SUMMER 2000

Issue No 21

Contents

• A Yawn in Your Ear (Editorial)
• World Service (News)
• Manfred Mann - Story Teller - The One About Steve Waller
• Steve Waller - Melanie's Letter
• With the EarthBand into the New Year (Tollwood 31/12/99) - Karin Sonntag
• Chris Thompson in Oslo, Norway
• CT News
• Fred-Phone Fredburg - Simon Rickman

Fred-Phone Fredburg - The Rickman Files 3

Come on , admit it too. Who hasn't made a long distance phone call on someone else's bill hoping they'll never know? I have, just the once, way back in the mists of tours forgotten and fog-machines rusted away.

It was a frosty Earthband morning, the truck was being unloaded into the Stadthalle, and I was looking for my breakfast. having tried most of the locked doors back-stage, I found one open. An office. With a phone. Which worked! All right! Now who to call? I'd spoken to my wife the day before, so I thought I'd surprise my folks. My Dad answered. "I thought you were on tour?" "I am - I'm in Frieburg in The Black Forest." "Frieburg? I'll tell you something about Frieburg." And he did. Bear with me now; wake up;, no slouching. Thompson! Put that away! McCalla come back here! Now listen! Back in the early Thirties some of my Dad's schoolpals were taken on a trip organised by the school walking in the Black Forest, and Frieburg was the base camp as it were. Hiking, walking and cycling holidays were very popular then and to go abroad was a huge exciting adventure for a twelve year old. My dad's family couldn't afford the cost though, so he didn't go.

One day the walking party got lost, the weather closed in quickly and by the time they were found the next day some of the boys had died of exposure. The locals erected a monument to mark the tragedy, which was known as Der Englisher Denkmal (monument).

Well, all this took a while to tell and aware not only that I might get stung for the cost of the call but also that there was a load-in going on at which I was supposed to be, and more importantly I still hadn't found my breakfast, we wound up the conversation and off I went to eat and work.

I couldn't get the sad tale off my mind and then I had an idea. I'd go and find the monument. I related all this to the local promoter's representative whose name, I'm sorry I cannot remember so let's call him Bernt. He picked up my enthusiasm and made some enquiries to the Burgermeister's office about the location of the monument. Meanwhile, I supervised putting our lighting rig together in double quick time so as to have an hour or two in the afternoon to go out and explore.

But no one had heard of an English monument commemorating that long-ago incident. I was quite dejected, having been looking forward to getting out and about on an off the cuff mission. Every day in this business is an adventure in itself if you maintain a level of awareness and this would have been a great bonus. Instead I bummed out. As a last resort I suggested to Bernt that we drive to the best bookshop in town to look in local history books or even find a postcard. He agreed but we found nothing there either. By now it was getting on for six o'clock, dark and beginning to snow. As we drove leisurely back to the Halle in the end of day traffic I watched the good people of Frieburg, Earthband fans one and all, hurrying to their places of warmth and light and my mind ran on into how the day might have turned out.

"Hey Bernt", I said, "Imagine if we knew where the monument was and we'd gone up there, parked the car, walked into the wood and found it. Then then weather turned bad and we got lost and died too just like those boys years ago."

He thought for a moment, staring ahead at the red traffic light blurred by the falling sleet. Then he turned to me and said, "Ja okay - but look on the bright side, at least there would already be a monument!"

Simon Rickman

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