Alfie Read online

  When the music was starting to sound pretty good and songs started coming together, Clint got a band together, The Clint Boon Experience. We had a female trumpet player, guitarist, bassist, Clint on his keyboards, and a drummer. And I was Opera Dude, that was my official title, that’s how I’m credited on the albums, the first of which was all compiled from his attic, on his own system – he produced it. We were gigging before anything was released, testing the music out, playing some bars, great dark sweaty little places like The Barfly in Camden. And they were really fun gigs, very different to what people might have expected from the Inspirals association. There’d be a guy playing the tuba while Clint poured beer in the top of it, there was a reindeer on the front of an organ, and me singing opera. I was juggling it with college, joining the band on the road whenever I could. We were only doing 40-minute sets, supporting other acts. I’d be on for half an hour or so and come on and do a final song with them to end the night. And the gigs were wired, incredible atmosphere, we were really building up a fan base, and I got to meet a lot of those indie rockers, the Shed Seven lot, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine – later we supported Shed Seven and I did a few of those bigger tour dates, Manchester Academy, Brixton Academy.

  It was wicked, it really was. As Opera Dude I used to get a lot of attention, it was very cool. There were rockers and moshers and screaming girls, a couple of groupies, it was bedlam really. Some girls would join us in the green room or in the crew room or backstage, or we’d have a private room at the bigger venues. I wasn’t going out with anyone at the time, I was having fun. I think I came onto Shed Seven’s drummer’s girlfriend one drunken night. Unsuccessfully.

  And I was constantly recording new stuff, new vocals for them, while we were touring. ‘Alfie, I need a line on this, I need a line on that, can you harmonise with this . . .’ So there was lots of material that I did for him, some of which went on the second album. I didn’t really tell anyone at college what I was doing, certainly not teachers, because the more you told them, the more you’d give them ammunition to say, ‘You shouldn’t really be doing that. It’s not right for the voice or for your career. If you want to be an opera singer that’s not the way forward.’ A lot of times I would get told things like that by professors and teachers and critics, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ even with the biggest and best things I’ve ever done, La Bohème on Broadway, Les Misérables. But I’ve never really turned anything down that I’ve had a strong gut feeling about doing. I’ve always just gone for it. And being part of that scene with Clint really stoked my fires. It was a world I wanted to be in and stay in. I love my rock music. I’ve always wanted to be in that world, to have that sort of response from an audience, while staying faithful to my own voice. And the more I perform and sing now, the closer I feel like I’m getting to that world.

  It was really fun, lively music. And fair play to Clint, he knows how to write a song. He was the main songwriter in the Inspirals really. He wrote ‘This Is How It Feels’, great song. Back then, I think, he’d made his name as an artist, and wanted to build it up again, because the Inspirals had finished and his career had sunk a bit, he didn’t have a record contract after that and really wanted to get back in the game. And there was a hell of a lot of affection for him from the crowds. I think that was one thing that put up a slight wall between me and Clint, the attention I started getting from the audience – they liked what I was doing, they liked my singing. I had a black suit on and a bow-tie and these big black wraparound shades, and my hair all greased back. And my following grew the more we gigged, there were more and more cheers when I walked out. I hadn’t established myself as an artist, I was still at college, so I think when Clint saw me getting some acclamation it possibly freaked him out a little bit, because he wanted the attention.

  One night when we played The Barfly in Camden, the crowd went crazy for me when I walked out, lots of cheering. And after the gig I was having a really fun night, chatting away to Sean Hughes, the great Irish comedian, he was a captain on Never Mind the Buzzcocks at the time, and Clint came over and joined in the conversation. And he leant over to me, whispered in my ear and said, ‘Don’t forget – I’m the bloody star of this show.’ I thought, ‘Wow. OK. Time to get off the horse.’ And I went my separate way. It wasn’t a big deal, I just think his ego got the better of him a little bit. I didn’t really say anything, I just decided to stop gigging with him.

  And the band got pretty popular, they played TFI Friday, which I would have liked to have done. The album got Record of the Week on one of the Radio 1 shows – it was the first time I ever heard myself on the radio, and that was a thrill. Then I heard myself on TV – Clint also licensed one of the songs, ‘Comet Theme Number One’, for the theme tune to the footy show on Granada television, but he hadn’t asked my permission. I didn’t have a contract with him, but he should have asked. My voice was on there, and I could hear it every week, watching that bloody footy show. I spoke to him a few years ago. He got hold of me through myspace.com I think, he was working as a DJ for Xfm radio in Manchester, I think he still is. So I phoned him up and we chatted, and it was fine. We’ve all grown up a bit. We kept in touch, he’s come to see me at gigs a couple of times when I’ve played in Manchester. I’ve no hard feelings against him – it’s water under the bridge. Rock and roll I guess.

  Chapter Fourteen

  DAD

  Dad could do anything. I was in awe of him as a kid. I’ve got loads of pictures of him and me together. If he hung a picture on a wall, the wall would fall down before the picture did. He’d build a shed in next to no time. He did everything properly and he did everything securely and with intent. Whatever he put his mind to he would see it through. We built this little summer house in the back garden where we could all sit outside and have dinner. We had a couple of really warm Indian summers, the sun setting slowly, and we’d all sit out there till 11 at night and just chat, as a family, and take it all in. It was wonderful.

  Even when he was working nights, he was never too tired for his kids, never miserable, always joking around. He always had time for us. I used to sit on the garden swing in the mornings and wait for him to come home. I’d see him cycling down the road, and he’d come in and do handstands. I spent a lot of time with him, more than my other brothers and sisters did, because I was the last, I guess. I was spoilt in that sense, having that time with my parents. It’s something I really relish now. He loved family life, and when he retired from ICI in 1990, at 55, he said it was the best time in his life because he got to spend it with his wife and kids at home.

  For a year after retiring he made toys for the grandkids. Carts, cradles, trains, dollhouses. He made toy boats and put them on the boating lake. Some sank. He took up a lot of hobbies, especially woodwork, and he was good. He made fruit bowls. Everything was wood at one point. Bowls all over the place. ‘Look at this, Patsy, look what I’ve made now!’ Brilliant. Mum would paint and decorate the furniture he made, the dollhouses. What a team. Dad bought a new circular saw and one day managed to practically cut his thumb off with it. He came running into the kitchen going, ‘I’ve cut me thumb, I’ve cut me thumb! Don’t tell your mum or she’ll take my toy off me!’

  He was a solid role model, and as a teenager you don’t see that – you just think your dad’s a pain in the neck, you think you know it all and you get embarrassed by your parents. I was a real spoilt brat sometimes, and I regret that. I grew up a lot in the 10 months we had him while he was ill. I wish he was around now so I could show him how much I appreciate how he loved and cared for me. Because Dad did anything for me, he really did. He’d not bat an eyelid if I asked for a lift somewhere. If I needed a ride to band practice, before I could finish saying, ‘I need to get my drum kit in the car,’ the drum kit was in there. And he’d drive me to somebody’s house or to these dodgy old sheds in the middle of nowhere, where we’d set up and play. He’d sit outside my singing rehearsals all night, two or three-hour rehearsals, he’d just si
t there in his car. He was hard of hearing, so loud noises really hurt his ears, but I wish I’d said, ‘Come in and sing along, Dad.’ Or, ‘Come in and have a listen to the drums. Come in and have a listen to the band, see what you think.’

  We started to notice little things that summer before my third year at college. He was getting a bit forgetful, forgetting names of things, forgetting what he’d done yesterday, getting bad headaches. He’d been at my graduation, and at one point when I was on stage I looked over at him and he was asleep. We didn’t know – nobody knew, at the time, that he had this brain tumour, and it was just knocking him out.

  After an initial period in hospital he was transferred to a neurology unit in Preston for a biopsy. I had to perform an opera in Aberdeen for a couple of weeks, in Haddo House, and as soon as I was done I drove straight back to the hospital. I pulled off into a service station to get him a present and bought this thing I thought might make him laugh – this stupid little frog that sat down on the edge of the table, it had a fishing rod. It was kind of cute and funny, and I just wanted to do something. Just something. I didn’t know what to do to help . . . all I could think at that point was to buy this stupid thing. He’d had his biopsy, and I walked into the room and said, ‘Hi, Dad . . . good to see you . . . I’ve got you a little gift,’ and I put it at the side, and he just looked really blank, glanced at it, and said, ‘Thanks, Alf,’ expressionless. He didn’t show any disappointment, but I knew it was just pointless, and I felt like an idiot. If I’d just trusted in the fact that it was enough to simply be there with him.

  We were waiting and waiting for the diagnosis. It killed us to go in every day and wait for 10 hours for the doctors to tell us what was happening. Eventually they took Mum and Dad and Theresa into a little room and told them before me and Fran and Maria were invited in. And I walked in and saw Mum, Dad and Theresa all in tears. About as heartbreaking as it gets. Mum said, ‘There’s nothing we can do for your dad.’ In that moment, I didn’t know how to react, and I turned away. I tried to cry and show that I was sad, but it just wasn’t something I could fathom. I didn’t know what to think. I was absolutely numb. There was probably an element of disbelief, denial: ‘This isn’t right.’ But mostly I just couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t know what to feel or how to be. And I seriously regret turning away, and not facing Dad. I snapped out of it and turned to him and threw my arms around him and knelt on the floor, and he said, ‘I’m sorry, son. I’m really sorry.’

  I said, ‘Dad, don’t apologise for this!’

  The hospital asked us if we wanted to take him home or have them put him in a convalescent home to be looked after. We said, ‘No, he’s coming home.’ And he spent his last months at home. This was August. They said, ‘Enjoy Christmas, because it won’t be long after that.’ And he lasted through until May. He was a tough old boy.

  It sounds odd but there was an element of excitement in how I was feeling. Our family adjust to things like that, that’s how we work, because we believe there’s more going on than just the life we experience down here. And we were being shaken up, something new was happening. But it hit me later on. Bang did it hit me. I was floored. Like somebody had smacked me in the face with a spade, knocked me out. I was all over the place. I couldn’t believe that what had happened had happened. I couldn’t believe that my dad wasn’t gonna be with us any more. It took his death to really make me realise I was gonna be without him for the rest of my life. That’s so hard to get to grips with, and I feel it every single day, I really do. Because I miss him so much. And I have these really uncomfortable panicked feelings sometimes, that he’s not around any more, he’s not here. I can’t touch him and I can’t see him and I can’t talk to him.

  I was spending more and more time with him. I could always juggle around my coaching lessons at college and have longer weekends at home here and there. It was really sweet and understanding of them to give me that flexibility. Every weekend I went home, and every weekend I saw this slight decline in Dad’s health. His mannerisms, his responses to things. And his looks, because he was having radiotherapy, he was on morphine and retaining water, he was puffed up. It was difficult to see him decline like that, this Action Man who used to hop over the garden gate to the shops across the road. And his memory was going, he forgot names of things, he’d say, ‘Can you pass me that . . . can you pass me that . . . whatsit, whatsit called?’ Moments like that were really upsetting.

  It was a slow and steady deterioration. Towards the end he couldn’t sleep upstairs so we made space for him down in the dining room, and we’d sit with him. We had nurses in the mornings but we stopped that because some of them weren’t very affectionate, and we started just caring for him ourselves, those of us who were around. John was with the RAF in the Falklands. Maria and Michael were living out of town, so they didn’t come round every week. Week in week out it was me, Mum, and my sisters Annie, Theresa and Fran. Towards the end of his life we were having to sit up with him quite a lot, and we had to sit with him during the night because he was waking up shouting out for his mum, my nana, Evelyn. That really surprised us, and at some points he did display signs of being youthful and somehow sprightly again. Slight little things. If you were feeding him he’d wink at you or do something where you could see the playful side of him still in there. We even thought, ‘Wow, he’s really turned a corner,’ a couple of times. But when you see something that comes across as an improvement it’s often a sign that they’re close to dying. I think it’s nature’s way of giving them an element of their health again, showing them how it could be. You are gonna feel healthy again, you’re gonna feel young. This was the prime time of your life and once this pain is gone this is how you’ll be. That’s my interpretation of it.

  But he was really regressing. Towards the end it was terrible. I came home one weekend and he looked so bad, my goodness, it was a real shock. He was unconscious a lot of the time and he would shout out, but his eyes would be closed and he’d be sat up, it was like he was in a different world already. And we’d have to hold him and stroke his arm. You couldn’t touch his head because of the tumour, so you’d just try to calm him, pat him, relax him.

  One weekend I came home and I said, ‘Mum, I’ll settle with Dad tonight, you go and get some rest.’ We finally got him to sleep at about 9pm. Mum went to bed and I sat up watching TV for a bit in the living room, and every time I heard him cry I’d be up and I’d be in there to check on him. I’d stroke his arm and he’d settle, and I’d go back. Around 4am I heard him shout out like crazy, ‘Mum! Mum! Mum!’ And I ran in and I sat with him, and it was the closest thing I’d ever done with him. I sat with my dad in my arms and I had a flashback to when I sat in his arms after my nana, his mum, had died, when I was four. I remember being sat on his knee and him saying, ‘I just want you to know, Alf, your nana’s gone to Heaven and she’s happy now, she’s not poorly any more.’ It was really cool. And now I was sat with my arm around him, stroking him, this incredible role-reversal. And I stayed sat up with him the rest of the night.

  Mum woke up about six and told me to go and rest. I went upstairs and got into bed but I couldn’t sleep, so we had breakfast and decided to go for a walk. Our Annie came round to relieve us, to look after him and bathe him, and me and Mum went up to the beach. And we had a really bizarre walk. It was like being in a bubble, in some sort of dome, a sort of protection, an aura. It felt like we were being protected. And as we were walking up to the beach it started to rain, but just on the other side of the street. There were enormous black rain clouds on our right, and on the left, where we were, bright sunshine. And we didn’t say a word to each other. We’ve spoken about it since and she said she felt exactly the same. Like we were being protected.

  We got home and Mum said, ‘Alf, would you go to church and fill up this bottle with some holy water.’ So I jumped on my bike and went to the Catholic church down the road, and while I was filling up the bottle at the font at the back, I looked into the church, and
it was empty. I walked up to the front with this bottle, straight down the middle aisle to the altar, and I said, ‘Please, give him his rest. He’s suffered enough. Please give him his rest.’ This was three o’clock in the afternoon. And he died two hours later.

  I came home. It was Annie, Mum, Theresa, me and Dad. Annie told us to hold him, she knew what was happening. She’s a state-enrolled nurse and has been a district nurse to the elderly. She’d nursed a lot of sick, dying people. We were talking to him – whether he could hear us or not I’m not sure – but his breathing was getting very shallow, and then he’d take a big breath, and then it would be really shallow, then he’d take a big breath again . . . and it was slowing down, slowing down, getting slower . . . slower . . . and shallower and shallower . . . and then he sort of frowned, and one little tear rolled down his cheek. And he took a breath . . . and he never let go of it. And that was it. He was gone.

  I was holding his hands, I was holding his shoulders. And I felt him leave. It just didn’t feel like it was my dad any more. I was holding the image of him, but not the person. He’d gone. And I never thought I would have to do this, but everybody else left the room, I was left there on my own with my dad, and I had to close his eyes. I lowered my dad’s eyelids. And that was the last time I saw his eyes. An amazing moment, an amazing feeling, something that I’ll never ever forget being a part of. There are people in the family that weren’t there, and I was fortunate enough to be one of those to experience the last moments of my dad’s life. I feel very blessed about that.