.
Teacher and photographer of the team Cyril Murray was murdered by the UVF at his home in Belfast in 1992. He had just retired and was about to move with his sister Colette to a new retirement home in the countryside. This was a severe blow to me and has stayed with me for many years, as Cyril was instrumental in changing my life.
My friend Ciaran Murphy was kidnapped and murdered by the UDA in 1974.
Maurice Gilvary was also accused of being an informer and murdered by the IRA in 1981.
The Forum cinema closed its doors for good in February 1967, as many cinemas experienced a downturn in audiences as television became more widespread as a form of entertainment. In the 1980s it was converted in to the Crumlin Star social club and remains under that name today.
No more matinees and childhood fantasies in a world utterly changed.
I suspect that this is the closest I will ever get to writing a headline that resembles the many scholarly articles I have read throughout my life. Academics should note that this should not be used as a reference piece as it has been dictated by the nine year old boy who still curates a large trove of dubious information in my head, wheeling it out for approval usually around 1am or 2 am to prevent any possibility of my getting to sleep and driving me to get it down for posterity in some form.
Many people will be surprised to discover that even before the Troubles got seriously started in August 1969 that we were rehearsing unknowingly for the main event. And by ‘we’ I mean children of primary school age in some parts of North Belfast, soon to be one of the main conflict areas, and by ‘some parts of North Belfast’ I mean the street where I lived and several surrounding streets.
I lived in Ardoyne, a mainly Catholic enclave with a population of about 10,000, and a much smaller population of Protestants concentrated almost entirely in the three streets running above us, as the part where I lived looked like a military barracks from the air, with seven long streets of terraced housing bisected by a long straight dividing road and with another at the bottom end. Unfortunately when the estate was completed the Luftwaffe got much the same impression, and there were frequent gaps in the terraces where houses had suffered the consequences of the May 1941 raids, which affected Belfast badly. Next to London it had the highest ratio of air raid casualties for its size.
That’ movie was ‘The 300 Spartans’, released in late 1962, and starting to feature in children’s matinees by about 1964-65. The story of the defence of Thermopylae in 480 BC during the Graeco-Persian wars, it possessed us and we were never the same again.
In the weeks following the screening, which hundreds of local children had seen, we made a transition. We now knew the benchmark to aim for in defending our street from our rivals, and during one of our meetings we were addressed by our leader and elder, Laurence, who had just reached his ninth birthday:“Men, the time has come to arm yourselves” he told us from his position on the top step in the backyard of a vacant house, and we went off to comply after some discussion on what we needed to fulfil the military requirements of the film and of defending our street, pooling our memories of the movie to ensure we captured all details. To be fair, finding the 2,500 year old panoply of a trained Spartan hoplite might be difficult in 1960s Belfast, but we soon improvised. The main weapons were spears, shields and swords.
The nine-foot long spear, known historically as a dory, was easy. Broom and mop shafts were removed, along with those of some gardening equipment, and the result was impressive. Tin cans were hammered on and around the end of the shaft to give a metallic spearpoint still easily capable of sending a young boy to A&E. Swords were fashioned from lengths of wood, usually broken from fences, with a smaller cross piece to enable it to be stuck through our elasticated Snake belts and held in place.
The true ‘pièce de resistance’ was the aspis shield, fashioned from dustbin lids. These were of two kinds, a light and thin lid, and the thick hollow lid, which was much heavier and difficult to hold as it was made from galvanised zinc and steel. Unfortunately for us, and less so for ancient Sparta, plastic bins did not exist yet. The bin lids then had a Greek lambda painted on them, looking like an upside down ‘V’, to mimic the Spartan lambda standing for the name of their polis, or city state, Lacedaemon.
Armour was a problem, until we discovered that a slab of cardboard stuffed up the front of a jumper was enough to protect from enemy stones whilst additionally terrifying unsuspecting pensioners in the process. One of us would stick the cardboard armour up his jumper and stand on top of a garden wall. When a tired pensioner would slowly pass us by, lugging her shopping, we would implore her to look, and then throw real darts at the wall-standing victim’s chest area. They would stick with a loud thud into the cardboard armour, he would shriek in mock agony and fall backwards off the wall into the garden whilst the pensioner would have a near cardiac arrest at the sight of this apparent death.
This just left the Spartan cloak. Historically, this was red. In Belfast the cloak often had stripes or a paisley pattern depending on whether a towel or a mother’s head scarf was pressed into service as a replacement.
Additional elements included the odd bow and arrow, and several grave discussions took place before several ‘troops’ were told that cowboy hats, Winchesters, Colt 45 guns and holsters were not permitted.
The first time we formed a shield line was impressive, a line of bin lids, some having to be dropped every few seconds due to the weight on our underdeveloped wrists, and a number of broom shafts stood out ready to deal with any massed assault from the street opposite. Some of us had even got lucky, having found some additional old ‘poles’ as we called them from broken brushes and rakes. That meant these could be treated as disposable javelins and could actually be thrown at the enemy, as opposed to most of our ‘spears’ which would need to be returned to the brooms and mop sockets after the battle, or even earlier if their absence was discovered by irate parents.
The enemy really didn’t know who they would be messing with if they attacked.
We needed a marching song, to keep us in step the fifty yards or so we’d be travelling to battle, and as we didn’t have any Spartan flute players this was a problem.
Luckily Lonnie Donegan, still basking in fading popularity, came to our rescue, and our army became the first Spartan army ever which marched to the old Deep Southern States work song ‘Pick A Bale of Cotton.’
‘Gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton
Gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bale a day
Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton
Oh Lordy, pick a bale a day.’
We were breaking new ground.
We had a few skirmishes with the enemy in the street above us, which involved the tried and tested name-calling and stone-throwing, often by even younger kids who saw us as their main influence and wanted in on the action. In later years I discovered that this had happened in the actual Greek battles, where poorer men and servants, called ‘peltasts’, had thrown stones, used slings and the odd javelin as they couldn’t afford armour and weapons.
It seems that even history was on our side. However, as they couldn’t run fast they were occasionally captured and thumped or hit by stones. This usually ended any incipient battle as an irate mother marched her wailing child across the battlefield to confront those responsible, scattering the military formations as they ran home to avoid charges of involvement in the incident.
However, the big day arrived, and we faced our enemy fully armed and armoured with all the cardboard we could find. Laurence made an epic speech to us, telling us we were fighting for the glory of the street, and that we were the better men, and we nodded gravely as our 8 and 9 year old shoulders took this great responsibility on board.
A few brush shafts were thrown, usually turning sideways when thrown, and there was only one injury, one of our soldiers who fell over his own ‘spear’ when it got caught between his feet and he tripped, breaking the shaft in the process as he fell. An ominous ‘ooohhh’ went up from the formation, as it still belonged to his dad’s rake, and he was now a dead man hobbling.
After a lot more name calling a decision was made for the two leaders to meet and discuss the terms of conflict, and Laurence and his counterpart met unarmed on the manhole cover in the middle of the road, dodging the very occasional car, usually a Morris Minor 1000.
Laurence came back from the parley and asked us to gather round. “Men” he said, “I’ve spoken to their commander and we have agreed that in order to prevent bloodshed the battle will be decided by single combat.” I thought this was an entirely spiffing idea until he turned to me and added “and you will fight for us.”
When I asked who I would be fighting he pointed to a guy twice my size, three times my weight and about 14 years old. Peter Crozier was a big lad indeed, and was also dressed in his school gym kit, meaning I could see his muscles, huge thighs and head somewhere in the clouds above me. I was indeed a David to his Goliath, and that visualisation gave me an idea, possibly the only way I might survive the personal slaughter this encounter promised.
I expected to be badly battered and so did everyone else, looking at me with pity. If we’d had a religious child present among us he’d be pretending to give me the last rites.
Peter walked up to me, and a barely- decipherable deep bass rumble from his chest informed me that I was now going to be “dead.”
The two commanders told us that the battle would begin on the count of three.
“One,” they commenced as both my plan and survival instinct swung into action and I booted Peter as hard as I could in the balls. I had just enough time to register the sight and noise of a colossus falling to earth in an early version of the 9/11 Twin Towers collapse before I took off as fast as I could. And boy I could run, and I did, all the way home. Until my knees started playing up at age 15 I was a sprinter, probably the second fastest in my school year even then, so there was no chance the Godzilla I had just grounded would catch me, even if he could get up.
Next day I met up with some of the men. I expected to be shamed and expelled from the ranks, but instead my action was taken as a great victory. It seemed that everybody else would have just run away, but I had actually battered the enemy, and the tale had grown as it was retold. The single combat option was not seen as a successful one for the future, as nobody else wanted any part of it, and it was a poor commander’s decision, as everyone thought Laurence should have been the one to fight.
It was the beginning of the end. The crack army of 8 and 9 year olds had been drilled to perfection, armed to the teeth and were prepared to battle against the odds to preserve our way of life. But the troops ebbed away, unwilling to fight unless it was in their formations.
Within a few weeks there was little archaeological evidence of the existence of the Stratford Gardens Spartan Army, just as with the polis of Sparta itself in real life.
The only memory remaining of this fine army of diminutive soldiers could be seen for years afterwards on Bin Collection Day, when there was a long line of bins left outside for emptying- many of which were topped with lids with a sad lambda still painted on them.
The Week When I could Sing
Life can be very strange, which I’m guessing most of us over the age of 18 know by now.
This is the story of one of those stranger things that is hard to explain away.
It took place in about 1992 or 93 and I’d forgotten all about it for about 10 years and had begun to question whether it had only ever happened in my imagination. However, there were witnesses, and when I checked, yep, it actually happened. The week that I could sing.
At that time I was at a loose end musically, and I’d started going to open-mike sessions to play along and keep my hand in, so to speak. I’d met a singer/acoustic guitarist called John Crawford in Belfast, a great entertainer and now sadly deceased, and he told me that there was a good jam session in Downpatrick Folk Club, about 25 miles away.
Downpatrick now has the reputation of being a good music town, with three excellent bands emerging in the past 30 years from this small town of just over 10,000 people, these being:
Ash, with one silver, three gold and two platinum-selling and chart-topping albums in the UK Charts, as well as 18 top 40 singles.
Relish, a superb band who never got the success they deserved due to poor label support, much praised by Brian May of Queen and Larry Mullen of U2, but who sold one of their songs to Westlife, reaching number 2 in the Charts, and who went on to work with Paul Weller and Sinead O’ Connor, managing her up to her death.
The Answer, who I worked for several years with, and who had two top 40 UK albums.
This lay just a couple of years ahead but gives some idea of the musical environment I started frequenting and the standard of musicians I would regularly play with.
Eventually this session moved to a bar on Church Street, which I think was called Dick’s Cabin, now Whisky Mick’s. It was pretty good, and I enjoyed getting up to play along with some very good musicians in what was now called The Jam. I also met Gregg Coyle, a very talented guy who I’d played with several times, notably in 1978 with a Thin Lizzy tribute band (before there were tribute bands) and for whom I went on to produce a solo album- ‘Moondog’ around 2004.
Gregg is also the main witness for the defence regarding the events described here.
I was handy with a guitar or a bass, but usually enjoyed playing the latter more at The Jam, and I never really sang because I knew I really couldn’t do it with any proficiency. Harmonies, yes, but that was about your lot. I knew my limitations and had learned to avoid them, something I still have as a life lesson to this day. Mostly.
I was a single parent at that stage, with my son aged about 7, and I got up as usual to get him ready for school, but I’d taken a day off from work, and I planned to do a little bit of music in my tiny boxroom studio. That’s when the weirdness started.
I was playing around on a synthesiser and starting softly singing a melody. The sound that came out was not my voice. It was effortless, pitch-perfect and with a great consistent vibrato. I was stunned by what I was hearing. Where had this come from? I tried again, louder, and it was even more impressive. I went from stunned to gobsmacked.
I’d never dreamed I could sing like this and although it took a lot of effort just to stay in pitch when I sang harmonies, this required virtually none from me.
I spent the rest of the day trying things out, seeing what I could do. My vocal range had increased, and the top notes sounded great. The lower notes were smooth and richer than I had ever heard resonating in my head. All sorts of things were now possible, and my imagination went into overdrive as I thought of what I could now do musically.
How did I sound? The memory I have of the singer closest to my voice is Paul Carrack, ex Ace, Squeeze and Mike and The Mechanics. A voice probably best for Blues and Soul.
Next day was the same, and I was buzzing with anticipation as that night I was going to The Jam in Downpatrick, and that would be an ideal opportunity to try it out.
I was very nervous when I arrived, but settled down waiting for it to start, and I tuned my guitar and tried out a song my brain suggested would work with my new voice. It was ‘How Long’ by Ace, and as I played it and started to sing out came That Voice again. It was effortless still, I could bend, slur and sustain the notes easily, and as I sang Gregg came up behind me, and I heard him say “well, well, well, I hear that somebody has finally learned how to sing”.
I was very pleased because Gregg was a hard taskmaster and always very critical.
I can’t even remember if I did sing anything that night, but I have no direct memory of it.
It could be hard to get a slot as some people would stay up on stage for ages instead of rotating to make room for others, and I think that was the case during that night’s jam.
I spent the next few days singing and looking for the most appropriate songs for my new voice, but bizarrely for me during that period I never recorded anything, despite being in a recording studio.
What I did remember was a deep feeling inside after a few days that this was only a passing thing, and instead of joy I felt melancholy, with feelings of loss similar to knowing when a loved one is leaving soon. I would get up each day and sing, but with less joy as the days passed.
After a week I got up and it was gone completely.
I tried to get it back, but everything seemed different, even my larynx wasn’t working in the same way. Over the following weeks I worked myself hoarse trying to bring it back, that the spell would return, using all sorts of breathing, racking my brains trying to replicate the feelings I’d had when singing.
When I was working with Gregg on ‘Moondog’ over a decade later, I mentioned it to Gregg. Yes, he remembered it well. I’d almost gotten used to the idea that it had all been a dream, so the affirmation was good to have, but all the more baffling.
To this day it has never returned, although every so often I still try to resurrect the feeling, but without any success.
I do sing now, regularly and with more confidence, but it’s hard work and requires concentration and self-discipline to be even acceptable, and it is not a patch on the effortless soaring I’d had for that brief, glorious week.
I’ve spoken to voice tutors whenever I encountered them, and the answers differ, from some saying I just needed the right techniques, which they of course could provide, to others insisting everyone has a voice and I’d just found mine and would do so again.
I never have, though, but I have come to terms with the fact that I never will at my age, and I’m comfortable with that, but will always still have a little residual regret remaining.
I really don’t know what caused it. I’m not religious, but I do have a spiritual side of sorts and I am always open to explanations or suggestions.
This event was supernatural in the real meaning of the word. It wasn’t my natural voice, but it changed to something else which was extraordinary for a very brief period without cause or reason, giving a dramatic improvement to it.
As I grow older I get the feeling that in being creative we tap into something in the universe, and at that point I tapped into something I simply couldn’t hold for long.
These days as I fall asleep I very often get several songs or melodies simultaneously going through my brain, all vying for attention, and none of which are identifiable as something I have heard previously. Imagine having half a dozen radios set to different music stations placed all around your living room. I’ve got to the point that regardless of what hour it is I get up and sing these into my phone, giving context of rhythms and what I’m hearing. These little mumbled snippets from 2, 3 and 4 AM have formed the basis of some of the most recent and some of the best songs I have written and recorded, with the result that I am more prolific now than I have ever been in 50 years of performing music, with 7 songs so far this year and more awaiting development.
If anyone has any ideas around the causes for this strange happening please feel free to expound on them, they’ll be welcome.
I’m just really glad I didn’t sign a multi-million pound recording deal during that week.
I’d really have been a disappointment the following Monday.
By Eamonn Keyes: Christmas is a special time. And Christmas 1995 was a time that was somewhat more special than
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