Janie and I had visited the day before and suspected that mum was fading.
Angela Broad visited on the Monday, allowing me to try and get back into work. She called me late afternoon to let me know that mum looked very weak indeed – significant change even in the last 24 hours.
So it didn’t come as a surprise to me (although these things are always a shock) when the hospital called about 10:00 pm and broke the news to me that mum had died.
After sorting out the formalities over the next couple of days, I made the following posting on Facebook:
I also felt the hospital treated the whole matter with great care, compassion and professionalism, so I also (a few days later) published the following open letter of thanks to the hospital staff:
Those two Facebook postings pretty much sum up my thoughts at the time, really.
Late in life, mum formed an unlikely friendship with the young, extremely talented pianist, Karim Said. I can’t remember exactly how it came about.
I know I recorded some BBC4 programmes about young musicians, which mum loved and watched over and over. Karim was one of those featured artists.
I think mum then watched those programmes with Angela Broad and I’m pretty sure Angela knew Karim, perhaps because he was one of the Tabors’ sponsored artistes…so the rest is history…
…anyway, mum and Angela had been to see and had met Karim before this gig. Mum and Karim had also had some exchange of correspondence, I seem to recall.
A very young Karim, I think from mum’s earlier outing with Angela to see him
Mum the groupie. I don’t suppose artistes at Karim’s stage have that many groupies either.
When this concert came up, it was most fortuitously located and timed for me; lunchtime at St John’s Smith Square. As a friend of the venue, I get a fist-full of free passes for those lunchtime concerts. I was also able to organise my work around a visit to Church House that morning, which was maximally convenient.
Here’s the order of play:
Charlotte Bonneton And Karim Said at St John’s Smith Square. The violinist and pianist perform Beethoven’s Sonata For Violin And Piano No 3, Boulez’s 12 Notations For Solo Piano and Faure’s Violin Sonata No 1 In A.
My taste in music did not/does not always coincide with mum’s and Angela’s, but on this occasion we were as one. We all enjoyed the Beethoven and the Fauré; we none of us liked the Boulez, which seemed in any case to make poor Karim’s fingers bleed.
“I’m going to tell him if no-one else will…” said Angela afterwards, in the matter of the commercial sense (or lack thereof) in Karim pursuing the work of composers like Boulez.
No matter.
Mum had a cracking good time. Karim was extremely pleasant and attentive after the concert. He even introduced us to his fellow musician, Charlotte, making mum ever so pleased by describing mum as his friend.
