Tribute to Ols
My brother was born the day after my 2nd birthday party – my mother thought it was the cucumber sandwiches – he was early, an indication of his enthusiasm to come, for all things untested.
We went to Shipbourne Primary School and then he moved on to Hilden Grange and Judd in Tonbridge. He had kept some of his school reports and a couple of the comments are worth repeating here – ‘Oliver is inclined to get over excited at inappropriate times’ and ‘his reluctance to conform no doubt stems from an independence of mind which should be an asset to him in his creative work’ – how prophetic!
His recording engineering career started with Tony Maloney’s Backtrack recording studio where he started as tea boy. My mother got him the gig by ringing Tony up and asking if Ollie could come along just to learn and make tea. He was honest and trustworthy she said and very loyal too and desperate to get into the recording studio world. – well done mum!
As well as being a musician he was a great writer and painter and I remember watching a play (what) he wrote when he was 13. It was performed on the grass outside the house complete with stage, props, costumes and curtain – he was already showing his budding attention to detail. We have put out as many of his writings as we can find for you all to look through later and we have used some in this service. Some of it is very poignant; some of it is very funny and be warned some of it is extremely funny and rude.
We went through a slightly fraught period in our early teens of not really liking each other at all and it took me several years to stop the habit of always looking up before going through doors to see if Ollie had balanced another book across the door frame poised to land on my head. It did once also include a bucket of water. Apparently he actively kept his male school friends well away from me.
Ollie was a great uncle and had terrific fun with his nephews and niece. He never forgot a birthday or Christmas although some of his presents left a little to be desired and there was always a twinkle in the presentation – birthday presents would be wrapped in Christmas paper and the card would say – congratulations on your engagement. Christmas cards would say happy birthday or happy easter. We have a family tradition at Christmas that no presents can be unwrapped until we have performed 3 carols. We would have a combination of me on piano, kids on violin, clarinet, recorder, saxophone or flute, my father singing and ollie on guitar doing a heavy rock accompaniment to ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ in the style of Status Quo.
The craziest present he ever gave me was a new plastic tomato ketchup and mustard cruet set, the sort of thing you would find at a roadside café and had to refill yourself. He would go into charity shops wooed by some item on display in the window and buy it to put in his present draw. ‘I couldn’t resist it’ he would say and it would be given with great affection to the family member or friend with the next birthday. In later years his presents had become less obscure but no less funny. His godson is wearing his Christmas present today that his uncle gave him 3 months ago.
Although we lived in the same house as him and went to various gigs I certainly was not aware of all his many musical projects. His eldest nephew however was far more on the case and was burning Ollie’s’ songs onto his ipod years ago because of a genuine liking for Ollie’s sounds- what a cool dude to have as a uncle.
Ollie had started to mellowed a lot in the last 2 years and especially in the last 6 months. Everyone who had seen him recently has commented on his happiness. We had a wonderful Christmas and I remember giggling with him all day. The next family get together was my father’s 70 birthday a month ago. And two weeks ago his car broke down in Sainsbury’s car park and I went and picked him up – and laughed all the way home because of the latest colour he had put on his hair. It was something we both did – cover up our grey hair but he was relatively novice in this department and was still very much at an experimental level. His dress sense had also started to improve although he had kept his own unconventional style. To my wedding he wore my pony club tie and a knitted tank top. Some of you may recognise the jester‘s hat which he wore for performances and at family gatherings.
Last week his niece had to write a piece of Spanish homework on a family member and of course she chose Ollie. In the midst of all our grief she went around the house asking for each person to give her a word to describe him and this is the list – moral, hothead, wacky, original, musical, playful, zany, brainy, groovy, idealist and cat lover. We haven’t had the piece of homework back yet so I cant tell you the mark but the internet Spanish translator had a bit of difficulty with some of those.
We have been using ollisms over the last couple of weeks and some are beginning to stick. White wine is now Ollie juice, if someone does something silly someone will say ‘oi misses’ or ‘hey sunshine’. We are going to put a bench where his favourite suntrap is in front of the house with a tree that a friend has given us. Ollie was quite a sun worshiper and would fully approve of this idea – a place to sit in the sun, listen to the birds and have a glass of Ollie juice.
