SOME HAVE GONE AND SOME REMAIN: Those who passed this way

These are the days we are given, if we've been fortunate. And maybe even lucky.

When we're young we often lose a few people along the way: school friends who do something stupid, someone who crashes a car, the kid who accepted a dare . . .

They are gone from us and we have to live without them. And when you are young, forever is long time.

I was lucky. I lost very few people when I was young: the boy Johnny who was in our extended Jewish family whose name I remember, whose laughing face is frozen in the single photograph of him I have.

But I can't hear his voice or picture him running. I can't remember anything we did together.

But I remember the funeral. I was about 13, he'd been much the same, and I didn't know what to say.

Just as I didn't really know what to say to a friend recently, seeing him for the first time in over a year since his son died.

We – and I mean me – consign our thoughts to silence.

But I was lucky. There was a hiatus until my father died, unexpectedly, when I was in my early Thirties. My mother went into a slow and sad decline much later and when I got the phone call it was almost a relief.

And I feel very bad just saying that.

Around then a couple of people I knew died, and then another lengthy hiatus until more recently.

My wife's dad, whom we all loved, died in that horrible wasting-away and -- although it wasn't unexpected -- it hit us very hard. Still does when we think of him.

My friend Guy too, the last time I saw him – the night before he died -- he was a desiccated man lying in a hospice bed who said with grim humour and pragmatism: “There's only one way out of here, boy. It's in a box.”

Musicians I knew died, far too many in recent years: Murray McNabb, Jim Langabeer, Graham Brazier, the wonderful and much loved Wayne whose acquaintance I had only recently made . . .

I went to Wayne's wake-cum-memorial thing, something I rarely do. Nor funerals. It's not the event itself, it is the standing around and talk afterwards. I leave after the service or when the speeches are over.

I'm a coward like that. I still don't have the chat or know what to say.

The death of Andrew Brough was very sad even though I hadn't seen him in years, nor had others it seemed. But I just have this image of him on the couch laughing as he smoked a joint. He was so alive.

By strange coincidence the other night I was thinking about the lovely and gifted Sam Prebble, whose major project on South Pole exploration I introduced my uni music students to, So I looked up something about him. It was almost 10 years ago to the day that he died. Ten years?

The day before he died, maybe a day or two before, I was walking through Kingsland and he was on the other side of the road. We waved at each other and he came running across and we stood and chatted for a few minutes. And then later I heard.

I went to his funeral and heard his death described as an accident, but no one wanted to talk about it. I never asked, what difference would it make? Some time later I heard it was suicide although even that had a question mark hanging over it.

But again, I didn't ask. What difference does it make?

It's enough that he isn't here any more.

The recent death of Martin Phillipps came as a shock. As I mentioned when I wrote about him, I didn't know Martin well but we could always talk on the brief encounters we had.

And now I hear about Doug Hood, not unexpected but no less sad for that.

I first met Doug when he'd already established his reputation as a champion of Flying Nun bands and as a tour promoter. It would have been 1987 and he had an office on Queen Street in the same building as Flying Nun, just down the hill from the Herald.

Colin Hogg introduced me to him and although Doug had no reason to be pleasant to me, he was. I think Doug was just a genuinely friendly person, it was in his nature.

He seemed to laugh more than get angry. But dealing with some of the artists – local and international – he had to in his line of work there was every reason why he could have been permanently furious.

I remember the stories he told about impossible American hip-hop artists and their absurd demands.

He did what he could, shows went ahead, they went home.

Among musicians, fellow promoters and all those who came into his orbit, Doug was respected, admired and -- I suspect -- envied by those who thought he was coining it from the likes of tours by Eric Clapton and so on.

I remember what he said about that too. And he wasn't. 

Then there were some bad business matters after a while but Doug seemed to be more victim than perpetrator.

We would see each other at gigs and other places over the decades and he was always much the same. Although life got darker and he required more fuel to keep going. It was sad to see.

Then he was stricken: the times I saw over the past three or four years he couldn't speak but was using a typing pad to contribute to conversations.

As with Martin, Andrew, Murray (whom I interviewed at length in the fortnight before he died), Jim, Graham, Wayne et al, others knew these people much better than me so they should speak to that.

But this is what happens when you are given many days. And some around you are given fewer.

As Murray McNabb, who knew his end was imminent, said to me, "So I’m on the way out. But we’re all on the way out in one way or another. It’s just happening at a different time for me.”

It sounds strange to say it, but we're fortunate to be here to miss these people. And we should not forget that.

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These entries are of little consequence to anyone other than me Graham Reid, the author of this site, and maybe my family, researchers and those with too much time on their hands.

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