Doctor Sonja's Bitches Brew: A 'Telling' Journey Through Music Spaces

By Sonja Strode

What threads could possibly stitch together wide-ranging music spaces?

Here Dr. Sonja Strode tells a magical tale sewing together her links in an inter-connected world of musicians.

On a music-packed journey, like Taliesin's salmon her 'telling' flips its way back and forth places in Wales, London, and the Midlands for the most part, as she lifts

• Language: English
• Publisher: TuesdayBooks.co.uk
• Release date: Dec 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9782954075501

Book preview

Preface: Part 1

Shaping a music-packed journey: background to this book

‘Fire Crackers’ on New Year’s Eve

I can still remember New Year’s Eve, 1996. There I was, my back close to the pub wall, sitting on my usual stool – one of those ubiquitous, old, round ones covered in faded crimson velvet, splattered with the dried up memories of beery, bluesy moments of yesteryear. That stool faced the main door in The Top Bell pub, Barton-under-Needwood, Staffordshire – my regular ‘watering-hole’ from the early 90s when I had discovered the live music on offer as well as the warm, friendly crowd which regularly gathered there. Some years after my last visit to that musically magic space it was turned into a restaurant, I gather.

It would take a very long time to cite all the people I met in that pub or those whose music thrilled me; or the countless others who enjoyed a pint and parler. All I can say is ‘thanks a million’ for sharing that small space – in place and time – with me. Doubtless many others have very happy memories of time spent in what became known as one of the best blues music venues in the Midlands. I feel lucky to have seen its development from the Sunday night ‘sing-a-long’ spots in the early 90s to a time when, by the beginning of a new millennium, almost every night of the week was jam-packed with local and more globally acclaimed musicians, many of whom are mentioned later in this book.

Set against a backdrop of London’s vibrant musical melting-pot many years ago in the late 60s, I had also met some wonderful musicians, including some well-known guitarists and singers on the world stage. My tale unearths the strange and interesting ways I and my husband were woven into that music-making tapestry. A few from those ever-morphing scenes have remained our friends. These ‘musos’- as musicians are sometimes referred to – formed a key part of our circle of friends and/or were fellow musicians of my husband in the so-called ‘swinging sixties’ and early seventies of London. Like Mick and me, some of these musicians either have ancestral roots, or else were born in the Midlands area, especially Birmingham and the neighbouring shires. Mick Strode was born in Oldbury, Worcestershire in the West Midlands. However, I was born on a luscious green mountain top overlooking the valleys of the Borough of Caerphilly in South Wales. One of my grandfathers is to be thanked for links with the Midlands since he was born in Aston, Birmingham, although then Aston was part of Warwickshire.

That seminal musical moment in the effervescent, bubbling cauldron of creativity of 60s’ London, which saw the genesis of numerous influential musicians, groups, and cultural icons, was a formative, inspirational one for my own love of music and developing ‘sociological imagination’, the latter a phrase used by the eminent sociologist Peter Berger. That trajectory moved me on ultimately from the cultural cosmos of city life in London to the beautiful countryside of Staffordshire and the spaces of The Top Bell to which I refer now.

So back to New Year’s Eve, 1996

As usual I was eagerly waiting for the blues band to begin. Yes, it was then that I noticed the return of a sort of ‘prickling’ in my upper back. I had been unwell before Christmas with a debilitating chest infection. My legs had seemed heavy and painful, too, making climbing of stairs especially difficult – symptoms I had experienced previously from time to time over many years, along with others, all of which I had learned to live with, I guess.I still ‘didn’t feel right’, as my mother always described ‘being unwell’, but it was New Year’s Eve, my birthday; there was some good live music on, and yes, I wanted to party!

My previous health problems had necessitated visits to hospitals, consultants, and neurologists, including a stay at a specialist hospital followed by my departure in a wheelchair because of pronounced pain, and legs which seemed to have a mind of their own.Maybe the invasive tests done there had affected me? Who knows? I soon recovered enough to the extent that I no longer needed a wheelchair – at least, for some time. So, eagerly I returned to work as if nothing untoward had happened. Fortunately my health has much improved, and perhaps my own story through it all will help support others who have followed a similar or even worse path.

Prior to 1996 I had frequently resorted to various ways of managing manifestations of whatever this – albeit at that point – unnamed ‘illness’ enveloping me. A variety of strategies enabled me to carry out my work and career functions both at home and elsewhere. Some adverse effects of this ‘condition’ were relatively invisible; or only noticeable when they worsened considerably, when I usually stayed at home. Sometimes it felt as if the skin on my back was being excoriated from inside out, crawling with insects, or else repeatedly stabbed with pins, so I would simply rest on a settee or take to my bed. Not to mention fatigue lapping about me like a hungry puppy, eager to floor me, pull me in another direction. Many years later I learned that these seemingly bizarre descriptions had been classic symptoms of neurological disturbance. Until then it had become increasingly hard to accept that still no answer had been given to me about their origin, still less what to do about them. In such a context must be placed, therefore, my own DIY attitude, or the incredible support given to me by my husband.

Eventually I was forced to cease a much loved career. There was no option. Those words delivered by the medic concerned still resound in my ears: ‘You are too ill to continue in your job’. Those who have experienced such pronouncements on top of ill health can empathise with that moment and what follows. Your whole being, your sense of self is turned topsy turvy – all steeped in fall-out produced by other changes on the personal, economic, as well as social, and emotional fronts. Since our being is also tied up with that of others, particularly those close to us, our loved ones are thrown into the tumult, too. Currently I am far better than I have been for many years but it has taken so long to get here! Wasn’t it a Welsh cultural historian, Raymond Williams, who talked, albeit in a different context of the ‘long, slow march’? Well this journey to ‘better times’ has been more like a slow bunny hop in a weighted sack!

Anyway, back to the less optimistic moments, although this book is intended to reveal, ultimately, much optimism

By the late 90s it was clear something had definitely affected my body, my brain, and their normal functioning. Supportive people who visited me during such acute periods could see for themselves, so marked was the change in me. Much later, in order to get out of the house I resorted to the use of a folding chair that doubled up as an aid to walking. At times the only way I could have left the house would have been in a wheelchair; but I did not own one, and frankly, I often felt far too ill to want to make use of one. Much of the time all I wanted to do, or could do, was sleep; or doze lightly, too weak to reach the toilet unaided. Later, when out, my time would be spent seated, my mental functioning seemingly locked in the inner most part of a Russian Doll set, stuffed, too, with cotton wool.

After a very long time indoors, a kind friend took me to the shops; only for a short time with me stumbling along, gripping her arm. Really it was all too much for me. Not only was it difficult to walk but my brain, including my eyes were, shall we say, problematic. The descending ‘fog’ was so pronounced it felt as if blindness was around the corner.

The next time I went out it was near Christmas. I felt like a child seeing all the colourful lights and decorations for the first time!It was then that the scarcity of seats in shops became apparent, so the trip was swiftly curtailed.Then I graduated to the use of a walking stick much of the time. When not needed the stick was folded and put in my bag, because, strange as it may seem to you, there were times when I did not or do not need it.

Still, I’m here to tell the tale which is what counts. And coming from a little village called Pentwyn in Wales, I suppose I was never averse to a ‘telling’ or two! For the uninitiated, in Welsh folklore a ‘telling’ is none other than a story, a narrative, often told in days of yore round the fireside, passed on through generations. In short it is a kind of oral history. Many were later written down for posterity like The Mabinogion, compiled in the nineteenth century as a collection of Welsh myths and legends. ‘Mabinogi’ is said to be an instruction for future poets, of writers of imagination, of creativity: all especially important to lovers of those legends whose central character Arthur, is said to have held court in the historic town of Caerleon, not far from where I grew up. Lady Charlotte Guest’s famous translation of The Mabinogion includes the ‘telling’ of Taliesin, one of the greatest Welsh poets. In this book, just as I did in numerous articles I wrote about music including the live music scene in Staffordshire and beyond in the early part of the new millennium, I try to emulate some of this ‘telling’ process, rooted in reality but embellished with a modicum of the magic of imagination, of folklore, of legend.

So my ‘telling’ journey, my story, continues………

Even before that New Year’s Eve, some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome was suspected. The latter, I now know, is an umbrella term used to cover all sorts of illnesses from Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, motor neurone disease, syringomyelia, arthritic conditions, to serious clinical depression. Modern technology – including brain and spine scans – has now revealed the basis of my physical symptoms, thankfully.

Eventually I volunteered my services to be editor for a magazine relating primarily to health issues, prior to writing for a music magazine. Regarding the health-related magazine – published monthly by a local voluntary group – I researched and wrote on wide-ranging information mingled with personal anecdotes, humour, and my love of folklore, history, and nature. From home, I also operated a Telephone Support Service and created a health information leaflet to help some readers. Often, though, I think I was in a worse state than the people I was counselling or advising! Because of my worsening health, these voluntary roles ceased.

My appointment as Chairperson of that group allowed me to participate in larger discussion groups via liaison with the NHS and with people whose illness fell under the catch-all ‘CFS’ term. At one meeting I met a man suffering from Parkinson’s for whom no diagnosis had been given for fifteen years!So he informed us. Doubtless things have improved in the diagnosis domain nowadays! There, too, I met a much younger person suffering from an illness I had never heard of – Prader Willi – a rare genetic condition stemming from a chromosomal abnormality. On discovering his life was quite socially isolated I invited him out to lunch. Slowly he unravelled some of his sad life, one of much social exclusion simply because of his illness. Somehow or other I had managed to cope with my symptoms – well most of the time, until their physical effects were far too much for me to cope with, even if my will was strong! But at least my social life had not been like his throughout my formative years.

Severe periods of illness affected much-loved parts of my life like reading and writing….. A certain amount of depression set in for all aspirations for the future, either for me personally or for those shared with my family, seemed to dissolve into impossible dreams. At the time, my PhD was almost complete. Years of working on it, including all the preceding, lifelong education helping to shape my ideas – both in and out of academic spaces – seemed destined for the drain or the dusty shelves of my personal library. It seemed as if a goodly part of my self, my very being and becoming had been torn from me. The future, not only for me but for some of my close family, looked bleak, very bleak.

It would take far too long to describe the difficulties or the inordinate amount of time (for I could often only work very, very slowly) in producing finally my research or the above-mentioned magazines; or to convey accurately the impediments to even speaking to people when experiencing such problems. It is far more important to concentrate on the hope that what I did for that health group, or readers of the music magazine, helped at least one person.  Now such horrendous health experiences seem like a distant storm and clearer skies abound. Thank God!  Yes, some symptoms recur from time to time but, so far, so good!

Peeling back the mask of neurological illness

Post Christmas ’96 however, it was very clear that I was ill.Unless I was in the grip of ‘flu, bronchitis, or asthma, most people around me probably never even realised that, in addition to a strange ‘virus’ I appeared to have had, there was another physical health problem lurking beneath my ‘happy, smiling, mask’. What was it someone once said? Everyone seems to have ‘a disguise’; that ‘the truths of the parlour in the bedroom are lies’; or when it comes to our ‘everyday self’ we have donned ‘a mask’. Maurice English, I think said that, although where escapes me. My husband first pointed it out to me years ago when he was a mature student in geology and psychology. The eminent sociologist Erving Goffman has said likewise. Sums it up, I guess: yes, sometimes we have to wear a different ‘mask’ to help us cope in the ‘public’ sphere when we’re ill, don’t we? Or find a new role, a new identity, but one which is sincere. Mind you, I don’t think having this or any other chronic illness is a ‘shoddy disgrace’. But we often have to pull a mask on, don’t we?  Just part of being human really. I mean, our public persona can often be quite different from our public one, can’t it? At home we can slump and slouch about on the settee, chill out with a glass of wine whilst rocking our heads and singing along to Leon Russell’s Delta Lady – something quite alien to the role of Bank Manager facing a gruelling public inquisition at a Tribunal about the growing ‘Credit Crunch’. Yet, back home he or she probably lifts that ‘bank manager’ mask, too. As Berger also suggested, the self is in a continuous state of flux, even if some aspects remain rock solid; it is for ever undergoing generation and regeneration in every context in which we find ourselves, with our memory helping to meld it all together, not forgetting that small group of supportive people in our lives who help furnish us with experiences and fodder for our individual memory. The sociologist Margaret Mead once maintained it is such a group of ‘thoughtful, committed citizens’ who can ‘change the world’. To which I would add the world ‘of an individual’ as well as ‘the wider world’. Moreover, even the ‘unconscious self’ is subject to the regenerative forces of social and cultural production, albeit sometimes constrained by the habits of a lifetime.  Indeed, as that influential sociologist Prof. Stuart Hall wrote, ‘multiple selves’ are part and parcel of our human way of being. Thus, in these days of Strictly Come Dancing, a former MP like the Right Honourable Ann Widdecombe can cast aside, sans souci, her parliamentarian apparel, her habits of a lifetime and don the glitter and glam commensurate with her new mode of stepping out.  Meanwhile, former comedienne Pamela Anderson has morphed into ‘doctor’ mode as a Clinical Psychologist whilst tripping the light fantastic in her own tutu and toe-tapping style on the dance podium. All definitely far from being a ‘disaaaaster’ – to coin Craig Revel Horwood’s famous phrase.

Ah! The habits of a lifetime! Some were definitely falling off my back; others, not so. Thus it was when it began to dawn on me the old school bell would not be ringing for me again, not in the same way at least. Hard for me to shake off the old ‘school’ tie, pack away the academic ‘gown’, the thinker, the writer in me, nevertheless. A new self had to generate. Perhaps it was a long time coming! In some respects writing for the above-mentioned magazines helped forge a new sense of self in me – one waiting in the wings, perhaps.

Sometimes even a ‘mask’ would not have been any use for me when certain symptoms occurred. Eventually I was referred to another neurologist. The end of 2003 was, therefore, a mixed ‘bag’: another visit to a neurologist, further tests, MRI scans, and explorations for multiple sclerosis, something which had already been indicated as a possibility several years earlier. I also knew its diagnosis was a complex process – sometimes lengthy. Nowadays diagnosis seems to be swifter particularly because far more is known, plus MRI scans are used more often. By then I was no longer alarmed about the prospect of having that or a similar neurological condition. In many ways I had ‘learned to live with it’ whatever ‘it’ was: that is after the first shock, the realisation that such a condition might be on the cards for me. Multiple sclerosis is a condition which affects people in so many different ways, different degrees of severity, or disability. Moreover, it does not necessarily mean the curtailment of somebody’s life or enjoyment of it, as, sadly, it did for Jacqueline du Pré, a musician, a cellist I love. Perhaps many people reading this do not know that the vast majority of sufferers do not have to use a wheelchair. Many people who have MS reveal very little outward evidence of it; and even if they periodically suffer significant health problems, disabling in the sense they cannot always do things as they would normally do, they, nonetheless, have a more benign form, living productive, useful, and enjoyable lives for the most part.

For all people suffering from either neurological or chronic conditions like arthritis in its various forms, fatigue can be an important issue, although in no way can such fatigue be seen as synonymous with tiredness resulting from a lack of a night’s sleep. This ‘fatigue’ issue renders highly problematic current definitions and perceptions of ‘disability’ seemingly heavily reliant on notions of limb impairment or loss, not that I would wish to diminish in any way such sad loss or disability. Equally problematic is the episodic nature or daily fluctuation of some health problems. People with illnesses like diabetes, thyroid, or autoimmune conditions lupus, and Sjögrens syndrome, like syringomyelia manifest fatigue and share some symptoms with MS, thus often presenting difficulties for medics in the diagnosis process.

Benefits of New Technology

Syringomyelia is a slow-moving, often painful, neurological condition. Research indicates it can be separate from and be part of multiple sclerosis – making an even more complex picture. It can also be the consequence of the inflammatory effects of something like meningitis, an accident, or even be present at birth. In recent years MRI scans have helped enormously in the diagnosis of such patients, many of whom have either had some of their symptoms disregarded or misdiagnosed in the past. Longitudinal studies using scans have also revealed how a process of remyelinisation can occur in MS patients where previously damaged myelin sheaths in the central nervous system have, as yet for unknown reasons, become repaired. Hence the reason why some experienced neurologists advocate caution in using MRI results as the main diagnostic tool for MS. In recent years far more diagnoses of syringomyelia have been documented because of new technology. Sadly, though, a minority suffering neurological illness go on to develop more severe forms of their condition, as did the wonderfully talented comedian and musician Dudley Moore who had a severe and fatal form of Parkinson’s disease.

‘It don’t’ come easy’

Whatever proved to be the ultimate diagnosis for my own symptoms, I resolved then, to make the most of my life – while I still could: something I thought years ago on first experiencing some health-related problems. I still think like this; the eternal optimist, I guess, but it’s not always been easy, not for me, nor my husband, Mick, especially. Perhaps everyone has to live their life like this; nothing is certain after all. Yes, we all have to carry our load, face our mortality. Most do so by just getting on with life. Some are very lucky and have enormous support; others are left to fend for themselves, sadly. Yet that life ‘journey’ and the ‘heavy load’ we carried over many years was sometimes far from easy.

In the folklore of Staffordshire and Derbyshire there is a well-known saying describing someone who might be feeling a bit sulky, down-hearted, or worse: one word separates this ‘dialect’ enigma – yes, an ‘enigma’ until someone elucidated its meaning for me. Thus in Staffordshire the saying goes: ‘she or he has got a bag on’; in Derbyshire: ‘a monk on’, the latter being an abbreviation for a ‘monkey’, seemingly an old word for a sack of coal. Both phrases originated in the mining areas of those counties, encapsulating graphically the heavy weight on miners’ backs as they hauled bulky coal bags from place to place. No wonder they felt that way!  Like their brothers in the Welsh pits! Some sisters, too, apparently, for, yes, women have dug, hauled, and hoisted coal.

Interestingly, in the hope of raising awareness about poverty, for some time in the 80s on one of my classroom walls I displayed a poster alongside images of children as young as five carrying hods of bricks. They were working on building sites in India; or trying to shelter from the ravages of life in their ‘homes’ made from concrete pipes. That poster presented a similar picture of the Developing World’s burden of debt on its weak shoulders – a person bearing a heavy sack on his back filled with money. It was the German Willy Brandt, in his celebrated Report in the 80s, who first advocated the West’s removal of such debt; subsequently championed, of course, by the Labour former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was instrumental in helping reduce that ‘monkey’ on the backs of the world’s poorest. This Welsh miner’s daughter, having experienced the effects of another, more ‘neurological weight’ on my back, can empathise and sympathise with all those. To think all those years ago, back in London when he was a musician living with me in a tiny bed-sit, Mick was invited to play guitar with George Harrison on Ringo’s record It Don’t Come Easy! Little did we know that sometimes that would ring oh so true for us! A shared theme we have in common with so many, I guess.  Even so our lot, our struggle is nothing compared with those suffering the ravages of absolute poverty, conflict, exploitation, injustice, medical deprivation and a lack of basic needs like water and food throughout the world.

Chiswick, London: flat on my back

This book, however, represents a small part of Mick’s and my ‘journey’ through good times and bad, filled with music nonetheless. It represents, too, a very special, precious episode in my life, my own self development, and learning to live with chronic illness – maybe one that started years ago in the late 70s. Maybe it all started much earlier, however, or even be quite unconnected to what I am about to relate. Whatever, I do recall a period, not long before meeting Mick, when I could not walk and suffered immense pain. One evening I visited the doctor.  An evening or two later two friends were either side of me helping me to the surgery again.  Unable then even to get to the loo on my legs, I would worm my way across our flat’s floor to the toilet.  At other times friends placed me on the floor in our communal lounge so I could listen to music and join in the general mêlée. Those times in Chiswick proved to be significant music spaces in my life, however.

Isle of Wight

That ‘monkey’ on my back, meant I missed the Isle of Wight Festival that year, so I contented myself with the sounds of Led Zeppelin or Jethro Tull – some of the groups our Chiswick flat ‘posse’ were well into during the end of the 60s early 70s.Members of these supergroups, and, more importantly, superb musicians, ‘wormed’ their way into the lives of Mick and me in a weird but wonderful way in the 60s and beyond, as will be seen later.

Strangely, years later in 1995 – and the only time I ever managed to visit the Isle of Wight – a spell of intense pain and great difficulty in walking returned. Fortunately it was short-lived, like some other very painful episodes over the previous years, or since. Now, whenever I see the lovely photo Mick took of me sipping a beer then, I remember the agony of getting down to the quayside to peer at the yachts, some filled with people sipping their champagne, just prior to the great Cowes Regatta race. Oh how I wished they would offer me a drop! It was a very hot day. The sweat was pouring down my face by the time I arrived there. Yes I was, we both were, very thirsty.

Zero three

Nevertheless, by the end of zero three when I started to note down on my computer some of these thoughts in preparation for this book, you could say I was looking good; indeed better than for many years. My mobility had improved, although I wasn’t going out walking that much, and certainly not engaging in any marathons! Lengthy strolls were out of the question, although time was when even a very short distance was like a marathon for me. The ‘face’ of much illness is far from the reality, however, whether physically based or like post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by war veterans. All can be very frustrating, giving rise to difficulties in one’s life.Fatigue can become quite overwhelming, accompanied by a need to sit down, or even lie down. Sometimes, though, it affects your brain, your mental functioning. On one occasion I just had to sit down. A low piece of furniture during a rare visit to a shop at that time seemed ideal. The wooden object had certainly looked like a seat to me. A rather frantic salesperson rushed towards me, admonishing me for sitting on the ‘sales’ furniture, suggesting I return to the centre of the precinct where seats were available! Most insensitive! That was my verdict. Especially when I had expressed my feeling of being quite unwell! Surely a few more minutes would not have hurt? It wasn’t as if I were about to carve my initials in the bloody thing!

Christmas Zero three and beyond

I was really looking forward to Christmas zero three – a time with family that, for a number of years before then, had been filled with much trauma, worry, and upheaval. A cloud was hanging over me again, but this time, somehow I managed to make it a fluffy, white cloud surrounded by a bright blue sky. Literally armed with anti-influenza and anti-pneumonia jabs recommended to me by my GP after a bout of pneumonia in zero two, I felt ready to take on any ‘bug’ or bugger (forgive the French) that came my way. My husband and I had decided not to tell our children about the imminent hospital tests; I did not want to spoil everyone’s fun. What is more, as I said, my attitude to neurological illness had changed considerably over the years: not least was the recognition that if I had come this far down the road with ‘it’, there was a good chance I wouldn’t get much worse.

Christmas zero three turned out to be a very happy time because ‘Whatever happens in zero four’, I thought, ‘that will be something to look forward to – becoming a grandmother’. You could say, too, that I had got used to living with not feeling properly well. Even my head would feel like Enid Blyton’s Noddy sometimes, provoking me into the suggestion I fix a hat with a bell on it.  Either that or take up ‘moshing’ in the local club! Fortunately that wobbly, rocking feeling of the head has subsided now.

It is very difficult to convey my experience because some aspects are quite different from anything I had ever had before. I have had ‘flu on a number of occasions but what I have experienced is quite different even if you can feel thoroughly washed out, exhausted with ‘flu. The intense prickling and other pains, sometimes rendering your legs stiff and immobile, which I and other people affected like me have experienced periodically, is far from that associated with ‘flu. In my own case, however, subsequent tests revealed just what was going on. But it took years and years before the reality of what was ailing me came to light. It is impossible to describe adequately those years and the effects not only on myself but loved ones surrounding me, especially my long-suffering husband, Mick. To borrow a phrase used by The Stereophonics : ‘You have to go there to come back’. And tell it how it is….. Or what you can do with it, in spite of it…… That’s what I say! Anyway I’m bloody well back! And as my grandmother, my Nana, used to say in her inimitable Welsh way: ‘Go on! You tell ’em gell!’ (‘Gell’ being the Welsh slang for ‘gal’ or ‘girl’). Hence my telling of this tale… for myself, for others, too,

However, prior to 1996 when a ‘storm’ of symptoms descended as opposed to previous ‘showers’ or ‘heavy rainfall’, I had tried to ‘keep smiling’. Besides, I felt I didn’t really have any option. Additionally, to compound the confusion, there were periods when I felt really good with far fewer physical symptoms! I was left to get on with ‘it’. So that’s what I did. I felt that I just could not keep going back and fore to my GP. So what could I do? What would you have done? The same set of symptoms were there – sometimes more severe. Besides, I wanted to get on with caring for my family; get on with what I felt was important work in my career, some of which involved development at school and county level.  And of course, I wanted to enjoy my life. I….we… learned to cope.

Rocking ‘n’ rollin’: the 90s and beyond

On New Year’s Eve 1996, then, I tried to grin and bear it. What is more it was my birthday! Yes, I told myself, I had experienced far, far worse pain. I couldn’t be ill! I didn’t want to be ill! There was no anticipation in me then of what was in store for me. All of this, however, was in addition to a lengthy, severe relapse. Fortunately my illness seems to have stabilized. To look at me now, you would probably say: ‘who would have thought it?’ Maybe miracles happen? Maybe it’s just the natural course of this condition? Who knows? Whatever, I count my blessings. And just to underline how much I am back on my feet, risen again like Phoenix, referred to some years ago during one of my numerous monthly Dr Sonja’s Bitches Brew articles for a music magazine, I actually ‘feel like dancing’. Although short-lived, I did so recently at a supportive French friend’s Breton party for her seventieth birthday. People like that, albeit some years older than me, give us hope, give us inspiration. And so I, like countless millions presumably, applaud all those talented guys and gals of the 60s and early 70s who still rock ‘n’ roll….and hopefully will do forever more.

Forever More and The Band of Joy: sixties style

Funny, that was my husband’s band in the 60s: Forever More. And, yes, he was also part of The Band of Joy in the 60s. Not long before becoming a founder member of Forever More, as I delineate later in this book, my husband Mick Strode was fortunate to be lead guitarist in the last formation of The Band of Joy in the 60s, fronted by the internationally acclaimed vocal talents of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, with John Bonham on drums, and John Hill on bass. Prior to those seminal days in rock music’s history and before Plant’s arrival on the world stage, Mick Strode also played guitar for some time alongside singer Robert Plant in a folk/blues duo in the Midlands. Mick Strode was also well-known as a solo performer further afield in the Midlands and in Bristol’s Troubadour Club – a hugely popular venue during the 60s’ blues and folk scene. 1969 proved to be a life-changing moment for Robert Plant, for Mick Strode, and for me. Since those heady days music – pop and rock especially but not exclusively – has been putting joy into all our lives. Hopefully my book will add to that mesmerising musical mixture which all doctors should prescribe, for music must surely be one of the best prescriptions out. Yeah, Shakespeare was right, ‘music is the food of love’, and you know what? It’s ‘just as sweet as it was before’!

Perhaps a little joy will be put into the lives of a few others too: thus the proceeds from the sale of this book and a forthcoming related one will include donations to neurological research, to cancer research – since at the time of writing, my father is suffering from the latter – to Children in Need, Oxfam, and Water Aid.

Preface: Part 2

School note-book

Health problems had been affecting my ability to carry out my much loved profession before 1996: like standing or being on one’s feet for some time as well as climbing stairs. Writing on a classroom board had already become problematic but I had found ways round that, often involving much additional preparation at home nevertheless, albeit not pain free.  It was not always easy to avoid some pain or fatigue-provoking tasks, like the endless sorting and filing of papers, let alone the preparation of interminable supplies of worksheets – all before the introduction of classroom assistants and other ancillary staff now helping many school teachers.

People often assume a teacher’s task is solely intellectual yet the reality for many is far different. That job often used to involve the lugging of equipment like tape recorders and overhead projectors (OHPs) from one room to another, as well as tools of the trade we called ‘books’ – just your daily routine in the 70s, 80s, and 90s!  There was more to come, of course!  In the confines of their own study at home, conscientious teachers read around their subjects, planned new courses, and worked for the terms ahead, as well as a host of other work, training, and professional development unnecessary to delineate here – all in addition to years of study spent in obtaining their academic degrees.  Yes, often a far cry from the ‘nine-to-five’ or bleats about ‘those holidays’ frequently surfacing as the teacher rap whenever the ‘union’ head rears and a cry for fair play. Yes, so much more to a teacher’s job!  Some of us can still recall the earlier era of ‘O’ levels and CSEs when large boards would have to be pushed from one side of the room to the other to teach French to two such different examination groups in the same room.  Strong arms and backs were, therefore, essential.  Oh, and legs!  Problems with any of those parts could make your day unpleasant if not a misery.  Eventually smiling through it, endeavouring to soldier on proved impossible for me – a very hard fact to swallow.

A particularly sad and poignant memory for me relates to a summer visit in the 90s to Wembley Stadium – the old one, that is.  After having been on sick leave for some considerable time I had returned to my job in the hope of my health picking up more, ever anxious to hold on to my career.  However, that visit sounded the death knell I now can see.  Like the unceasing steps we mounted and descended, similarly doomed to tumble down like that famous stadium, my career in education was drawing to an end.  Yes, in spite of the heights I had been reaching academically; or a new school role in the bag.  With tears in my eyes perhaps unbeknown to those around, urging my weary legs up the coach steps, my brain like a fuzzy ball of cotton wool, I eventually boarded to travel back home.  Having trailed desperately, painfully, behind all the others on that difficult ‘journey’, in that moment on the coach I knew what it is like to come last in a competitive race.

Yet my mind is also full of happy memories.  Pupils taught on my return to teaching, after a period of raising our children, will remember me as the French teacher – French being a subject which up until the late 80s I taught to ‘A’ level.  However, much as I love that language and related culture, my interests and academic background also have their roots in social sciences.  Consequently, around the mid-80s, I introduced sociology into our school’s curriculum.  Perhaps unbeknown to pupils I was also a member of and occupied some key positions in several cross-county committees relating to sociology and other social sciences, as well as playing an active part in trade union issues, becoming President of our local branch in the late 80s.

Discrimination, technological development, and change  

From the mid-80s onwards I played a significant part in countering different forms of discrimination. That professional work enabled me to participate in policy-making, research, and visits. Some of the latter included an establishment where its provision of sensorial and sonic experience moved me profoundly. Likewise I was amazed to find one school in London was furnished with its own recording studio whereas other schools in the country could only dream of such resources for music production.

In the early 90s I applied for and won a Fellow Award from Birmingham University.  Initially my research involved an M. Phil, later morphing into a PhD, all of which allied to my interests in the above-mentioned areas along with my desire to examine the real needs and culture(s) of disadvantaged young people in Britain.  Music played a key part in my research.

I have very fond memories of ‘kids’ I taught – some extremely ‘challenging’ as educationists are wont to describe them nowadays. In later years my teaching of French had diminished considerably because my timetable was filled with other roles, relating to Sixth Form development especially.  However, teaching French on one’s own to classes full of over thirty young secondary school children with very low reading ages and distinct social, behavioural, and other learning difficulties is no easy task, even when in the best of health.  For many secondary school staff it was not much easier in any subject, with any age group where pupils had similar difficulties.  In the Thatcher era and for some time afterwards few teachers were lucky enough to have classroom assistants to help in teaching, learning, or technical and technological matters.  In those days a secondary school teacher had to do the lot: planning, preparing, implementing, marking, reading round their subject, devising and typing up lessons and examination papers, modifying inadequate text books, preparing acetates for the OHP, photocopying, filing….you name it, we did it.  Nowadays even the class registering is computerised!  Gone, too, has the end of term neurosis surrounding that infamous ‘balancing act’ where many a teacher could be seen grappling with those numbers, ticks, and circles filling miniscule blue spaces come end of term!

What a change from my early years teaching in London in the 60s and early 70s!  Then we just had the text book, chalk, talk, a board at the front of the classroom, home–made visual aids for teaching French made from cutting out and sticking pictures from piles of collected magazines (bought from our own pockets!) or DIY felt boards with an appropriate array of home-made felt cut-outs.  English and drama lessons – which I also taught – would be similarly aided (except for the felt board), embellished here and there with some music for creative writing or drama purposes.

Now, of course, there is greater division of labour within schools, with far more ancillary help for teachers; and far greater use of computers and new technology.  My additional responsibility for the development of GNVQs in the early 90s helped introduce technology, particularly computers into the learning process. Since, use of computers has evolved apparently.  Classrooms, it seems, are now very different spaces. Many schools are probably now equipped with recording studios.

Listening to rain; feeling the pain: mine and others

What I did not realise on my birthday in 1996, however, was that those ‘prickles’ in my back were heralding the end of a much loved, demanding career in education, one I hoped would evolve into post-doctoral research.  Perhaps my poem (below) better than any I have ever written weaves together my thoughts, feelings and ideas not only emerging then, as I watched the raindrops running down my bedroom window, but all I had processed over the preceding years in diverse spaces during my own life’s journey. The poem was prompted, too, by a radio programme I had been listening to earlier in the week. It was around the time of International Women’s Day, March 8 1997 – the latter being something I had been involved with during the mid-90s.  In that radio programme an Archbishop had been discussing child poverty in Britain: poverty which I had seen with my own eyes not only as a youngster back in Wales, but also during my research in England in the early 90s.  In the hope that their voices will be heard I offer this small piece of writing.  In this I recognise a shared understanding with musicians, people of diverse faiths and beliefs, and even some of our princes who have attempted to raise awareness of the impoverished lives and health inequalities of children throughout the world.  A sense of shared understanding, too, with Archbishops like Dr Rowan Williams, whose lunch table in the mid-90s I was fortunate to share once, along with some other eminent writers and thinkers – mostly female – at Warwick University, prior to my acute illness in the later 90s.

Two of those women sitting either side of me during that meal at a conference at Warwick University have played highly influential parts in the development of sociology.  Both have occupied key positions not only as university professors but also as the first women to be appointed as President of leading academic boards and journals, nationally and internationally.  One of these women, Margaret Stacey or Meg as she was affectionately known, had a profound influence and active involvement in sociology, feminism, peace and human rights development throughout her life, until her death in 2004.  Her work, of course, lives on.  Meg’s work played a significant role in establishing sociology in the 60s, however – the era which is the major focus of much of my book.  In later life her interest in communities switched to a greater concentration on health issues, motivated by intellectual interest but in no small measure via personal concerns prompted by some of her children’s own health matters.  Unfortunately, I was too ill to attend the tribute to her long career at the end of the 90s at Warwick. Indelibly scribed in my memory, however, are the warmth of her smile, the rainbow colours in her Buddhist hat, and the gentle, sisterly solidarity of a woman like Meg.  Sitting on the other side of me at that lunch was Professor Stacey’s colleague Professor Margaret Archer – yet another influential female whose work in sociological theory has been inspirational to many, not least to me.  I first read her work whilst reading for an MA at Leicester in the 80s, along with the writing of and some tuition from another female sociologist, Professsor Sallie Westwood whose work has unravelled much relating to the position of women throughout the world.  My poem Inequality reproduced here, however, considers females and males.  It was first published using my maiden name by The Poetry Guild in 1998 in a book entitled Enchanted Dreams.

Inequality

If the prickles in my back

Could talk

They’d make the sound

Of grey-day rain

Rasping ‘gainst my window pane.

Strange, I think as I watch

The raindrops track,

How some drip down steady

Meet no flak

While others have to twist and turn,

Stumble o’er evr’y bump and crack:

Same surface! Same space! Same time!

Listen!  In the distance

Sad bells still chime.

Positive moments in uncertain times

In the late 90s I also attended an interview with the hope of becoming a lecturer at Warwick University.  Swift was my understanding on arrival there, however, that the job was not what I had understood it to be, but as the only female present along with two male candidates, I decided to continue, for ‘experience’.  One question by the eminent Professor of Sociology Robert Burgess, posed towards the end of the interview, focused on where I saw myself in five years.  My positive stream of consciousness flowed fervently.  I had no idea what was just round the corner!  Yes, on travelling to the university I had wondered how I would manage the daily slog down the motorway to the campus if I were successful, but my health was to become much worse, far worse.  There had been no anticipation of that!  That interview process was worthwhile nonetheless.  Years later I managed to obtain an invitation to interview with the Open University for a research post.  Although my husband has always been incredibly supportive in all I have pursued, I do believe he thought it would be extremely arduous for me to carry out such a role.  With hindsight I must admit he was correct, for on the day of the interview I was simply too ill to attend!  Maybe I would not have been appointed anyway; frustrating not to be able to attend the interview nonetheless.  It was probably quite irrational on my part to have contemplated such a post for it would have entailed a lot of driving daily, plus everything else concomitant with a demanding research post in academia at a time when I was far, far from well.  It just highlights the fact that ill people often have an indefatigable will, even if the flesh doesn’t reciprocate.

With hindsight I think my love of music, something shared passionately with my husband, helped see me through such disappointment.  On a more positive note now, therefore, I can recognise all our lives are full of twists and turns that lead us into periods of darkness; then back, again, into the light.  So here I am, writing this.  And enjoying it!  No, I have not been miraculously ‘cured’ but, with sound self-management and great support from family and friends (new and old), I am now in a position where, once again, I can live with ‘it’, and, of course, enjoy some of the good things in life, like music, especially live music, and, of course, the radio.  Failing that, there are lots of good social and political issues programmes or drama on the ‘box’. When possible a trip to the theatre, a music concert or gig whatever the genre, so long