A very inspiring pair of gigs this weekend...
Two bashes in aid of newly-beknighted Richard Stilgoe's wonderful school, The Orpheus Centre, where some very lucky and excellent young disabled people are helped to see that there is more to their lives than their problems. Each night they showed how far their horizons had been moved and sang and read brilliantly - with the aid of the brilliant teachers they write songs and perform them with great aplomb.
All were touched and moved by their excellence and humour. It is silly to pick any one of the guys out, but we were all impressed by Jo, who is blind and has other issues which would seem to count out the skills she clearly has - perfect pitch, a clear singing voice and grade 8 on drums... sparkling.
The Orpheus young people sang a special song on the second night, newly-written, called Without You; a hymn of praise to Sir Richard - I don't know how Richard managed to stand there and listen (it certainly made me cry), but he did just so... and he said at the end that the song meant just as much to him as his recent honour. An honour which he accepted on behalf of all the other people who help him, his wife and the tremendous carers & musicians too...
The guests of honour were on one night, Chris Tarrant, and on the other HRH Prince Edward, who is Patron of Orpheus. Both made speeches suggesting how special they knew the evening would be, and what a great thing The Orpheus Centre is; of course both enjoyed the evening as did we all.
We were very pleased to be able to give His Royal Highness a copy of our cricket CD, Songs of Cricket, especially as it has one of the songs from Cricket the musical, which he commissioned from Rice/Lloyd Webber for his Mum's 60th.
On sporting matters, we tried hard to concentrate on the sporting glory which is the England cricket XI - after the midweek triple win, we had a win, a draw ending in a draw, and a draw ending in a loss in our major sports...
It was a great privilege to be able to do our bit at the end of the evenings, and give all a great send-off.
Sir RS joined us in his song The Barmy Army as the final encore... (on Songs of Cricket, as you've asked...)
Flying to Athens on Wednesday to join a cruise - hopefully no rioting... Molotov news to come...
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