Now the Covid-19 pandemic seems an age away. The disrupted routines and lockdown days that drifted into weeks and months are a foggy memory for many, but they were perilous times and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp recalls the atmosphere in his hometown, Pershore.
“The fear was palpable,” he says. “It was pretty terrifying, as if the Black Death had revisited the community.”
With it came a sudden and unprecedented need for isolation, and Fripp’s wife Toyah Willcox was concerned about the adverse effects all this was having on him.
“She would look in the door and see me here in the study, and I can imagine she was thinking, ‘Here is a little man gently withering away,’” he says. “The actuality was that with touring not on the agenda, there was a wonderful opportunity for me to visit and revisit interests and writing my Crimson Commentaries.” Fripp holds up some handwritten pages. “Actually, there was a very great deal going on.”
It was a time when and jiving in the kitchen as well,” he says. “She certainly shook up my life and work.”
