Elf and Safety

Copyright oggbashan November 2021

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

I was remembering our first ever large live performance, years ago.

"Rory! Give me a couple of minutes for a last check."

I had moved my headphones so I could hear Amy. I hurriedly replaced them and held up a thumb. The noise was incredible, over one thousand people shouting my name. Amy mouthed thanks and went on to the stage.

It was our first large scale gig, and it seemed the fans wanted me and the group to appear. We were scheduled to start at seven thirty. It was only seven twenty-five, but they had been baying for me for the last ten minutes.

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I come from a musical family. In the 1950s my father played in a Skiffle group that was reasonably famous, selling many records and once featuring in the UK's top ten for a week or so.

My mother had been a professional light opera and musical singer who retired when my older brother was on the way.

Neither were pre-eminent in their fields but competent, earning a reasonable living while they were performing.

At primary school five of us had been in the recorder group. At secondary school all five of us started playing guitar, except Amy who couldn't master it. But she persuaded the four others of us to form a folk group, playing a classical guitar and singing. For my eighteenth birthday, my grandfather, who had been an operatic bass, gave me my first electric guitar. It was much better than a basic one, almost identical to that being used by pop groups of the time. It took me a few months to be competent. At our local university, my school friends decided we should change from folk to 1960s pop originally covering Beatles and Stones hits for university events but then two of us, including me, helped by my wider family started composing our own music. We called ourselves 'Amy's Friends' because that's what we were and without Amy we would never have got together.

All five of us had gone to the local university, formerly a technical college, that still did practical courses. I was studying Physics, as was Hamish, Amy's twin brother. The other two in the group were studying Chemistry but Amy was taking Electrical Engineering with a practical course on being an electrician.

I was the lead singer and lead guitarist. We started including some of our own music as well as doing covers and built up a local reputation as a competent set of performers, eventually booked almost every Friday and Saturday nights and being paid for our attendance. We were earning enough to save our university grants and each of us was building up capital possibly towards our first homes after university.

We were performing in the only local night club and were heard by a record producer who signed us to make at least three double-sided 45s -- six of our own songs. We were excited but didn't expect much until we were told we would be featured on a radio programme.

Once the programme had aired, sales of our records took off and we were asked to make an appearance on a TV pop programme. We counted ourselves fortunate that it didn't happen until after we had taken our finals. We had free time. We needed it because we were suddenly in demand. All four of us had made vague plans for employment but we were earning so much money as a pop group that other jobs were irrelevant -- while our fame lasted, if it did. None of us expected that we would be more than a flash in the pan, famous today and forgotten tomorrow.

We needed help. My family were great. My grandfather was our manager. My parents and elder brother, together with me, helped us to write the new songs, and we had at least enough for two LPs which sold well.

We were touring initially in a worn-out van, soon replaced by a not-so-old, converted coach with beds, a kitchen and a small bathroom. But after each event we were so tired that driving could be difficult.

Amy came to the rescue. She was a qualified electrician, and she undertook the driving as well. So far, we hadn't gone far. Tonight, our first large scale event, was in the local university city, only eight miles from our hometown.

Amy was our first and then only full-time roadie. Until Amy we had set up by ourselves. It was much easier, and safer, if Amy did it and we were paying her the same as all the group members -- one fifth of the profits. She had added a course on audio production to her electrician's qualification. As well as the electrics, while we were playing, she manned the audio desk. As it was second-hand equipment from the 1960s, by modern standards it was very basic. I liked Amy and she seemed to like me more than the three others, except for Hamish. As her twin, they were very close.

Until Amy we had been a little slapdash with our electrics. Some of the wires had been patched with insulating tape and we put too many loads into multiple sockets. Amy was horrified and got us to spend a few pounds on new cables and load protected outlets. We knew that Amy would keep us safe.

We were in our third number and the bass guitarist had joined me in a duck walk. He caught his foot in the lead from his guitar and pulled the jack plug out. Amy rushed on stage and plugged him back in. She was cheered by the audience and took a mock-bow before leaving the stage.

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It was our first large event. Back in February we had been performing for a Valentine's Day event, long before we had any hit records. One of the father's turned up early to collect his two daughters because their boyfriends couldn't drive, not having passed their driving test yet. He heard our final three numbers and was impressed. He asked us if we would perform at his company's Christmas Party in December, for our then usual fee. We had agreed and that would be our next fixture.

The father was one of the owners of a software development company, and he was much older than his staff, so he wanted modern music for the party. Since the booking, we had become famous, and his staff and their escorts were considered very fortunate to have us for next to nothing.

Back to my memories of the first big event. We had been playing for about fifteen minutes and I was beginning to wonder why. The noise from the crowd also drowned our sound system. Amy had cranked it up as high as it would go without distortion, but we were losing. Why come to see us play if your own noise makes it impossible to hear what we are playing?

All four of us were duck walking when I felt a crunch under my foot. I continued playing until suddenly Amy had pulled the switch on the stage electrics and the music died. As she came on stage, I pulled my earphones off and asked why.

She couldn't really hear me but understood what I was saying. She pointed to an extension socket on the stage. It was smoking. That had been the crunch I had felt. I had broken the socket and it had caught fire. If Amy hadn't cut the power, we might have had a full-scale fire on stage. She unplugged it and replaced it with another extension. She walked up to me and shouted in my ear.

"Rory? While you are moving about, stay at the front of the stage. There are too many wires and cables you could damage."

I held up a thumb to tell her I had understood. I went to the other three and shouted Amy's instructions to them. I turned to the audience as the power came back on. I put a finger to my lips to ask for silence. It took about a minute before the audience stopped yelling.

"I'm sorry for the break," I said. "We had an electrical fault, now fixed. But now, we have a new, much quieter number to play. If you want to hear it, you will have to listen in silence. OK?"

I put down my electric guitar and picked up an acoustic one. The first few bars were not pianissimo, but much softer than all our previous numbers. It was my own composition unlike the other songs which had been a collaboration with the rest of the group. It was totally unlike anything we had ever performed before.

We had written it as acoustic because we could rehearse it when Amy wasn't around. She had gone to visit her elder sister who was having a baby.

The audience listed in complete silence as I played, with backing also on acoustic guitars from the others, "My Love Song to Amy".

The audience was listening in silence and seemed to like it. I looked off stage at Amy. Tears were running down her face. My words and song were working as I had meant them to. My song was a celebration of how much Amy had done for us, and for me, and that I hadn't really appreciated her as much as I should have, because she was too close.

As the last chords ended, the audience erupted. I hadn't been sure how they would take the song because it was so different. Apparently, it was a success.

As I had arranged earlier, Hamish went off and brought a reluctant Amy on stage. I held up my hand to quieten the audience and said into the microphone:

"This is Amy. Without her, this group wouldn't exist."

The audience went wild shouting her name.

I lowered the microphone on its stand, held up my hand for more quietness, and took Amy's hand before dropping to my knees.

"Amy? Will you marry me?" I asked. The microphone meant that everyone heard it.

Amy looked down at me. Some of the audience were yelling "Say Yes!" She looked across to her twin Hamish. He nodded.

Amy's other hand stroked my hair. She leant over and switched off the microphone before she said:

"Yes, Rory, I will marry you."

She pulled me up into a kiss. Although the audience hadn't heard her agreement, they could see that she had accepted my proposal. Amy's name was shouted over and over. It was five minutes before we could resume playing our normal repertoire.

At the end of the performance, we played most of our recent hits before I asked for quiet again.

"That's it. We're done... Unless? We will play one more number. Which do you want?"

There was some confused shouting but eventually one song was the choice of the majority. Most of the audience joined in the chant for 'Amy'.

As we put down our electric guitars and picked up the acoustic ones. Hamish went off stage and brought Amy to stand beside me. She wrapped her arms around my waist and stood with her head looking over my shoulder as we played.

I had been worried that 'My Love Song for Amy' would not go down well with our fans because it was so different. But it was the beginning of a change in the group's music. We even issued an LP titled Amy. Although we still played rock, ballads like 'My Love Song for Amy' became part of our output.

Ever after that first big event, it became a tradition that we should end before the break with Amy's song and end the whole evening with Amy standing beside me as we played it again. The group was seen as not four musicians, but five people with Amy an integral and essential part of the group. Our record covers and publicity always included Amy.

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Our single of "My Love Song for Amy" was our first number one hit. The Amy LP also topped the LP charts. Both still sell well on streaming services.

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A few weeks later we were performing for the office party of about one hundred people including about twenty children. For the first half we played our normal music, ending of course with Amy. When we broke the party sat down for eats. We changed. I was wearing a Father Christmas suit. Amy and the others were dressed as elves. I was sitting on a makeshift throne surrounded by Christmas lights.

Amy and the others brought the children forward one by one, and Amy produced a named present for each child.

After about ten children I shifted on my seat. There was a faint pop, and the Christmas lights went out. Amy asked the girl with her to wait, and she rushed forward, saying:

"Rory! Don't move!"

She unplugged the lights, asked me to stand up, and picked up the wire. My metal chair under the throne had cut the mains feed. If I had touched that metal, I would have had an electric shock.

Amy removed all the failed lights and said I could carry on. The girl she had asked to wait came forward.

"Are you really Father Christmas?" she asked.

"No, Charlene," I said. "I am one of his many helpers because Father Christmas has so much to do."

Charlene seemed to accept that. I was still shaken. That electric wire could have been very dangerous, but Amy had saved me again. Amy the Elf had kept me safe.

After the presents we stayed in costume and played Christmas carols, including some with our own arrangements, but most were normal so that everyone could sing along.

About two years later we had produced a Christmas record. We had also done one with our arrangement of Hymns, accompanied by a Cathedral choir. Both sold, but not in the numbers that our other LPs had done.

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Now back to the present. It was Amy's funeral. Some of the tracks form our Hymns record had been played but it was now the end, time for a last farewell to Amy. The four of us, now old men who hadn't played in public together for a decade, took up our acoustic instruments at the front of the congregation.

Tears were running down my face as we played "My Love Song for Amy" for probably the last time.