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.

Tracks of Carole’s Years: part 2

03 Dec 2021 Leave a comment

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

My third song is Get into the groove my Madonna. I started my nurse training in 1985 initially in Weston Super Mare. Our nurse’s home was at Uphill that was just on the outskirts of the town. Being student nurses, going out on the town on a regular basis was an absolute must. Our very first weekend away from home my friend Julie and I decided to do just that. So after a few drinks in the local pubs; The Dolphin and The Ship, we made the decision to walk into town rather than waste money on a taxi. We thought it was a brilliant idea to walk in the dark along the beach, not even thinking about checking the tide times. Luckily there was no sea to contend with, but we spotted the golf course on the way and felt that would be a much quicker route. It probably would have been if it wasn’t pitch black and we could have seen the bunkers before we fell in them, but we emerged mostly unscathed and made it to the bars and nightclub to dance the night away to this tune and many other 80’s beauties.

Song number 4 is a David Bowie song, I’ve found it really hard to choose just one, but have narrowed it down to 2; Life on Mars and Star man. I’ve been a Bowie fan for a very long time and was lucky enough to see him at Wembley Stadium in 1987 on his Glass Spider tour. This of course was the old Wembley stadium and in those days you weren’t allocated seats. You had a gate number on your ticket, once you got inside you made a run for it to get you where you considered the best place to be.

We ran to the seats on stage left, we didn’t have a master plan we just thought it would be a good vantage point. Once settled in our seats we discovered that we were just a few rows away from the press and VIP section. I didn’t see them but apparently Elton John and George Michael were sat up there. But I did see, sitting just 2 or 3 rows away from me was Diana Princess of Wales, she looked relaxed, radiant and beautiful. I must admit I turn around a few times during Bowie’s performance to see her up and dancing with everyone else around her, but the chap in front me couldn’t take his eyes off her for most of the night, I think he was truly smitten.

I didn’t take this photo, but from where I sat and a smidgen of zoom I could have captured this image myself.

June 20 1987 Diana attends a David Bowie Concert at Wembley Stadium with Viscount Linley and Major David Waterhouse | Princess diana, Princess diana rare, Diana

The Tracks of Carole’s years

02 Dec 2021 Leave a comment

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

Music is so emotive and conjures up many memories good and bad. I love listening to Ken Bruce on Radio 2 and his feature The tracks of my years. Each morning for 5 days a celebrity chooses 2 songs a day and talks about the reasons they chose those particular tunes and why they are important to them.

Now I know I’m not a celebrity or famous for just doing my job like the people Ken has on his show, and no one would be particularly interested in my choices on national radio. But it got me thinking what are the songs that represent my life and could I narrow it down to 10?

Well yes I could and I have created some posts as if I was joining the lovely Ken on his radio show, although without him asking me all the questions.

Day 1

The first song on my list is We are the champions by Queen. When I was in my teens I belonged to a Scout and Guide Marching band as a Ranger Guide then as a Venture Scout. Every year we entered quite a few band competitions throughout the summer months in South west England. This particular year we won our first ever competition, also with individual section wins and first place for turn out (which we always won thanks to our army of mums who sorted our uniforms). This win kicked off a very successful summer for us and we won all the competitions that year. On the evening of that competition win there was a disco in the church hall where we practiced each week. A parent must have gone on ahead to tell them at the hall that we had won, remember this was the early 80’s there were no mobile phones or social media! When we arrived at the church hall and started unloading our equipment we could hear this song being blasted out and everyone was singing to us. It really was an amazing moment.

My second song is Grease Lightening from the musical Grease. It’s fair to say my youngest son Jake struggled at school and probably hated every minute of it. There’s no need to explain why he struggled, it’s not the point of the post. Jake went to a small primary school that encouraged the children to be creative and express themselves especially in performing arts. His good friend Holly decided to have a go at putting on her own production; Songs from the shows. She held auditions for her cast, directed and produced the the whole thing. Jake auditioned for the role of Kenickie for the opening number and for other parts throughout the show. At the time I found this very surprising as up to that point he would usually only reluctantly take part in any performances at Christmas and leaver’s services etc.

On the night of the show I have to say I was stunned at his performance, he burst onto the stage and sang and danced his heart out, as did all the kids on this stage. The whole show was a fantastic success. I do believe that this was the start of Jake’s love for performing on stage. He continued to enjoy productions at school and he went on to achieve a BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts. He has been a member of a community theatre group for many years, plays bass guitar and sings in a band.

(very grainy old photo of Jake strutting his stuff as Kenickie!)