The healing power of music! 🎶

I’ve discovered another radio station! No, it’s not new and has probably been on air for many years but I have only just found it! A revelation!

For many months I have listened to the radio every day and tried to soothe my jaded lockdown nerves with classic fm. I get news highlights every hour on the hour. A lot of the adverts are irritating but I put up with them and usually just have the classical strains of well known composers as a background ‘noise’. But that was until a few hours ago!

I am sitting in the conservatory ‘chilling’ to Phil Collins ‘Groovy kind of love’. I have been transported back in time to a world where there were no pandemics, the sun always shone and I would endlessly daydream. I’d imagine dancing cheek to cheek with the boy I really fancied when I was thirteen years old! He was so handsome and looked like Davy Jones from the Monkees!

My mother wouldn’t let me hang posters up on my bedroom wall but I was allowed to hang them inside my cupboard! Davy Jones took pride of place! When I opened the door and sat on my bed, I would gaze lovingly into the eyes of ‘X’! And he would gaze lovingly back at me!

When I turned thirteen I was allowed to have a party! The excitement was great, I invited a few of my friends and asked them to bring a friend or a boyfriend. There would have been about twenty of us. My father tidied up the garage and we hung bunting on the walls and balloons from the ceiling. My mother baked biscuits and cakes and we had a good supply of Coca Cola, Fanta Orange, crisps and peanuts!

The only concern my parents had was potential gatecrashers. These would have been older boys on motor bikes and, heaven forbid, drunk! This was South Africa in the mid sixties and we lived in a small town. It was a different world and we were all so naive! I still believe that it was a good time to be young and an ideal place to grow up!

Looking back to that party makes me smile now but it remained cringeworthy for a long time! I didn’t ask ‘X’. I was too shy, as were most of my friends! Only two classmates brought a boy with them. The music, limited to my tiny collection and a few borrowed records, was repeated over and over again! By the end of the evening we had memorised all the words! Eventually my mother joined the party and got us all dancing in a circle! I would have dearly welcomed the excitement of a few gatecrashers!

I had forgotten how uplifting music could be. Since I sat down to write this blog I have moved from one memory to the next! Otis Redding’s ‘Sitting on the dock of the bay’ was followed by Yazoo’s ‘Don’t go’! Currently I’m listening to Elton John singing ‘Don’t go breaking my heart’.

The snow is falling and I’m snug and warm inside. My husband and I are obeying the rules and staying at home. It would have taken a lot to get me out today. The hill outside our house is like a sheet of ice. We’d have to dig ourselves out of the drive before we even contemplated that hill!

The sun is slowly sinking behind the trees. It’s not a brilliant sunset but it’s stopped snowing. My husband is building a fire in the sitting room. I’ll get up shortly and open a bottle of red wine. I’ll sit in front of the crimson flames and let the music wash over me. Life could be a lot worse!👠