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Rupert's
Relics
Having spent a fruitful and pleasant afternoon chatting
to Rupert recently, I can confirm that there’s likely to be some
form of semi regular input into our website by him.
This will probably be in the form of an almost quarterly artefact, photograph,
piece of artwork, instrument or prop (it will probably vary considerably)
displayed on the site with a related anecdote or story, and anyone viewing
it will have the opportunity to add their thoughts or a tale of when and
where they might have seen it.
We hope to set about this in the next week.
Having asked Rupert in what way he felt our website was lacking an element
of Vivian’s personality, he informed me that...
‘He’s cheeky. Not a rogue, but almost, not a blaguard, but
sort of. How do you portray cheekiness? When an animal dies the glint
goes, you know it’s dead, it’s the same with a person. But
some glint’s are far more powerful as such.
Certain people have got that look where you know they’re going to
make you laugh or they’re going to ask you something uncomfortable,
but you know they’re going to get away with it, and you know you’re
going to give them the answer even though you normally wouldn’t.
It would be nice to get his cheekiness like that across somehow.
Looking at your site and gingergeezer.net together you see that the latter
is very visually dark, I don't know why but yours is at least clearer.
There are virtually no relaxed photos of the guy. I never took pictures
of my Pa, it wasn’t something we did, so for me it was natural not
to, we didn’t take photographs of each other so there aren’t
really any pictures of him in a relaxed condition other than on stage
or whatever.
I would happily look to see if I can find anything that shows him in a
happy time as a happy chappie, that’s what it was about, he’d
make you laugh and that was important.
That would be something nice to put in there.’
‘It needs colour because my father was very visual, it hasn’t
got enough actual colours in it.
When you come to look at his artwork it’s very powerfully colourful,
maybe you can use some artwork of some description from him to make the
site to make it, again, different.
And also to make it stand out more with his cheekiness, that would be
good.’
Upon asking Rupert what his thoughts on Rawlinson End were, he recounted
his enjoyment of it.
‘Firstly, for me, Florrie’s Waltz is possibly the most beautiful
piece of music he’s written, I love the flow of it, it’s like
a babbling stream. It’s lovely, it washes over you and I really
like that.
It’s great fun, the whole idea of it is just lovely. You don’t
need the visuals to read it, you can be there and enjoy it.
I’m really proud of that piece of work, as a complete item it really
is superb.
I hope channel 4 continue to show it now and again, it’s a real
gem of a film, you can watch it from any angle and get joy out of it.’
Also, Rupert told of the immense trials and tribulations involved in trying
to get the final Warner Brothers album Vivian was working on when he passed
away released, it does exist, but not in Warner’s vaults as Vivian’s
biography says, basically after ten years and a lot of stress W.B. said
it wasn’t good enough or up to scratch.
We should have more conversation and anecdotes from Rupert ready just
after Xmas day 2007.
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