I am back in the UK after many years of travelling like a troubadour across Europe in my long black limousine.
Right now we live on top of a hill in a rented farmhouse in a place called Middleton Scriven. It’s on the borders of Shropshire and Worcestershire, two counties where sheep and rock stars choose to live cheek by jowl.
It is a woolly place out here, a thousand miles from home and in the middle of nowhere. The nearest pub is five miles away – and the diesel station at least 10.
But this is Merry ol’ England, home from home, fields and hedges, hay ricks and the smell of tractors. You’d walk for country miles to get back to a city where everybody is bothered about disease and global warming.
Yes, up here the green and septic land of our conscientious countrymen seems so far away. And long ago.
Funnily enough, if you stop a flubbery farmer here, his purple face may well light up at the mention of Bob Dylan’s name. “He’s that girly type who plinked and plonked on his guitar while moanin’ about war and shootin’ and huntin’ isn’t he? Arr, I was very sad when he fell of his motorbike and died.”
Of course Dylan’s not dead you silly sheep … err, err … shearer. It’s doubtful he ever fell of his bike either.
Anyway the point is that at least the country folk – after all that constitutes a lot of his music – remember him. Down in the valley where cities like Wolverhampton, Telford and Shrewsbury pollute the atmosphere with their factories, car parks, scrapyards, chimneys, woodburners, vapes and bad breath, its a different thing.
Bob Dylan in the cities here means: “Oh! That’s the company that makes that fabulous brandy in Martinique isn’t it dear.”
No!
Dylan is Dylan – possibly one of the most famous men in the world – the brandy is made by the Dillon dynasty. And there’s not one of them singing for their supper at 80.
Country music, country ways, they go together in this part of the UK, rock’n’roll, rock cakes and a cheese bap, rhythm and blues – what happens when you forget about the rhythm and end up with a splodge of child – gospel and spiritual – the truth about drinking – the Great American Song Book, Gatsby on a ukulele.
And there is something coming round the bend in a little town by the River Welland not too far from Spalding, on the metaphorical doorstep of Peterborough and near to the fantastic Fens.
It’s very nice in Market Deeping indeed. It has a couple of pubs, a couple of fish and chip shops and a BMX track where you can be sick when you’ve had over the odds of Hopshackle bitter.
And, at least at the Market Deeping Model Railway Club, there a lot of Bob Dylan fans around. Or should that be fens?
Club members had been unable to meet for two years. Then, as the government told us all that Covid was just something to be sniffed at, they had a day out to celebrate the opening soon of their new clubhouse premises in Essendine.
And they chose to go to the Castle Fine Art gallery in Stamford High Street to ‘meet’ Bob Dylan and his Train Tracks work and his Retrospectrum series.
Bob wasn’t there of course – like the rest of us he probably couldn’t afford the UK train fare.
Model railways club boss Peter Davies said: “The paintings are truly atmospheric and trace the history of both his life and recording career. It is definitely a ‘must’ to visit!”
Mark Henson of Stamford’s main Ford dealership TC Harrison, went with them too. He sponsors the club’s annual exhibition.
George Belham, an art consultant for Castle Fine Art, added: “We are delighted to be exhibiting Bob Dylan’s work in Stamford.
“He’s very famous for his musicianship as a lyricist and we are the lyricists of his artwork.”
The gallery has six limited edition prints from Retrospectrum, signed by Bob Dylan, which are available as a portfolio, framed or as individual picture. Prices start at £2,950.
Market Deeping Model Railway Club is no stranger to celebrity: Sir Rod Stewart was said to be donating £10,000 to them after their exhibition was destroyed by vandals.
For Market Deeping Model Railway Club and its exhibition visit www.mdmrc.org
#bobdylan #modelrailways #rodstewart #marketdeeping
Ken Matchett
A fun read with one more cup of morning coffee.