Thank You My Friend..

Dave, I know, for sure, we will meet later further on down that road and as Lennie put it so poignantly.."if you stretch out your hand you will reach mine.."

We will drink and dine For Free, whilst we argue about Music and Life. You will go on about boats, blues and broadcasting and I will bore you with boogie-woogie, blues and literary bollox about 'books wat I red'. We will gently spar over who had the most exciting anecdotes. I will let you win by a whisker - but I will walk away with the Longest Sentences Trophy - and of course - we will, indeed, put the band back together.
What fun we will have.

For many years the best of friends, we met but seldom, yet the internet world - particularly over the last desperately tough six months - regularly groaned under the weight of our frequent tedious voice mails. Ah, Messenger - that place where we gossipped for years like two old wet-elbowed Blues geezers in their favourite seats at the bar and traded a thousand of our Quite Brilliant Ideas. I am so glad I got to sneak into your radio show now and again and my words could still make you laugh out loud in those hard, hard times, right to the end – exactly as they were meant to.

Nobody said life would be fair, but I was supposed to head off before you, Dave – so fuck whoever decided that order of events. They got that so badly wrong. I will have a word....indeed, many words...

Life without your twinkling radio presence in our ears will be strangely quiet. What kind of world will we have without your rapid-fire, gun-slinging presentation, the knowledge, the wit, the lending of discoveries, the encouragement of new talent and the reminders of what we had forgotten? All broadcast from that brilliant bobbing boat.
Radio World will be so awfully diminished.

For me, however, and I know for a lot of your other close friends too, that is but a part of our loss. Having you as a friend, was quite something....ebullient and witty, knowledgeable, unashamed to criticise or praise, candid and loyal to a fault, lunch by the river or a distant sea - and such, such good company.

I guess I was but a small moment in your life and I regard myself as very lucky for that. Your life was World Wide and your friends could be found in every corner of that world, rocking a jolly table and sampling a fine wine. For some, I don't doubt for a moment that you were the DJ who, as they say in the song, 'saved their life' in the middle of a dark night. For others, you were one of that mighty BFBS Broadcasting Clan that bestrode the world from Belize to Hong Kong, from Cyprus to The Falklands, bringing light and fun to those millions far from home who really needed it. For yet others, years ago, the daft moustached, tight-trousered 'Dave the Rave' would bring thumping joy to their Saturday night and open their eyes to Dangerous Music. That's some legacy, my friend.

I am so glad we bumped into each other on our rickety rackety accidental journeys.

As you so frequently said at the end of your show “Thank you for lending me an hour of your time”.  Now, let me offer you my last sentence, Dave – you will be amazed at how impressively short it is!

You Made A Difference, my friend.

Thank you x

The Blues Man in The Hat

This Thank You comes with a huge hug for the amazing Suellen x
I am certain that Dave would be much amused by the idea that the ancient Hat wrote an entire blog just about 'a nice bloke having fun'.....