on Putney heath

Clip clop then stop to tarry a while – below me she heaves – a whinny quiet – she is well schooled in my subterfuge and stealthy guiles. There is the stench of Great London in our nostrils. Tra la lee – oh for a nose gay for my true love – an orange stuck with cloves or a fine lace square drenched in fragrant oil. Trot my lovely sure and steady – always ready with a fine pair of Spanish in my belt. Clip clop on flint newly laid – stop in the darkening glades here on the heath high above Putney. Dare we tarry my mount and me? Rest for one small ale at the Green Man and trade some trinkets out back of the bear pit. Alert I be always hearkened to the sounds on the wind while she below keeps us up above the dirt – thinking of the curly headed one, darling in the whirling skirt – a slip along hips like on a boat she be – ah I would take her down to Frenchy in the west for a month or two in summer. Alert I see a King’s man on a town mare stopped under a spreading chestnut. Lurking in the gloom and green and all plumed up like a high un. He sees we. I will coldly drop him should he call me out. He stares long and hard but doesn’t have the interest and we pass by unchallenged. He is looking for an easy life and me for easy pickings. Clip clop then quiet on softer ground. She pricks up her ears and we hear the Kings man heading off to Roehampton opposite ways to we. The glow of the lit up city far below beckons me to a tavern friendly to us in Wandsworth Town. Best be there by dark and best we make swift now. Caught by the man and me carrying would see me thrown in Newgate. Ha ha! My neck was made for a fine silk scarf and not for a hang man’s rope.
Days later I pull up at the Ragged Staff Inn for the night. The place is on a high hill above Swindon. I like to look out and below on the men who would bring me down. She said she’d be here. I ached to see her framed in the light of a roaring fire. Peachy cheeks rosy with life. She is sweetness, loyal and kind. I would never do her harm nor cause her hurt in any way. She is the one who keeps me safe and of good hope. Black curly hair, buxom and lovely in the fire light. Holding on to her. Feeling her heart beat. Mine is beating like a drum.

The pale sun of developing winter falls across Eland Towers the shadow of a ladder falls through the window across the living room wall. We’ve got the builders in for total renovation. Years a go I worked on building sites and have had an aversion ever since to all things dirty, cold, wet and windy. I don’t much care for D.I.Y. either and although I have some practical skills and a few tools I would rather leave it than mend it. Consequently Eland Towers has fallen into extreme disrepair but soon all will be transformed with all the exterior masonry fixed up, windows painted, a new kitchen and .... a new studio for yours truly. We’ll have a new bathroom by the end of Saturday coming so things are well underway. Adam is our main man on the job. He is a proper working class Brixton boy and it seems as though he can fix and mend every thing. He is also a very nice bloke.

The chaos here is at least constructive and we are looking forward to the end result with great anticipation even though it is a week or three away.
I am still working on the components of the new song and video Deliverance in the midst of the building work. I realise this has been a while coming but it will be worth the wait. I’d like to finish it by Monday.

I have had a spate of emails from UK fans recently asking about UK gigs and I have to say there will be no gigs this year. How ever, the new year is a different matter and the EBB will be looking to gigs in the UK and across the water. We have some very nice offers including a return to Gagarin the Athens club.
2008 has been a strange old year and in many respects I will be glad to see the back of it. I am going to spend the rest of this year having a nice time. It’s my 61st birthday on Monday coming and far from wanting to take things easy I plan to spend the next year busily engaged in new projects as well as finishing old ones off.
ONE is top of my list and Luke has decided to make a big push on his own material in 2009. In his own words “ I’ve finally got the songs”. I believe he has and I will be assisting him with that in the back ground as and when required and I have to finish my novel The Instantanium.
The agenda for the EBB is very much a work in progress at this time but all will be resolved and all revealed here as we move on through this winter which seems to be trying to provide some thing of an Indian summer in spite of what has felt like random weather for ages. Actually the two weeks holiday I took in September were among the best of the summer. The sun is shining warmly now as I return to this writing after a few phone calls and consultations with Ad’ the builder.


The western counties call. Me and Mary can hide down there with Frenchy and Gumbo. Likely lads light fingered and steadfast and safe to run with. We’ll meet in Bristol for rum n fun. Frenchy’s great, great grandmother was the notorious ship wrecker Belle of Trevellyan. They hanged her high for her work. He come from a long line of smuggling aristocracy. He’s a good man if you are in with him and a dreadful foe if you are not. We took a few coaches together and the stuff of lone riders down Bodmin way on the moor. We broke Gumbo out of Northampton jail just before Christmas one year with snow on the ground. The King’s men tracked us for two days but we lost them in a storm. Don’t get paid enough to follow the likes of us for long and they none too keen to catch up with us neither. We was took an held over a night in Symonds Yat on our way to Cardiff City but was let go for lack of witnesses to an alleged robbery on the road. Truth is Frenchy burned down the witnesses cottage and killed their chickens.

Mary slips her hand in mine and I feel good. Like a proper pair we stay close and snug together holding on to each other. Both us kissing and a cuddling until the lust come on her and she be like a wild ‘un. God bless the lasses says I and all the loveliness about ‘em. It’s Time to climb the wooden hill to heaven on earth.

copyright e d g a r b r o u g h t o n 2008