THE LIST
I’m at a stage now where the list has to be made. I sometimes joke to people that this project could become my life’s work. The temptation is to follow up every lead and see how it fits into the overall. To some extent that state of affairs is still the case, however I do have to be realistic in the sense that I have soooo many hours of material now and need to start to making some shape out of it all.
Hence the list… an attempt to collate the’ things that must be done’.
1. Mr Bekenkragor called me this week – he is full of memories and interesting perspectives. It just so happens that he is also a spiritualist and has testimonials to his name from people who have been ‘cured’ by his healing hands. You may or may not be sceptical, but it certainly adds a new dimension, as he also apparently picks up on voices from the beyond. I shall test him on that one when we meet ; perhaps I can do an interview with Benny Nelson or Joe Loss from the ether. Now that would be something… I have arranged to interview him in Seaton Carew; just a few miles down the coast from Hartlepool.
1b. He rang me again this afternoon. His wife’s cousin Nancy has written me a letter which she has given him to pass on to me. He read it to me over the phone; it’s quite long and full of detail. She hopes that some of it might be of interest to me. She says that these days she mostly looks back and remembers her happy times. You can’t fail to be humbled by people making such an effort. She writes poetry too and has written a poem about the Rink. I ask if I can use it and he says “yes of course, she sent if for you”. She also lived next door to the singer Marion Keene, who I have written about previously here. It’s as if everyone was part of some pre-ordained Queen’s ballroom cast. She says she can remember the day local band leader Benny Nelson died. She was outside of the Lex cinema . For her it sounded like a ‘where were you when they shot Kennedy?’ moment.
2. I have been swapping emails with a lady in Canada. Her parents, also in Canada, met at the Rink. Her father was stationed at Catterick army camp and he was one of quite a few army lads who made the weekly round trip when they could. His perspective will be unique as I haven’t found anyone from the camp who went there up until now. At first I am under the false impression that she lives in Hartlepool, so ask if I can interview her. Once we clear up the confusion we decide to use Skype. I’m quite liking that idea actually as they represent a significant number of ex-pats who still, for whatever reason, keep tabs on local Hartlepool events even though they left so many years ago.
3.There is a reunion of local guitar heroes ‘the Kavemen’ planned this year. Their most famous member is a massively respected blues guitarist called Ray Minhinnett who was also nominated for a Grammy for his seminal programme on the fender stratocaster. I will talk to him and also film the band when that happens.
4. I am currently planning a strategy for interviewing a well known singer from the sixties, whose name I shouldn’t mention yet. I have his image as a far depth of field phantom in a BW photo taken inside the Rink. Chasing down this photographic phantom in a similar fashion to David Hemmings in the 1966 Antonioni film ‘Blow-Up’ seems like an entirely appropriate thing to do.
5. I’m getting no joy from my errant musical arranger, so need to find another worthy soul who is willing to write the BigBand arrangement for my original song. Once recorded I would love it to become a charity download, something that might leave a tiny legacy from the project.
more of the list next post…
