The Useful Human Truth: Nine Lessons from Joni Mitchell

Joel Bernstein www.joelbernstein.com

‘In order to get the right spirit into the music, there’s got to be more than a working relationship. There has to be a sense of passion. There has to be something there for the heart, there has to be something there for the intellect, there has to be something for sensuality and sensation.’
Joni Mitchell

I recently watched a documentary about the singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell (2003’s ‘A Woman of Heart and Mind,’ directed by Susan Lacy).

Since the late 1960s Joni has woven a musical tapestry of tuneful melodies, complex chords and conversational lyrics. She has related her own personal narratives in elegant streams of consciousness. Her songs have been rooted in particular times and places, embellished with rich, imaginative imagery. In crystal clear tones, she has sung about love and independence, the spiritual and the sensual; about illusion and heartbreak, isolation and social justice. She has been honest, articulate and wise; fragile and strong; confessional and allusive. She has been ‘unfettered and alive.’

'I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all.’
'Both Sides, Now'

There’s a good deal that we can learn from Joni’s life and work about the craft of creativity.

1. Don’t End Up Kicking the Door Off the Hinges

Roberta Joan ’Joni’ Anderson was born in 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. Her mother was a teacher, her father an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  On leaving the service, her dad became a grocer and the family settled in Saskatoon.

‘When the war ended my father found us a little house by the highway with a picture window. And I think that set up a permanent longing in me to take off and go somewhere. Things coming and going past that window left an impression upon me. Here they come. Where are they going?’

At age 9 Joni contracted polio, was hospitalized for weeks and spent a lot of time recuperating alone. She struggled academically and her main interest was painting. When she finished high school, she enrolled at the Alberta College of Art.

Joni also taught herself guitar and played folk gigs at her college and local coffeehouses. She determined that music would be her career.

‘My grandmother was a frustrated poet musician and she kicked the door off of the hinges on the farm. I thought of my paternal grandmother who wept for the last time in her life at 14 behind some barn because she wanted a piano… And I thought: maybe I’m the one that got the gene that has to make it happen for these two women…I just thought: I’m gonna end up like my grandmother, kicking the door off the hinges…I better not.’

Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

2. Be Grateful for Your Troubles

‘Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best work came out of it… There is a possibility in that mire of an epiphany.’

In 1964 Joni discovered that she was pregnant. Unable to provide for her baby girl, she placed her for adoption. She met American singer Chuck Mitchell, toured the United States with him and soon the couple were married. Joni, 21 and penniless, thought the union would offer a way out of her problems.

‘I was emotionally weak with a lot of things pulling me in all sorts of unattractive directions. And this was a strong pull in a certain direction and somewhat of a solution. So we married each other for all the wrong reasons.’

The marriage didn’t work out. Chuck wasn’t prepared to raise another man’s child. He insisted on Joni performing with him as a duo and on controlling their finances. She felt betrayed. The couple divorced in 1967, and Joni moved to New York, a solo artist once more.

‘I feel every bit of trouble I’m grateful for. Bad fortune changed the course of my destiny. I became a musician.’

'I can't go back there anymore.
You know my keys won't fit the door.
You know my thoughts don't fit the man.
They never can.’
'I Had a King'

3. Develop Your Own ‘Chords of Enquiry’

Joni took to performing in the small clubs and bars of Greenwich Village and touring up and down the East Coast. She also dedicated herself to composing her own songs.

‘I started writing just to develop my own private world.’

Being self-taught, Joni had a distinctive way of playing the guitar. Polio had weakened her left hand, so she devised alternative open tunings to compensate. Some observers remarked on her ‘weird chords.’

‘How can there be weird chords? Chords are depictions of emotions…They feel like my feelings. I call them chords of enquiry. They have a question mark in them. There were so many unresolved things in me that these chords suited me.’

4. Personalise Your Work

While in New York, Joni was greatly impressed by the storytelling quality of Bob Dylan’s songs.

‘His influence was to personalise my work: I feel this - for you, from you, or because of you.’

But Joni also admired old-fashioned crooners, and wanted her songs to be tuneful too. 

‘It was my job to distil a hybrid that allowed for a certain amount of melodic movement and harmonic movement, but with a certain amount of plateau in order to make the longer statement – to be able to say more.’

5. Be Open to Encounter

In 1967 David Crosby of the Byrds saw Joni perform in a club in Florida. Thoroughly impressed, he introduced her to the LA music scene, and she was signed to the Reprise label. Crosby went on to produce her debut album, ‘Song to a Seagull,’ which was released in 1968.

‘How does a person write a song? A lot of it is being open to encounter and in a way in touch with the miraculous.’

Joni settled in Laurel Canyon in LA, embracing the camaraderie, collaboration and counterculture; the spirit of peace and love, art and poetry. With her long, straight, centre-parted, flaxen hair, her fresh face, high cheekbones and toothy smile; with her flowing dresses, knitted shawls and crocheted berets, she was the community’s spiritual leader.

Joni’s subsequent albums, ‘Clouds’ and ‘Ladies of the Canyon,’ earned her increasing critical and commercial success. The latter included the definitive Woodstock anthem, despite the fact that she missed out on the festival.

'We are stardust,
We are golden,
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.’
'Woodstock'

6. Engage in Crop Rotation

‘Any time I make a record, it’s followed by a painting period. It’s good crop rotation.’

Exhausted by relentless performing and the pressures of fame, depressed by her break-up with singer-songwriter Graham Nash, Joni decided to stop touring for a year and focus on writing and painting.

‘My individual psychological descent coincided ironically with my ascent in the public eye. They were putting me on a pedestal and I was wobbling.’

The songs she wrote at this time appeared on her essential album, ‘Blue.’ Released in 1971, it was an intensely personal work.

‘I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty: more and more revelation in my work in order to give it back to the people.’

'I remember that time you told me,
You said, "Love is touching souls."
Surely you touched mine,
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time.
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine.
You taste so bitter and so sweet.
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling.
And still I'd be on my feet.
I would still be on my feet.’
‘I Could Drink a Case of You'

People were shocked by ‘Blue’. Was Joni revealing too much of herself? Was she being too candid?

'At that period of my life, I had no personal defences. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes.’

Joni had already established that her creativity needed rest and recuperation. She retreated once again, this time to Canada, immersing herself in nature, solitude and reflection. This regeneration led to 1972’s ‘For the Roses.’

‘I isolated myself and made my attempt to get back to the garden.’

7. Stay in Control

Although Joni’s work exposed her vulnerability, she had to be strong willed to succeed and survive in the music business. Throughout her career she demonstrated a steely determination to impose her own independent vision. She wrote her own songs, produced most of her own albums, designed most of her own sleeves. In the early days she even booked her own tours.

‘Creatively she knew where she wanted it to go and what she wanted it to be. She had a vision. She wasn’t looking for input.’
Elliot Roberts, Manager

‘She would not be marketed and she would not let the marketing effect what she was going to do.’
Tom Manoff, Critic

8. Ignore the Lines

As the 1970s progressed, Joni demonstrated a thirst to evolve her sound.

‘The need to innovate, or to be fresh, or to be original is very strong in me.’

To support her 1974 ‘Court and Spark’ album, she embarked on her first tour with backing musicians, enlisting the jazz-fusion band LA Express.

‘I shouldn’t be stereotyped as a magic princess as I got earlier in my career – the sort of ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star’ kind of attitude. I didn’t like that feeling, and I think that the band will only show that there is another side to the music. I think it’s a good expansion.’

Increasingly Joni embraced the world of jazz. She enjoyed working with other artists, exploring the freedom of creation and breaking down traditional genre definitions. This resulted in 1974’s ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ and 1976’s ‘Hejira.’

‘I never really liked lines. Class lines, social structure lines. And I ignored them always.’

'There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes
And the lips you can get,
And still feel so alone,
And still feel related.’
‘Coyote'

9. Locate Your Useful Human Truth

Through the ‘80s and ‘90s Joni continued collaborating with other musicians and experimenting - with synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers. She had made allusions to her daughter in some of her past compositions (such as 1971’s ‘Little Green’). At last in 1997 they were reunited. 

In recent years Joni has suffered from ill health. We are blessed that she is still with us. She recently celebrated her 78th birthday (7 November).

‘It’s been a very subjective journey, but hopefully universal. That was always my optimism: that if I described my own changes through whatever the decade was throwing at us, that there were others like me. And it turns out that there were.’

We cannot learn to write songs like Joni Mitchell. She is unique, a genius. However we can learn a good deal about the process of creativity. In particular we can better understand the imperative of clarity and honesty, the quest to find ‘the useful human truth.’

'The writing has been an exercise – trying to work my way towards clarity. Get out the pen and face the beast yourself... What’s bothering you? Well, that’s not exactly it... OK, let’s go a little deeper. That’s not exactly it... It’s very hard peeling back the layers of your own onion…This is now useful, because we’ve hit upon a human truth.’

'Everything comes and goes,
Marked by lovers and styles of clothes.
Things that you held high
And told yourself were true
Lost or changing as the days come down to you.

Down to You

No. 345

‘The Man in the White Suit’: What Will We Do When We’ve Nothing to Make?

‘You’re not even born yet. What do you think happened to all the other things?
The razor blade that never gets blunt, the car that runs on water with just a pinch of something. No, they’ll never let your stuff on the market in a million years.’
Member of the Works Committee to Sidney Stratton, 'The Man In The White Suit' 

'The Man In The White Suit' is a fine 1951 Ealing comedy directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Whilst gently satirising the English class system, the film also asks some profound questions about the impact of technology and innovation on labour and capital.

‘Flotsam floating on the flood tide of profits. There's capitalism for you.’

'The Man In The White Suit' is set in the world of northern textile manufacture. Alec Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist who has been dismissed from jobs at several mills.

‘One day there’ll be someone with real vision… It’s small minds like yours that stand in the way of progress.’

Stratton finds a role in the laboratory of Birnley Mill. Here he constructs a complex apparatus of clamp stands and spiral condensers; a tangle of flasks and funnels, beakers and burettes, that periodically emits beeps and steam. Inspired by new fabrics like rayon and nylon, he sets about designing long chain molecules that form into an incredibly strong, dirt-resistant fibre.

‘He’s made a new kind of cloth. It never gets dirty and it lasts for ever!'

To demonstrate Stratton’s new discovery he has a suit made from the new material. Since it cannot absorb dye and contains radioactive elements, the garment is brilliant white and luminous. He may look a little eccentric in his new threads, but the fabric passes every test. He is congratulated by the owner of Birnley Mill who sees the potential for huge profits, and by the owner's daughter who imagines huge social good.

‘Don’t you understand what this means? Millions of people all over the world living lives of drudgery, fighting an endless losing battle against shabbiness and dirt. You’ve won that battle for them. You’ve set them free. The whole world’s going to bless you.’

However, the broader community of mill owners realises that this new cloth could ruin the textile industry.

‘Are you mad? It’ll knock the bottom out of everything right down to the primary producers. What about the sheep farmers, the cotton growers, the importers and the middle men? It’ll ruin all of them.’
‘Let’s stick to the point. What about us?’

The bosses endeavour to keep Stratton’s invention a secret, and to buy the formula in order to suppress it.

‘There’s only one thing that’ll pull the market together. That is denial backed with suppression. Total and permanent.’

At the same time the local trade unionists realise that the invention could deprive them of their jobs. They take matters into their own hands and lock Stratton up.

‘If this stuff never wears out, we’ll only have one lot to make.’

At length management and workers recognise that they are united in their desire to see Stratton’s innovation checked.

‘What are we arguing for? Nobody wants to market it. My dear friends, you must see that our bone of contention is non-existent. Capital and labour are hand-in-hand in this. Once again, as so often in the past, each needs the help of the other.’

The Man in the White Suit 1951

'The Man In The White Suit' explores themes that are very much relevant today: Should science pursue innovation that improves people’s lives regardless of the impact it may have on industry and employment? How do we deal with the concentration of capital that results from such disruptive change? How do we accommodate the workers who have lost their jobs? 

What will we do when we’ve nothing to make?

Some have argued that this industrial revolution, like every previous one, will ultimately create employment in new sectors and businesses. Some see opportunities in areas where emotional intelligence trumps artificial intelligence - in the caring and creative professions for instance. Some have put the case for global tax regimes and Universal Basic Income. 

Or will our most pressing problem, as Keynes predicted in 1931, be finding how to fill our newly abundant leisure time?

'For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won.’
John Meynard Keynes, 'Economic Possibilities'

We all want to be on the side of progress. None of us longs to be a Luddite. But it would help if we could agree on some credible answers to these fundamental questions.

When Stratton escapes capture, he is chased by an angry mob through the streets of the town. He encounters his elderly washerwoman.

‘Why can't you scientists leave things alone? What about my bit of washing when there's no washing to do?’

At this point we become aware that there is a fault in the invention: after a period of time the fabric deteriorates. When the bosses and workers finally corner an exhausted Stratton, they see that the white suit is beginning to fall apart. Delighted, they rip what remains of it to pieces. The misunderstood inventor is left standing in his underwear. 

'They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Till it's gone.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

Joni Mitchell, ‘Big Yellow Taxi'

No. 296

Joan Didion’s Dreams of Leaving: 'It is Easy to See the Beginnings of Things, and Harder to See the Ends’

Joan Didion in the 1970's

'I want you to know, as you read me, precisely who I am and where I am and what is on my mind. I want you to understand exactly what you are getting: you are getting a woman who for some time now has felt radically separated from most of the ideas that seem to interest people. You are getting a woman who somewhere along the line misplaced whatever slight faith she ever had in the social contract, in the meliorative principle, in the whole grand pattern of human endeavor.’
Joan Didion, 'In the Islands’

I recently watched an excellent documentary about Joan Didion, the essayist and novelist who has described the fragmented American experience from the end of the 1960s to the present day (‘Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold’).

Didion’s elegant hands sketch patterns in space as she speaks. She chooses her words carefully and isn’t afraid of silence. Her birdlike frame seems fragile, but her eyes are penetrating and alert. She is 83.

'People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character… Character- the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life- is the source from which self-respect springs.’
'On Self-Respect'

Each morning Didion would fetch a Coca-Cola from the fridge and settle down to read - with salted almonds, cigarettes and sunglasses. In silence. And then to work.

She wrote with a clear, concise style, making acute observations, revealing melancholy truths. She wrote about all manner of things: about the Californian counter-culture; about Joni Mitchell, the Doors, John Wayne and the Reagans; about power, corruption and lies; grief, self-respect and keeping a notebook; about the special relationship between a mother and her daughter.

‘We get along very well, veterans of a guerrilla war we never understood.’
‘On Going Home’

I was particularly taken with an essay first published in 1967, on falling in and out of love with New York, ‘Goodbye to All That’.

'It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was.'
‘Goodbye to All That’

These words rang true for me - of work, of relationships, of life in general. Beginnings tend to be clean, precise, definite. They can be thrilling, anxious, exciting. The first day at school, the first hello, the first kiss. A new town, new friends, a new job. The sudden realization that summer is here.

But ends seem to creep up on us. The weary nods, the knowing looks, the nagging frustrations. The doubt and dithering, blame and bickering. The fog of uncertainty. The sense of familiarity.

'Everything that was said to me I seemed to have heard before, and I could no longer listen.'
‘Goodbye to All That’

We should be mindful of this when we consider the world of work. We all dream of leaving. It’s just the human condition. But this isn’t necessarily a reason to go. Or at least not right now.

It’s much smarter to focus on beginnings: on reasons to start rather than reasons to stop; on why we should embark on a new venture, rather than why we should depart from our current one; on hope rather than depair.

Choose to join a business, not to leave one.

No. 165

Achievements, Assets, Advocacy: The AAA Approach to Career Progress

Ilya Repin, Volga Boatman

I didn’t really enjoy being Planning Department Head.

I’d call Planners’ Meetings to rally the troops and share experiences. A motley crew of the bashful, intense and sartorially challenged would file silently into the Indigo Room. They’d sit staring into their notes, unwilling to disclose their secrets, reluctant to make fools of themselves. I’d present my ‘Broad and Shallow Planning’ philosophy and they’d glare back at me as if I was a buffoon. I found it all a bit passive aggressive. And I longed for a few Account People to puncture the tension and jolly things along.

I walked out of those meetings speculating on the collective noun for Planners: a Confusion of Planners, an Awkwardness of Planners, a Circumspection?

And then there were those times when a member of my Department popped half an hour in the diary for a ‘catch-up.’ Blimey. I wonder what they could want? Please don’t let it be another resignation…Generally they were just unhappy; they didn’t feel valued; they wanted to know my long-term plan for their career. ‘Can I work on a more glamorous account? Can I have a pay rise? Can I have a new job title?’

The truth was I rarely had anything that could really be described as a long-term plan for any individual. I was mostly just trying to get people performing at their best within roles that served the commercial needs of the Agency. I was often too busy worrying about immediate job allocation to ponder enduring career development. And I rarely had spare accounts, budget, or titles to distribute. I felt a bit useless.

At length I realised that I could at least offer my colleagues some direction on how they could advance. I was conscious that the feedback you get from line managers is generally pretty nebulous. I wanted to give them something more consistent and tangible; something they could refer back to at appraisal time.

To my mind, if you are to progress as a Planner, you need to deliver on three fronts.

i) Achievements

However much we may applaud effort, enthusiasm, talent and good intentions, we’re none of us in the game of valiant defeat. If you want to get on in an Agency, you need to be associated with success - whether that be commercial, cultural or creative. You need to be part of a winning team: winning business; winning awards; winning plaudits and client approval; plotting a path to growth, demonstrating success.

Inevitably, you may say: ‘But I’m not able to achieve much in my current role. How can I win on a losing team?’ And that may be a fair complaint. But never assume that it’s easier to win on more celebrated accounts. Sometimes those accounts are crawling with senior management, such that it’s difficult for younger staff to make an impression. You may make a bigger impact where the expectations are smaller. Sometimes, on the tough pieces of business, just holding on is regarded as victory.
 

ii) Assets

Nowadays we talk a lot about ‘making, not managing.’ This principle should be applied to your career. Progressive Planners create assets that are tangible, visible, shareable. You should endeavour to create thought pieces, training programmes, cultural initiatives that have your name on them. Lead the Agency’s understanding of behavioural science; volunteer to write new business points of view; initiate an outreach programme for working class schools; organise a yoga class. Coin a phrase, write an article, invent a process, build a team. Make stuff.

Many years ago I put together a compendium of different approaches to strategic problems. I called it ‘Jim’s Planning Tool Kit.’ It was relatively well received, and my boss suggested that I invite my colleagues in the different BBH offices to contribute their own Planning tools, so as to make a more comprehensive ‘BBH Planning Tool Kit.’ I rather irritatingly demurred. I explained that, if I did that, the Toolkit wouldn’t be ‘Jim’s.’

iii) Advocacy

There’s a common assumption that job allocation is the unique preserve of the Department Head. But this is to misunderstand the subtleties of the process. The Planning Director may hold an individual in high esteem; may recommend him or her to a particular position. But if the relevant Business Director doesn’t share that view, or has some reservations, then it can be a very hard sell.

The truth is that job allocation is a marketplace. Every individual in the Department is a stock with value that rises or falls depending on the broader reputation that person has in the Agency. So you need your colleagues to believe in your worth, just as much as you do yourself. You need their advocacy - because individual success is very closely tied to team performance. Me needs we.

So this is my guide to AAA performance. If you can achieve things - commercially, culturally or creatively; if you can develop assets that are clearly associated with your name; if you can earn advocacy within the broader Agency community, then your career is bound to progress – with or without the help of your Department Head.

(You can read more career advice from a variety of authors in the 'How To Get On' series on the Guest Editor section of the APG website.)

Time for a festive break, I think.
Next post with be on Thursday 4 January.
Have a restful Christmas.
See you on the other side…

'It's coming on Christmas.
They're cutting down trees,
They're putting up reindeer,
And singing songs of joy and peace.
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on.'

 Joni Mitchell, River

No. 161

NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND 14

Garden and Woodland Special

Learning from Lilies: Strip Away the Context

I recently attended Painting the Modern Garden, an excellent exhibition examining the garden in art between the 1860s and 1920s. (It runs at the Royal Academy in London until 20 April.)

In the late nineteenth century there was a horticultural revolution. Bourgeois Europeans and middle class Americans had affluence and leisure time, and a yearning to preserve something natural against the march of industrialisation. Gardening became an obsession. They studied, imported, cultivated and collected. One contemporary writer proclaimed, ‘I love compost like one loves a woman.’

Artists seem to have been in the front ranks of this revolution. Gardens provided a subject to express their thoughts about nature, beauty, colour and light. Gardens could suggest interior as well as exterior truths. Pissaro, Renoir and Bonnard; Sargent, Van Gogh and Matisse. The great painters of the day repeatedly set their easels up outside, in the garden.

Painting the Modern Garden is an exhibition of intoxicating colour: radiant, ravishing yellows, pinks and purples; intense sensory explosions. One feels the heat and languor of a long Summer’s afternoon. White linen, lace and crinolines. Let’s play croquet on the lawn, take tea on the terrace, reel around the fountain. Sunflowers, dahlias, peonies and poppies. Come consider the chrysanthemums, tend the rhododendrons with me.

And then, of course, there was Monet and his wondrous water-lilies.

At Giverney Monet painted water-lilies over and over again. He studied them, scrutinized them, isolated them in their stillness, floating in the reflective water and changing light. He removed them from their context. They became abstract contemplations of colour, tone, atmosphere and silence.

One critic observed: ‘No more earth, no more sky, no limits now.’

I was struck by this comment and found myself thinking about the role of context in brand marketing and communication.

Context is central to good marketing. If we can understand a brand’s place in the world, we can promote its relevance more effectively. And the broader the cultural context considered, the deeper the understanding. But whilst context is critical to comprehension, effective communication requires compression, distillation and focus. So ultimately we must strip context away.

Too often we fail in this respect. We try to cram our messaging with visual, verbal and conceptual cues. Show the user, signal the occasion, reference the tradition, give the reason-to-believe, bash out the benefit. Communication becomes loud, cluttered, busy and bewildering. Context can be constricting.

Imagine if you could express your brand as an abstract truth, not an observed reality; an intense distillation, not an actual depiction. Imagine if you could strip away the context, narrow the frame, focus on the essence itself.

What would you say? What would we see? How would we feel?

Why We Go on Awaydays: A Reminder from Shakespeare

‘Good servant, tell this youth what ‘tis to love…
It is to be all made of sighs and tears.
It is to be all made of faith and service.
It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty and observance.
All humbleness, all patience and impatience.
All purity, all trial, all observance.’

As You Like It, V, ii

Last week I saw a marvellous production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the National Theatre in London (running until 29 February).

As the programme notes point out, As You Like It is a ‘green world’ comedy. Its characters escape the oppressive regime of the city for the Forest of Arden. They’re leaving behind convention, hierarchies and the pressure of the present. In the forest they can be more contemplative, philosophical, romantic. They can express themselves freely; they can imagine possibilities; they can explore new roles and identities. They undergo transformations, revelations.

In recent years we’ve perhaps become a little sceptical about Awaydays. The heart sinks at the awkwardness of seeing our senior staff in their weekend casuals. We shun the flip-charts and Post-Its, gummy bears and energiser drinks; the bumptious facilitator and the embarrassing ice-breakers. We balk at the expense in time and money. And so generally we end up just taking a couple of hours in a conference room over at the Media Agency. The future can wait…

But I’m inclined to say that genuine Awaydays justify the cost. Increasingly we have our heads down, dealing with today’s pressing challenges; we rarely look up to talk about tomorrow’s. Awaydays provide an opportunity to draw a line in the sand, to consider broader themes and more distant horizons, to dream new possibilities and imagine the unthought.

And Awaydays do indeed gain something from being away.

‘There’s no clock in the forest.’

Orlando, As You Like It

‘Let’s Play Crusaders’: The Price of Difference

Martin and I shared a bedroom overlooking the back gardens of Heath Park Road. In the summer you could see all the other kids in the street - the Richards, the Chergwins et al - playing Cowboys and Indians in their own little domains. 

‘Let’s play Crusaders,’ we determined. (The ‘70s were more innocent times, somewhat lacking a proper historical context…)

Mum made us white smocks from old sheets and we imprinted bold crimson crosses on their fronts. We completed the outfits with blue balaclava helmets and woollen tights borrowed from our younger sisters. 

And as we skipped around the garden, taking on Saladin and his scimitared hordes, it struck me that it’s not easy being different.

‘We are stardust.
We are golden.
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden’

Joni Mitchell/ Woodstock

No. 68