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Looking back on this year month by month. I feel that 2023 seems to have had so much sadness with some big losses in the cancer community. I came into this year full of hope and looking forward to kick starting a social life that hadn’t recovered from lockdown. I’m not sure that has been very successful, but as ever it’s been a year full of highs and lows. So, let’s begin with January.
The year could not have started on a more sad note. The death of Nicole Cooper came as a terrible shock. 2022 had been a difficult year for her with her health and ongoing treatment for bowel cancer, but I hadn’t seen the devastating news coming at all. Although Nicole lived in Australia, we had become great friends and had even met up in London in 2019. She was always up for supporting my fundraising ventures and was someone who I could turn to for advice and support. Nicole lived with stage 4 bowel cancer for over 5 years and did the most incredible work raising awareness about bowel cancer and patient advocacy. She left behind her husband Tim and young son Joshua. Nicole’s family have set up the Impatient Advocacy Charity to carry on the wonderful work started by Nicole.
A real musical highlight was the welcome return trip to Llandudno for the annual Gathering event to celebrate the music of Mike Peters & The Alarm. Last held in 2020 just before lockdown it had been 3 long years. It wasn’t just about the music, it was getting to see so many friends again after so long. It’s a very special community and I’d missed these opportunities of getting together. It was also so good to see Mike back on stage. A leukaemia patient for 25 years, 2022 saw Mike in a real battle for his life and it was by no means certain that he was going to make it. As we gathered in Llandudno no-one was entirely sure how Mike would cope with the itinerary or indeed how fit he was. Of course he actually smashed it as did the band. A quite brilliant weekend and the start of what was to be another great year of music for me.
January also saw the long overdue return of The Majority. Although the band had ceased performing at the end of 1986, myself and Ad had done some recording in the late 1990s on my 4-track Tascam Porta Studio. But even that had been over 20 years ago. Adam was recording using a Mac computer and Logic Pro software, and I took the plunge and got myself similar kit to record at my end. With the success of Fields of Dawn and it’s punky guitar sound, it was a welcome break to do things differently with Ad and really writing and recording to a completely blank canvas. Back in January we recorded and released the Shadows & Souls single. I wrote the song and Ad put together a quite brilliant arrangement and produced it too. It’s a track that we were incredibly proud of and through Ad I began to learn just how much you can do with the Logic Pro recording software. We released the track as a limited edition CD as well as making it available on all the normal digital music al platforms.
I suppose January set the pattern for the year. Good and bad. A reminder of just how cruel bowel cancer is and the devastation that is causes. On the other hand the most amazing friendships that we make as a result of this dreadful disease. Music of course was once again a significant part and the positive nature and indeed power that music has, whether that be making music or watching it as a punter x
