Gawky benevolence

Someone has just come round and done something very nice for me and it made me think of the times the people have gone ‘above and beyond’ and in particular a man who was my number one fan.

I have been going to Sidmouth since the age of 15. I have a feeling that I played with the Old Swan Band either that year or the year after and a certain individual fell in love with the band and my role in it. Who was he?

Imagine the days when usually men were expected to ask women to dance – even at Ceilidhs. He was short and bald. His trousers were always too short and his pumps freshly whitened and whilst he always looked clean, if not scrubbed actually, he seemed to pretty much wear the same clothes all the time. Unfortunately for him he was so awkward and lacking in self confidence that time and time again he would go up and ask someone to dance and if they were kind they said, ‘I’m so sorry I have only just sat down and I’m a bit tired just now’, or if not so kind, ‘No’. He wandered lonely as a clod around the various dance halls and marquees and was turned down more often than not.

In steps Jo at 16. A favourite dance was on the cards and I wasn’t going to sit back and wait or miss out so I stepped up to our little socially uncomfortable male and asked him to dance. This one small act, which was not out of kindness but out of a selfish wish to dance and not miss out, in conjunction with the Old Swan Band created an absolute besotted fan.

He always went to Sidmouth and I don’t remember him elsewhere but at the festival. If I was playing he would be there. He would stand immediately in front of the stage and stare. Now this was not a mosh pit. Let’s be clear. These were old fashioned style barn dances and he was the only one standing stock still and staring. I imagine, because of his behaviour, he was referred to by most of the adults around me as ‘Wally’. My being rather literal at the time I took this to mean that his name was Wally and on one never forgotten occasion in the drill hall he came up to me and sort of siddled sideways with his arm out and plucked up courage to put his arm around my shoulder. I said, ‘Hi Wally’. His crest fallen face alerted me immediately to his hurt and he said, ‘my name’s not Wally it’s Max Lazarus’. Not a name you would forget and I never did there after.

I used to have to ask him to move away at times or go further from the stage because he was making me uncomfortable and he always did as I asked. Nothing I said ever seemed to waver his devotion. At that time I was, as I said, 16. Long blond hair and , whilst at the time I didn’t feel I was much to look at, in hind site and with photographic proof….I wasn’t that bad looking actually. Just lacking in confidence. Even when after my 21st birthday I had my hair cut short and went for the androgynous look of the times with doc martins etc…he was still devoted. He used to send birthday and Christmas cards and they always had cheques in them for a small amount to buy myself something. Whilst I felt awkward about this he never took the cheques back and I learnt to accept them. he was hurt if I suggested I wouldn’t.

He even arranged for someone to come down and take photo’s for a solo shoot in Nottingham. He may even have come himself although I have no strong memory of that…I think he did..yes the memory is squeezing out. He booked into a local hotel. That is where the photo comes from that head up this blog. What I can’t remember is if what I am about to describe happened before that photo shoot or after. I am guessing before as it might explain why he came down.

I was a student at Trent Polytechnic doing a degree in ‘Public Administration’ which was politics, economics and sociology..and law. But I was also gigging with the old swan band, doing ‘The Everlasting Circle’ show and other things besides and because I was the only member of the band living in Notts it began to be apparent that it would be useful if I learnt to drive. So I did. But I didn’t have a car. Cathy Lesurf, a very good friend of mine at the time and still a friend now, was living in London and said she was getting rid of her old Lada and I could have it for £50. Body was shot but the engine was pretty good. I went to Kensington to collect it and drove it home. It lasted a fair old while too and felt like a tank. No power steering in those days. But as you would expect it died…irreparably and I was stuck.

Due to the fact that Max had begun sending me cards etc, in my teens, we communicated quite often by letter. He liked to know what I was dong and then he would tell me what he was doing. He lectured at Lancaster University as a Physicist and tried to get me interested in Hertz and other theories..which I tried to keep up with. So, as he was the only person I corresponded with in that way, much like a pen pal, I told him my car had died and I was strapped and not sure what to do about it. In hind site it may have looked like I was fishing but I wasn’t.

Straight away a letter arrived. “I’ll buy you a car and while we’re doing that why don’t I but you a house you’ll be much more secure”. WHAT!!!!!!! No word of a lie. So I wrote back saying thanks for the offer of buying a house but I was hoping to buy my own and was fiercely independent  so that wouldn’t work for me and also I couldn’t possibly accept his offer for the car although it was very lovely of him. My finances, like most students, didn’t improve and he kept offering. So in the end I said yes to help with buying a car. I genuinely thought he would give me £300 or something like that. Enough to replace my lovely old Lada banger with another similarly characterful and tatty charabanc (I know…it wouldn’t have been a ‘site seeing bus’ but I like the word).

He transferred £7000 into my bank account. That’s right £7000. A long with it came a letter that said that I owed him nothing. This was a gift and there was no expectation for me to give him anything or repay him in anyway. Amazing! I bought an 18 month old Ford and a new washing machine for the communal house I was living in.

You might wonder how I could justify such an act to myself. I couldn’t really. I was too poor to continually look a gift horse in the mouth and I had tried turning him down many times. Eventually I decided that he was a music fan. None commercial music has never ever survived without patronage of some sort or another and this is what it was. In his head he was supporting a musician who needed to get to gigs and rehearsals etc.

I shall tell you ore  about Max in later blogs because as you can guess, the story does not end there.