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Closing event for Mental Health Everyone's Business week in Portsmouth Views: 2089

Well, it is all over, the week is done. It has taken me the whole weekend to recover sufficiently to write this and begin to be able to think clearly again! So many wonderful things have happened this week and there is so much to process that it will take quite a while before all the learning is done and to fully evaluate the week. There is no doubt in my mind though that a lot of people in Portsmouth have been taking about mental health this week who wouldn't have been otherwise!
The closing event at the NBECSA club was a good one. Madcap Han was terrific and shared some beautiful songs as well as her experiences of mental health problems/services over the years. Walker Broad (the band) were beset with technical problems for the first half which did not help, one speaker was crackling away then decided to give up the ghost mid set! The speakers were rearranged at the interval and the second set was much better. It was lovely to be out as a band for a change as well as being scary playing together for the first time. Andy, Blackie and Si are old hands playing together but I'm a newbie so most nerve wracking for me I think, but they were terrific as expected and I am really looking forward to our next outing on the 25th. (see gig list for more details)
My night was made by one of the lovely audience telling me I sound alot like Sandy Denny, one of my musical heroines. I was made up! Someone else said I sounded like Enya, it was a good night! The opening song was a stonker - Quiet Joys of Brotherhood a poem by Richard Farina that was put to music by Fairport Convention (rather masterfully may I say). It always goes down well and despite my cold it didn't let me down on this occasion! So happy. 


