I went to London and I saw ……

30 Dec 2023 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in London trips Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I love my trips to London and there are several posts on this blog to support this. My last two visits to the Big Smoke involved two music legends and my two sons.

Back in August I met son number one, Scott, at Paddington station and we made our way to Sotheby’s to see the exhibition of Freddie Mercury’s possessions “A world of his own”. Fans and buyers could visit to view the items for a couple of weeks before the auctions arranged and managed by Mary Austin, Freddie’s lifelong friend whom he described as his common law wife and was his closest confidant. During that time there were 140,000 visitors from all around the world and the auctions raised £40 million, a large proportion of that amount was donated to charity.

Freddie collected a lot of fabulous stuff in his short life and 14061 lots were lovingly arranged over three floors and each room had vases full of beautiful lilies to fill the air with the most amazing fragrance. Everything was in temptingly close touching distance and while no-one was looking I managed a little pinch on the bottom of the sleeve of a jacket Freddie wore on a visit to Japan. When I mentioned it to Scott, he shot me a look that said “if we get chucked out of here because of you, I’m going to kill you”! It reminded me of the time myself and both my lads went to Destination Star Trek and I was trying to get a sneaky photo of William Shatner instead of paying the extortionate fee to do so. I was told a couple of times to stop and move along, which I ignored and my youngest son, Jake, felt the need to drag me away hissing “you’re gonna get us chucked out”.

So with that in mind I decided to try and behave myself on my next trip to London with Jake to see the Elvis Exhibition. It was a wonderful collection of memorabilia from Graceland, lots of amazing personal items belonging to Elvis, stage outfits, documents, vehicles, instruments and his every day clothes in all their 1970’s glory. This time there was no chance of touching anything as it was all safely protected behind glass.

It was a relatively small exhibition so before we headed home we made our way to St. John’s wood and after a yummy lunch at the Drunch café we wandered to the Abbey road studio. We really didn’t have time to do the studio tour, so we visited the shop and tried to get a “walking across the zebra” photo without pissing off too many motorists!

I am so lucky to have shared interests with my lads, it makes my days out to London really special.

Tracks of Carole’s years: part 4

31 Dec 2021 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

My seventh song selection is These are the days of our lives by Queen. As I’ve written about before in this blog, I am a massive Queen fan, I have been since I first saw them on Top of the Pops performing Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975. But I think I first fell in love with Freddie when I saw him on the Crazy Little Thing called Love video.

He was such a force of nature and one of the greatest entertainers that ever lived. He had the most amazing vocal range and stage presence, you only need to watch his Live Aid performance to confirm this. That is what makes the video for this song so upsetting, to see how frail and weak Freddie was while trying so hard to perform for the camera. According to his bandmates and close friends, Freddie was in a lot of pain on the day of shooting but was determined to put on his best performance.

My youngest son, Jake’s, birth was incredibly traumatic and after 30 years I can still remember every minute of it. I was in hospital for 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after he was born. On the day we were finally discharged from hospital the papers were full of the headline “Freddie has AIDS”. He very sadly died the next day.

This incredibly sad event will be forever linked with my overwhelming sense of relief that Jake and I survived and the joy of welcoming a new and healthy son against all the odds

These Are The Days Of Our Lives (Penampilan Terakhir Freddie Mercury di Depan Kamera) ~ QUEENINDO (The Indonesian Queen Fan Club)

Song number 8 is There’s a Kind of Hush by the Carpenters. In my humble opinion it’s one on the best songs by this very talented duo. Although they didn’t write it themselves, they have the most wonderful vocals and completely make it their own.

The saddest memory of this song is Karen’s appearance when she sang it on the video. She suffered from an eating disorder for a large proportion of her very short life. Tragically she died of heart failure, a complication of her long battle, at the age of 32.

Karen’s story resonates with me as I have been struggling with an eating disorder on and off since I was 16. It’s been a constant battle for many years and sometimes a coping mechanism in times of extreme stress. Severely limiting the amount I eat helped me regain the control I felt I lost. As a healthcare professional it doesn’t make any sense to, at times, starve my body of nutrition.

So at the grand old age of 54 I decided to address my issues with food and attempt to get my head straight. My first point of call was a nutritionist and those appointments were invaluable. I have a little way still to go but she has guided me in the right direction by essentially giving me “permission” and the strength to begin to eat more.

My 15 minutes of fame

15 Aug 2012 2 Comments

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

After reading Jack Scott’s post on Perking the Pansies about his radio show appearance, it got me thinking about my very brief moment of stardom on the radio waves. My claim to fame is not nearly as exciting as Jack’s, but nevertheless it was good for me.

A few years ago our local radio station, known then as GWR, was doing a daily slot called ‘Four play’. Listeners were invited to contact the station with 4 songs; their favourite song at the time, their song they dance like their dad to, the song to turn up their speakers to and the song that makes them cry. The presenter would then do a quick interview about the reasons behind the choices and it was edited and played back in the show.

I listened to that show quite often and decided I should let Bristol know about my favourite tunes.

My favourite song at the time was Take That’s ‘Shine’, I liked the song because they had just reformed and I never really was a big fan of the band first time around, I felt it was much better than their old stuff.

My first choice for the song that made me dance like my dad was ‘Suspicious Minds’ by Elvis Presley because my dad was a huge Elvis fan and he actually won a prize once for dancing when he was in the RAF. But alas they didn’t have that one so I had to think of something else, my son suggested ‘Get down on it’ by Kool and the Gang as there is some ancient video evidence of his dad dancing to this somewhere.

The song to turn my speakers up to was ‘Summer of 69’ by Bryan Adams. I have been a fan of Bryan for many years and have seen him live in London, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol and I adore him…enough said!

I always cry when I hear ‘These are the days of our life’ by Queen. I am a massive, lifelong fan of Queen and I loved Freddie Mercury. Like many people I was upset when he died and the video for the song is just heartbreaking because of Freddie’s appearance. It was the last video he made before he died and he was just so thin and fragile, but still he managed to perform for the camera to thank the fans for all the support over his fantastic career.

He is truly a legend…