The outdoor gig at the co-op in North Kensington with Gordon Smith managed to avoid rain though not wine… or beer or cider come to that. Various states of hippydom graced the evening, but thankfully no outdoor free love or nudity caught my attention. Actually it was a cross-section of modern co-op living, with age, or youth, no barrier to belonging. I suppose I shouldn’t emphasise the word modern in that last sentence. This paragraph seems to be meandering, rather than progressing…maybe the hippydom is catching. I always considered myself pre-hippy or beat, to be honest. Such self-delusion leads us into strange paths, but I did get home eventually, at five thirty in the morning.

I even enjoyed the walk home, though I had to leave Gordon with friends. He’d managed to fall over when carrying his amp indoors after the gig. The falling over wasn’t the problem. The inebriation was and it only got worse, so I politely declined his offer to accompany me home. Actually I may not have been polite because I had no intention of carrying him. I certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed the challenge. Sometimes the way to deal with challenge is to avoid it. This I did successfully.

On the following Monday I did my usual round of socialising in the pubs around Portobello Road, including the Metropolitan in time to catch T-Bone Taylor playing guitar and singing. I thought I could avoid participating because I had no harps with me,,,how fortunate! However that seemed to no longer be an excuse to avoid participation, so I was dragged up to sing one to his guitar accompaniment, This does not signal a new career as a singer only. I’ll still be playing harp whilst there are people to be antagonised. The rest of the week seems to have disappeared from memory but I shall continue to protest my innocence. Anyway, there was the carnival to look forward to, but that’s another story….