Jane Goodall - obituary

 Very sorry to learn of the death of Dame Jane Goodall. She was a truly remarkable, practical zoologist who did so much to make the human race realise we are not the only sentient beings on the planet. 

I first learned about her work with the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Kenya when I read her her book 'In the Shadow of Man' in the early 70's. Even my father, a doctor, animal lover and natural history enthusiast, who taught me a lot about the natural world, especially birds, didn't really see non-human animals as intelligent, thinking beings. Jane empathised with the chimps and showed the intelligence and personalities of individuals. She convinced me of the arrogance of human attitudes.

Jane Goodall still campaigning on environmental issues 

shortly before her death on 2 October 2025.

After twenty years she widened her field of concern and became involved in worldwide environmental campaigning. She was a hugely important ambassador for wildlife and the environment and the world will be a poorer place without her. 

Peter Green, RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vyPnIYbMPs&fbclid=IwAR2Cg4o-RGXEyba2558kRKbmg2P0BGN9IOBTKWq6lcYjCVJvvGB8cMpn6ts

Peter Green, the best guitarist and bluesman I ever saw live, has died age 73.  I have seen quite a few guitarists, the good and the great; John Lee Hooker, Jeff Beck, Alvin Lee, Paul Kossoff, Mick Abrahams, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Tony McPhee, Jimmy Page, Roy Wood and more.  Greeny I saw many times, onstage his performing was measured, sensitive and mesmerising.

Peter Green formed Fleetwood Mac in 1967 with Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. This was the original Fleetwood Mac and within a year had a line up of three talented guitarists: Jeremy Spencer whose forte was rock ‘n’ roll and slide guitar, Danny Kirwan, a younger latecomer whose lighter touch marked the bands gradual progress away from pure blues and Peter Green, whose pure, unadorned lead guitar was at times astounding and his sensitive vocals and song-writing made the band great. He wasn’t bad on the harmonica either.

Peter Alan Greenbaum was born in in 1946 in Stepney, in a council flat just off the Mile End Road.  He was the youngest of four, with two older brothers and a sister.  In 1948 his father, Joe, changed the whole family’s name to Green, in an attempt to put behind them the flagrant racist and anti-Semitic abuse the family received, it didn’t really help.  Peter picked up the guitar age 10 and the family moved from Stepney to Putney, which did help, a bit.  He was in his first band by 14, with school friends and left school at 15.  He became semi-professional with a dance band, playing bass, while working as a trainee butcher.

A couple of bands later Peter Green joined R ‘n B group the Muskrats  and was very much into serious blues. After tuning pro he joined the Looners, an instrumental band who had residences at London clubs became Shotgun Express, with Mick Fleetwood as drummer.  His big break, with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, nearly didn’t happen.  Eric Clapton had been the star of the John Mayall setup and after he left, Mayall had a rapid series of guitarists who wouldn’t do.  Peter received an offer from Eric Burden to join the New Animals at the same time as Mayall offered him the Bluesbreakers.  John Mayall was the Godfather of the British blues scene in the 1960’s, nurturing and promoting a number of musicians and he encouraged Peter to write, compose and sing as well as to play guitar.  Mick Fleetwood and John McVie also joined soon after. Greeny probably made the right choice.

I saw Peter Green, at Tofts Club in Folkestone, with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, before I even knew who he was, just that he was damn good. Then I saw, and more importantly I heard him several times with Fleetwood Mac, where he was phenomenal, played the blues with a sensitivity like no one else.  He was the star even though he never actually wanted to be bandleader or be a star, he just wanted to be in a good band.  He was in a great band,  but he had other issues. He left Fleetwood Mac in 1970.
Was he, as is usually quoted, another victim of the 1960’s love affair with LSD?  Maybe, he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.  He gave away most of his royalties and though he carried on playing with other artists for much of the seventies, serious mental health problems left him increasingly  Out of Reach for many years.

Lastly I saw him on the ninth of June, 2000 at Sheffield City Hall, in Splinter Group, which was a little too much like a Peter Green Tribute act for comfort, although Greeny, who had not aged well, really seemed to be enjoying himself.  Glad I saw that.

RIP Man of the World.

Danny Kirwan - Desert Island Discs

Fleetwood Mac's fantastic heavy rock number, 'Oh Well' was my previous desert Island choice a few days ago. Danny Kirwan, one of three guitarists in the band at the time the recording was made, has just died at the age of 68.

It's very sad, he was a talented musician and songwriter who never quite made his mark after he left the band in 1972. He was just 18 when he joined Fleetwood Mac, after his own band, Boilerhouse, had supported the Mac at several venues in London. Drummer Mick Fleetwood invited him to join the Mac, he then became Peter Green's protégé for a few gigs before as a fully fledged band member his passion for blues music combined with his creativity, he contributed his own compositions to their repertoire and their next five albums.

I saw him play with Fleetwood Mac twice, at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone, in 1968/9 when the band were at their very best. I have his autograph.

Farewell Danny Kirwan, blues boy.

Iain (M) Banks RIP

One of my favourite authors has died. He told us he was ill, but his death wasn’t expected quite so soon, he was only 59. He is known for both his hugely imaginative and detailed science fiction and his equally imaginative ‘literary’ fiction. His writing is often boldly experimental, which is I suppose what gives him the ‘literary’ slot, but his books are a far better read than much which gets that dreary soubriquet thrust upon it.

When I saw Iain, the only time I did, he seemed well and was on good form. This was about fifteen months ago and, slightly appropriately considering his black humour and liking for the creepy, in a crypt in Huddersfield. The event was to promote his latest title, Stonemouth. It was a fairly standard ‘author evening, ’ although better than some I’ve been to.  Iain came across as a nice guy, with a love of the absurd and a political commitment to left of centre. He talked entertainingly for forty minutes or so and I wish I could remember what he said. Afterwards he took questions. I asked about female protagonists in his books and we agreed broadly that the musician in Canal Dreams was less rounded as a female character than the juvenile lead in Whit. I duly bought his latest book, he duly signed it and it is on my bookcase along with with most of his other books.

I have a copy of all his ‘literary’ books, many in the beautiful black and white paperback covers they were issued in by Abacus. I have some, though not all of his science fiction. This isn’t because I don’t like sci-fi. I love it and am annoyed that it is still regarded as inferior to other genres. Good novel writing uses the imagination and science fiction uses more imagination than most. Iain M. Banks’ imagination is astonishing not only in its scope but its depth. Most writers wouldn’t let themselves do what he does, even if they knew how! Oh yes, and for those who sniff at the genre, the quality of his writing is second to none.

 

I’m sure I remember that Iain said somewhere (not in the crypt in Huddersfield), that his first claim to fame was, while studying at the University of Stirling, he spent a summer vacation wearing chainmail and rushing around in the mud beside a loch with a number of other lunatics. The explanation was, the filming of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As holiday jobs go, that isn’t bad!

I found his very first book, The Wasp Factory, in my local public library in Stony Stratford a year or two after it came out. I took it home because the sleeve notes were intriguing. I read it with increasing astonishment that such an inventive, dark, wicked and un-literary book could get published. I’d been working my way through ‘proper’ fiction by such luminaries as Iris Murdoch, Philip Roth and that other Ian, Mr McEwan, because I felt I should. Mostly they left me not really wanting very much more.

Only Ian McEwan’s first novel, The Cement Garden, had really clicked. The similarities between that and the Wasp Factory are not huge, but they are there in the basic premise; children, isolated and unsupervised, making the best of things. Both are extraordinary books, ultimately I prefer ‘The Wasp Factory,’ for its black humour and bizarre essence.

I will miss the annual appearance of another of Iain’s books. His last, The Quarry, comes out on the 20th June - so next week - and for those like me who can't even wait that long , there's a tiny extract on the Guardian website - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/11/the-quarry-extract-iain-banks?INTCMP=SRCH .  I’ll buy one asap. I’m just sad that nobody will be able to meet him in a crypt, or anywhere else, and get a signed copy.

http://www.iain-banks.net/