TALES OF PAUL NEWMAN - NO NOT THAT ONE!

I was talking to Gavin Sutherland (Sailing, Arms of Mary etc.) a while back about some of the experiences that we both had ‘on the road’ in our gigging days. He commented that people should stop talking about bringing back National Service but everyone should be made to spend some time as a ‘Roadie’ for a band. I can see where he was coming from – hard work, a disciplined approach, tight schedules and they would certainly see a different side of life!

Unlike Gavin who, as part of the Sutherland Brothers, was quite a big name back in the day, I rarely had the luxury of a roadie and had to do my own lifting, carrying and setting up before and after performing. It certainly added to all the experiences I had during thirty odd years as a professional. Indeed, people often tell me to write about some of those experiences so I thought I might reminisce in some blogs so here goes with the first.

It’s about a lead guitarist who was part of the band. A lovely guy called Paul Newman. He came from a musical family and I recall once doing a gig with his Dad who was no mean piano player. Anyway, Paul was a brilliant guitarist if managed correctly. You see, Paul had one slight flaw in that he liked a pint or two. Nothing unusual in that but stone cold sober, Paul was rubbish and with too much drink inside him, he was rubbish as well. In between, he was fantastic.

I remember a particular recording session when we had to have a few cans of lager on hand. Paul arrived and said “Shall I start recording my part?” “No Paul”, we replied, “Relax and have a tipple first” feeding him the first can. The session continued with us rationing Paul as best we could to keep him ‘in the zone’

Often, at the end of a gig, Paul would rush off stage to get a pint before the bar closed and I have one memorable image of him standing at the public bar alongside some burly workman still wearing his orange silk stage trousers with a scarf around his neck.

That scarf came in hand at a service station on the way home from a gig late one night. The restaurant was full of Hells Angels and as Paul walked past one very big, hairy biker, he knocked his arm making him spill his drink over the table. “Sorry Mate” the five foot four Paul said and duly mopped it up with his scarf. I thought all hell was going to break out but the biker was so bewildered that the incident passed without a problem.

It could have been even worse and another service station in South Wales at the time of the Miners Strikes in the Thatcher era. Bus loads of police were ferried around the country at that time to deal with the strikers and, as we walked into service station restaurant in the early hours, the place went silent as about three hundred pairs of police eyes looked up at us. You could have heard a pin drop but it wasn’t a pin that Paul dropped it was a small package that looked suspiciously like a spliff (not that I would really know what that looked like never having indulged myself!) Quick as a flash Paul picked it up and said loudly, “Oh, that’s where my plectrum went”. Well done Paul, I was in fear of us all being arrested and strip searched. As it was, the noise level resumed and we enjoyed our late night snack. The force was with us – happy days! 

Picture of Dion Charles & Pine Bluff (From Left; Roger Ellis, Paul Newman, Dave 'Boot' Jeens & Dion Charles)

REFLEXOLOGY AND TRAUMA

In recent months I have been talking and writing about trauma and the place that reflexology has in the treatment of trauma. I have talked about the various types of everyday trauma like bereavement, divorce, accidents and redundancy but, of course, most people relate trauma to war time situations and their aftermath and are familiar with the condition referred to as post traumatic stress.

With this in mind, I recalled an instance from my pre reflexology days as a musician playing mainly in social clubs up and down the country. One day my agent called and told me that a club in Swindon wanted me back and he had accepted a date. I groaned because I remembered the elderly gentleman on the club committee who had ‘welcomed’ us on the previous occasion and he was a real misery to say the least. “Just talk to him about the war” my agent advised.

I took his advice and discovered a remarkable story. He had been a rear gunner in bomber command in World War II and had cheated the statistics that gave him virtually no chance by surviving 48 missions including one where the badly shot up plane just made it home to crash land on the cliffs of Blighty. His experiences had left deep emotional scars on him and the rest of his crew. Indeed, two of them had committed suicide after the war had ended.

These days, he would have been offered specialist counselling. However, it’s a pity that he could not only have received counselling but perhaps had reflexology treatments available to him because it is strange that reflexology, for reasons not altogether clear, can have a very positive effective in treating trauma cases. Reflexology helps release negative emotions that are buried in the subconscious and can help heal the soul as well as the body. Indeed, in my own practice, I have always marvelled at the release reflexology can bring about in trauma cases.

After leaving, I felt compassion as I understood his miserable demeanour. Also, I wish I had known about reflexology back then.