Good Guy Warren

Warren, wearing the cap, with colleagues as the newspaper was 'put to bed'
at 2am on the night Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008

If you were to ask me how long ago this picture was taken, I'd say a year or two. Actually, it is seven years. It was a very late night on 5 November 2008, and the team at the newspaper were still working on putting the next day's edition together so that it could include the news of Barack Obama's election as the new US president.

Sat at his desk and wearing a baseball cap, as he always did, is Warren. He was the link man who transferred the completed newspaper pages from the newsroom to the print room where they would be loaded onto printing press plates to create thousands of copies of the newspaper. The process was all done electronically. However, Warren's job entailed far more than this crucial go-between step.

Last night was his final shift. He has now retired having worked at the newspaper since 1966 - an entire lifetime career at the same place of work.

For the best part of the last eight years I worked closely with Warren to produce the final pages each night, and for most of the past few years we sat side by side. He was an incredible work colleague, being reliable, calm, knowledgeable, methodical and precise. He would work until everything that needed to be done had been, even when it entailed continuing into the small hours of the morning (observe the tired eyes on the picture above).

You always felt comfortably reassured by his presence. I'm going to miss his observations on life and the news, and our conversations about music and films.

Beyond being a great work colleague, he was also a true friend willing to help out - and he did on a number of occasions when my scooter bike conked out in heavy rains and he would give me a lift to collect it after the rain had stopped. Once or twice he provided a lift home when I was without my bike and had missed the last bus due to the lateness of the hour.

Time flies by so quickly. One minute you are just getting to know someone and before you know it you've shared an intertwined daily work life for the best part of a decade.

Warren is a rarity in these times, having spent his whole working life with the same company. He is going to be a hard act to follow. And just as I miss Good Guy Eddie, I'm going to miss Good Guy Warren. It has been a joy and privilege to have worked so closely with him for so many years. I wish him well in his well deserved retirement.

All American High Revisited

Earlier this month I came across a touching documentary about the lives of young Americans growing up in the early 1980s.

It offered a glimpse back to a time and a place that no longer exists, but one that many would recognise either because they lived through that era, or have seen it portrayed in movies and TV shows.

When the original documentary All American High was made, there was no internet or social media, no cell phones, and no reality TV.

For one year, documentary-maker Keva Rosenfeld turned his camera on the Class of 1984 at the school, capturing the lives and times of young students at a typical US high school (in this instance Torrance High, in the southern reaches of Los Angeles).

Now, 30-odd years later All American High Revisited is the original documentary updated with some of the former students reflecting on the school experience and their adult lives.

There is nothing startling to be seen - no great or shocking revelations to be found, but it is precisely this ordinariness that gives the documentary its beauty. It is a time capsule showing how things used to be, in what now seems like a quaint and simpler era. We see students in the classroom discussing the pros and cons of nuclear deterrents, learning about home-making and married life, we see them preparing for the Home Coming Queen parade, dating, and attending keg parties. There are the punkers, metallers, preppies and cheerleaders, and even a social dancing event after-hours in a shopping mall.

Choosing exchange student Riikkamari Rauhala, from Finland, as the narrator was an inspired decision. She was attending the school for a year and we get to see much of the activities through her outsider eyes, with insights and perspectives that might not have been possible from a homegrown student already versed in the culture of being a young American in the 1980s.

Most of the documentary is footage from the original film, but the "revisited" segment comes towards the end when we meet Riikkamari as she is today, in her 50s, along with a few of the other students who are now grown up. Narrator Riikkamari had intended to go to the five-year reunion after leaving Torrance High in 1984, but didn't. Like many of us, she soon found herself pre-occupied with living her life. The schooldays and friends faded away.

All American High Revisited is fun. For Riikkamari and the others it was a chance to stop the clock for a moment and look back at where they once where, and where they are today. For viewers it is perhaps an opportunity to do the same, while also enjoying a reminder of the music, the hairstyles and the ambiance of the early-to-mid 1980s.

The documentary has been released digitally in the UK and a number of other countries. It can be viewed through digital download on popular sites (iTunes, Amazon, Virgin Media, etc).
All American High Revisited is due to be released in the US during September.

Hurricane tree is no more

The toppled tree after last year's two hurricanes, and the now empty site

A sprawling tree that once provided some cool shade at the corner of a road on the outskirts of Hamilton has gone. It had a dominating presence on St John's Road, where its rich foliage provided shelter from the sun and the rain.

I've no idea how old the tree was, but it had seen a good few decades and survived many storms before it was finally toppled by the two hurricanes that scored bull's eye hits on Bermuda last October.

The first, Fay, did the most damage, although the arrival six days later of the more powerful Hurricane Gonzalo worsened the situation for the grand tree.

Surprisingly, despite being all but uprooted, it continued to grow even at its post-storms acute angle. The red letter box that once sheltered beneath the mighty tree's boughs was displaced by the trauma of the hurricanes and in the interest of safety was removed soon afterwards. Dealing with the tree was a far bigger task, and for seven months it appeared the tree might remain as a living reminder of the force of nature wrought by Fay and Gonzalo. However, as I rode past on a recent journey home I noticed the corner plot had been cleared of all signs of the tree. The land looked naked and exposed without its once-towering sentinel.

Although I've never been a pedestrian strolling along the pavement beneath its shade-giving branches, the tree felt like an old friend on account of seeing it on a daily basis for almost 10 years while riding my scooter between home and work. And on a number of occasions I've run beneath the fringes of its shade during road races that skirted this distinctive corner.

What will become of the corner plot remains to be seen. But it would be fitting if another tree is given the chance to grow there and become an equally magnificent landmark.

Book signing event this month

For those who live in Bermuda and are interested in picking up a copy of Dolphin Girl or Lennon Bermuda (or both). I'll be signing copies outside the Bermuda National Library on Saturday June 27, from 11am until 3pm.

There will be a number of other Bermuda resident authors there also signing copies of their work. The event is being staged by the National Library as it launches its summer reading programme.

The book signing will be on the lower verandah, facing onto Queen Elizabeth Park (formerly Par-la-Ville Park).

Long and winding road we travel in life

An abridged audio of this blog post can be heard in the above vBlog, with additional images.

An old boot on a road near Karratha, Western Australia

Like fleeting images from a rearview mirror, the pictures here reflect a life travelled. Some show empty roads and vast landscapes that stretch away forever, while others capture people, fellow travellers along life's journey; a long and winding road on which we are all journeying.

Strange things happen when you travel far from home and explore the world independently, immersing yourself in and embracing all that comes your way, good or bad, and learning to deal with it regardless. When I did so at a young age it was particularly life-shaping. I strode out like a latter day Laurie Lee to make my own personal discoveries in a far away distant land. Whereas writer Lee went to Spain at the age 20, I went to the island continent of Australia at 21 and stayed for a year.

With travelling buddies in Narrogin, Western Australia, 1988

When you travel far from the safety net and familiarity of home, life changes forever. Assumptions, certainties and fears that once seemed deep grounded are challenged, reassessed or blown away.

You grow, you learn and you take some hits, but you get back up stronger, wiser and more resilient.

Yet it is only when you look in the rearview mirror after the years have become decades, and the decades have become multiple decades, that the true enormity of how these experiences have shaped your life becomes clear.

As I look at these pictures of distant times and places, the younger me and the people I fleetingly criss-crossed with on life's journey, I know some part of me will forever reside in those scattered far off places. But I also know that even if I travel there again and embrace nostalgia's wistful warmth, something will be missing. That something is the magical convergence of being in the right place, at the right moment and with the right people - and the happiness it brought.

A break while cycling through the vastness of the outback

We are all travellers on this strange and wondrous journey called life, so take the time to check that rearview mirror and appreciate those fellow travellers you've met along the way, the ones who travel with you today and the ones you have yet to meet.

Book cover artist coincidence

Kit Foster's cover art

Last summer I mentioned in a blog post a coincidence involving the artist who designed the cover for Dolphin Girl.

I said I'd return to the story once the book was published, so here goes. It begins in March 2013, when I wrote a short play entitled FAE. As the title indicates, it was a play with a faeries theme.

Four months later, unbeknown to me, a novel was published entitled Fae, by writers Colet and Jasmine Abedi (the sisters write under the single name CJ Abedi). It too has a faerie world setting.

By December, the Abedis' Fae had been optioned as a possible future movie by film director Ridley Scott.

I was still unaware of Fae the novel when, in the early summer of 2014, I sought out a professional book cover artist for Dolphin Girl. There was a good chance that the Forth Bridge would feature somewhere (it is the image on the back cover), so having an artist familiar with the iconic Scottish bridge was preferable. I found Scotland-based Kit Foster and he came up with a number of cover designs, including the one which was ultimately chosen.

It was only later that I discovered Kit had designed the cover for CJ Abedi's Fae - a book that by coincidence had an identical title to my play, was published a few months after I'd written FAE, and is now optioned by one of my top five favourite directors.

As John, Riva, Fay and Fae, the characters in the play FAE might surmise, a little faerie magic appears to have been at work.

A tale of two movie theatres

It was a strange experience - going to see two films, on separate occasions and at different cinemas, with one of the theatres empty and the other a sell out.
To add to the bizarreness, the film at the empty theatre was the brand new release, Chappie, while the movie with the packed audience was the 30 years old The Breakfast Club.

It was a case of "pick a seat, any seat" at the afternoon matinee showing of science-fiction movie Chappie, the latest offering from director Neill Blomkamp, who also made the acclaimed District 9 and Elysium (blog post here). Despite the popular location of the theatre in downtown Santa Monica, there was not another sole in the auditorium to see this entertaining, action-packed adventure featuring an armour-plated police robot with artificial intelligence.

The film had some roughness around the edges, but it was enjoyable and certainly deserving of more than an empty theatre. As Heather and I departed the cinema I did wonder if having the film poster accidentally back-to-front outside of the theatre might have harmed its audience-pulling potential.

And so to The Breakfast Club, which didn't even get to have a poster outside the shopping mall cinema where it was being shown.
So how did anyone know it was on? The trailer above helped to spread the word, as did a number of newspaper articles that tied in with the 30th anniversary of the film's release in 1985.

For two nights only the restored film was shown at 430 theatres across the US. I discovered there was a one-off 30th anniversary showing nearby when I read the newspaper that morning. The theatre was all but sold out for the re-run of John Hughes' classic teen film.

On entering the auditorium the affection that many people hold for The Breakfast Club was clear. The audience consisted of a wide cross section of people, some of whom had obviously returned to see a film they remembered watching first time around, when they too had been teenagers. And then there were audience members much younger who had probably not even been born when the film first hit the silver screen. They appeared to be the same age as the characters in the film, but a generation removed from the music and sensibilities of the 1980s.

Not that that mattered one jot, because The Breakfast Club has a timelessness, and it is graced with universal themes that resonate across the ages. It is the story of five very different high school students - the punk, the princess, the brain, the jock and the basketcase - who are thrown together to serve a Saturday detention in the school library.

I've long admired the films of the late writer-director John Hughes. He was gifted in his ability to make teen movies and coming-of-age films that showed empathy with the lives of young people, capturing truths through memorable moments.

Two of the film's stars, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, attended a re-showing of the film last month at the South by Southwest Film Festival, in Austin, Texas. Ringwald told USA Today that the Millenials generation "totally get it".  She said: "It hits on universal themes that resonate for each generation. Now The Breakfast Club is a touchstone, in the way JD Salinger books were for me growing up."

Watching the film on the big screen I was taken back to my younger days and recollections of seeing the film long ago, and also memories of being at school and recognising in others the archetypal character-types from the film. In truth, we probably all carry a portion of each within our identities.

It was wonderful to be in a full house watching such a touching classic. As the Simple Minds' song Don't You Forget About Me played out at the climatic end of the film it was time to go, but in the knowledge that I'll revisit this memorable film again as the years roll by.