Market Cross, Chichester
This past week I was filming John Agard in performance with Keith Waithe a flutist/composer both from Guyana and living in England.
They gave an exceptional performance in the black box theatre space at Havant Arts Centre. Keith has a vast collection of flutes from all over the world and he played on some of them that evening. I have never seen anyone do with flutes what he does. Beautiful innovative music through breath and touch.
John was in top form and the evening was a treat for all who had come out from Portsmouth, Chichester and the south coast.
The filming went very well also and a lot of that footage will be available on DVD with John Agard's upcoming selected book next year with Bloodaxe Books.
While visiting Havant I had a chance to return after almost 40 years to some of my childhood haunts.
I lived near Chichester for a while and went to school there. It is a very pleasant town and the centre is still unspoilt! From the Market Cross streets go North, South, East and West which makes it easy to get to know the place. The cathedral is right there in the centre on West St and can be seen from miles around since the country is very flat there.
A woman was singing opera arias at the Market Cross in a wonderful acoustic setting.
I also visited Birdham and Runcton where I had stayed and spent many a day going for walks in the harbour and bicycling.
Although I had not visited for 40 years or so it was not a sentimental visit strangely enough. I felt quite connected to the young girl I was then before as they say "the shit hit the fan"!
