They say that it is the sense of smell that invokes feelings of nostalgia when one returns to a much loved place or is reminded of a particular time in one’s life, but I am convinced that music and certain songs also evoke cherished memories.
Back In 1982 I was a young fourteen year old attending a school, which was fifteen miles from where I lived. Although it was a boarding school, I used to go daily (by bus) which meant I was up and out early and home for 5.00pm each day. As my school was attended by boys (there were no girls but luckily for me we had two girls’ schools next door one of which was a convent school!) from other towns such as Nottingham as well as various parts of Leicester nearly all of my school friends lived too far away for me to see in the evenings or at weekends and so I joined the Western Park Youth Theatre which was run on a Wednesday night from the Church Hall about 100 yards down the road.
This was a magical time in my life where I made many wonderful friends and indulged my pleasure for acting and singing! The Group was run by a wonderful man called Mick Lowe, who was (without doubt) one of the most dedicated and amazing people that I have ever been lucky enough to know. A more kind and generous man you will probably never know and he was so talented he could just about play anything on any instrument as well as produce magical shows from virtually nothing! To say that I loved him dearly is something I am not ashamed to say.
I have lots to tell about this time in my life and there will be more later, but amongst all the people I met in this group (and more about them and the songs that remind me of them later) were two friends Mark and Melanie who were to have a very definite influence on me. The Depeche Mode song ‘See You’ always reminds me of Melanie!
The reason is a simple one. Melanie had to write and record a radio play as a project for her ‘O’ Level drama and wrote a very amusing short play called ‘The Barbeque’ which was about a woman who murdered a significant number of ex lovers and enemies and then served them up at a summer barbeque! Both Mark and myself played all the men’s parts (with various accents and in my case degrees of bad acting) and Melanie and her friends Lucy, Adele and Catherine played the girls’ roles. The school (I seem to think the New Parks Drama Teacher was called Mr. Butler) had given us the use of a very posh stereo reel-to-reel tape recorder and microphones but as everything had to be done in real time (no digital editing in those days or multi tracking!!) we had to work hard to actually get the telephone to ring at a specific time during the scenes. The opening scene was one of the girls listening to ‘See You’ by Depeche Mode in her flat as the phone rings. I had never heard this song before but as we did take after take of trying to get the phone to ring in the right place we played it a number of times and so I truly heard it (and loved it). Melanie and her friends Lucy and Adele were to introduce me to their favourite music which included Soft Cell and Japan but this particular song always reminds me of the weekend we recorded that play and Melanie who wrote it!
Now listen to the song…..
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