Think Twice

I first met Rich the year of his 35th birthday ( I think – it was the year he had a birthday party at turnmills anyway). We had bonded over a love of Lemon Jelly and at their gig at the Forum our Oxfordpoly and LancasterUni worlds crossed-over and I made some new friends for life.

Like minded people in their early to mid 30s who just wanted to go out dancing. And we did – we had the best of times: the Big Chill, Carnival, Southport, house parties, where Rich always brought the tunes. Then there was a trip to Austria for ‘Snowbombing’ – he wanted to see Mr.Scruff. We must have been a tad older than the other revellers, as when we turned up they thought we were press!

In recent years it was more about the camp fires and sloe gin at Debfest.

So hard to pick a tune that would be a fitting homage. So am just going with a few that remind me of our friends’ story.

Who remembers that ‘conga’ at the Big Chill? The sunniest of days, we’d got split up, Rich’s smiley face found us in the crowd and led our group back to the others – always bringing everybody together. I think we were watching Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herron band (if not he definitely introduced us to them that year) and this became a bit of a sound-track to any dinner parties of that time.

Alison

[First of three posts]