LAUGH IT OFF, GIRL

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

Alexander Pope: An Essay on Man

I walk over to the French windows. The unkempt lawn slopes down sharply, allowing a beautiful, unbroken view over the Teme Valley to where an early autumn mist snakes through the golden orchards and naked hop poles of Middle England. A view to be savoured and shared. Indeed, the rancid smell of cigarette smoke reminds me that I am not alone, so I turn back into the room to speak to my companion, the master of the house, but decide better of it.

He sits, legs stretched outwards, feet resting on a grey pouffe. He sighs, long and deep, almost ending with a curse, then inhales again, his hand shaking noticeably as it reaches his mouth. He is bored with me, my small talk and, much more important, he is bored with life.

It is over 25 years since this man was hailed by the music press as heir apparent to Paul McCartney, the Elgar of pop music, the saviour of intelligent, modern song; and, at first glance you would be forgiven for thinking that time, the magician, had been fairly kind to singer-songwriter Clifford T. Ward. The long, golden hair, though inevitably greying, still hangs curtain-like around the full-lipped mouth, and the once sculpted cheek bones have, like the rest of his body, filled out with the onset of middle age. Only the large, black sun-glasses—a permanent fixture—suggest anything is unnaturally wrong, and behind them, in the mirrors of the soul, lies confirmation of an awful truth. His blurred vision, his slurred, stumbling speech, his total lack of co-ordination and muscular control, are completely at odds with his ever fertile mind. He is trapped in a frame that cannot function; a victim not of accident, a feeble heart, or even stimulant abuse, but of that most cruel of illnesses, multiple sclerosis.

However, as death redeemed Elvis—oh, and many less deserving souls who fell before their time—there are those who suggest that the onset of MS has actually redeemed Clifford T. Ward, and were it not for the recent ‘home-truth’ press articles, the CD re-releases, the hastily conceived out-take albums, this man would have disappeared, like many other shooting stars, into the back catalogues and ‘one-hit wonder’ racks of musical history. To those who know only the one song, and the one all too frequently used picture, who remember the ‘family-way’ press cuttings, the eloquent, courteous interviews, he was Britain’s, well, Barry Manilow…? Safe, wholesome, benign, many miles from the cutting edge of pop music.

Yet a surprisingly diverse collection of established performers quote him as their champion of sublime originality and unwavering self-belief. One of the most frequently requested artistes on BBC Radio 2, his recent compilation, Gaye And Other Stories, went gold in Ireland; a thriving appreciation society, The Friends of CTW, meets annually and Waves, an articulate, quarterly fanzine, has subscribers world-wide, from Argentina to Australia; his records eagerly sought out by fans and collectors alike.

So why? Is this pity? A morbid fascination in a once healthy hero? A rejoicing in sudden accessibility? Or is it, indeed, a long overdue recognition of a unique and once conspicuous talent, cut down in its prime?

Clifford T. Ward has always been a split vote, to anyone who remembers his comet-like success in the glum-rock 1970s. The national music critic who saw Clifford’s pure, intelligent simplicity cutting through all the fabricated nonsense that called itself pop music; the local journalist, bombarded with the candy-floss and bubblegum, who ecognized something astonishingly different; or that most endangered of species, the incurable romantic—all seem content to remain strangely at odds with the rest of the world.

Hopefully, in this book, I will go some way to redress the balance, and lift the man to his true position in the scheme of things. Whilst doing so however, I am acutely aware that disbelief—and even offence—may result from the many disclosures made and questions answered along the way. Yet whatever judgements are forthcoming, and no matter how many illusions become tarnished, nothing can possibly diminish the sheer beauty of his work. Anyhow, we are all no more than human.

Suppose he had not met Pat, his wife of 35 years. Would he have risen to earlier —and greater—heights? His ‘overnight’ success came courtesy of an unplanned teenage marriage and subsequent years of musical frustration, yet far from holding him back, I would submit that her strength held him together. Without her, he would have drifted, succumbed; probably have gone the way so many young, naïve and talented artistes went. Oh, he would have written ‘Sympathy’, ‘Carrie’, ‘Coathanger’, but he couldn’t possibly have written ‘Home Thoughts From Abroad’, ‘A Day To Myself’, or—ironically—‘The Best Is Yet To Come’, without her, that’s for sure.

Because one thing is certain. On my many visits to their home, and, after speaking to the many people who have known and worked with him over the years, it has become painfully apparent to me that coping with life and life’s problems has never been Clifford’s concern. He needed—expected—complete freedom from such matters, despite his inspiration depending absolutely on the family environment: wife, home, children, constancy. And with the tragic onset of MS, the burden again fell upon Pat, the girl-bride, the mother of his four children, the woman who, regardless of all that life has thrown at her, still ‘oozes sex appeal’. She continues to manage his life; dressing, feeding and nursing her stricken husband, juggling their increasingly precarious financial situation with that impenetrable sang-froid; seemingly forever able—outwardly at least—to laugh it off

Therefore, this story must also belong to her, and it all begins many years but not so many miles away, in what was once a quiet, pretty backwater town bordering the long, winding river the conquering Romans called ‘Sabrina’.

Here, in what is now a chaos of hideously colour-uncoordinated amusement arcades, junk food franchises and fun pubs; on February 10th, 1944, as if voicing disapproval at the simultaneous birth of PAYE income tax, Clifford Thomas, the fifth child of Frank and Kathleen Ward, came roaring into a quiet corner of a war-torn world.

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