This is the time of year when people reflect on what has gone on over the past year, decade, century or more. It’s also a time to eagerly look forward to the future.

Flutewise cover from 1988

Today I’ve been thinking about this day in 1988 when I received the very, very first copy of Flutewise. It was quite a moment, especially as the copy that was delivered to me had a huge mistake – some red ink had not been printed on two pages! I was mortified. I phoned a good friend in publishing, Simon Hunt, who very calmly told me to stop worrying, it would be fine – and of course it was.

In those early days Flutewise was put together in what would be considered a bizarre way today, cut and paste. It’s the sort of method you’d expect to do in primary school, but it was quite the norm then. The articles would be typed out and then printed. Drawings were preferred to photos as photos were so expensive to reproduce. Once the words and pictures were ready they were literally cut out and pasted with Pritt stick into place. Then a film was made of it before printing. It was slow and the results were not really that good. But everyone loved Flutewise from the start. And so I’ve continued for coming up to 22 years. Are you impressed?
It’s often been very hard work, but most of the time it has been great fun. For sometime now though we’ve been thinking we should change things. From New Year we are. We’ve got an exciting new website. The few people who’ve seen it have said, ‘It’s amazing’, ‘Not what I expected’, ‘Wonderful’. I’m really proud of Andy for what he has achieved, it has been a mammoth task that has taken a very long time, but I think it will be well worth it. We’ve a few tiny problems to sort out and then it will go live, probably tomorrow. So you can come back and check and find out how you register to use it.

It seems timely that the new site should be launched now, 22 years after the first magazine. Times have changed and are changing.

Happy New Year!

Stephen opening his present

What a lovely day I had yesterday. I went to Stephen’s performance of the Magic Flute on Glyndebourne’s main stage. Now that is really big time. I was very, very proud of him and extremely impressed not only by his playing but the fact that he’d been given his own dressing room with his name on the door! You know you are important when that happens.

After the performance we drove into Brighton to visit Andy’s new music shop (67 St. James’s Street, Brighton – go and visit and buy lots or have your flute fixed or serviced). I gave Stephen his Christmas present when we got there. Any idea what it might be? I’ll tell you about what Stephne gave to me another time, I need to take a photo, it’s great.

Then we went off to Portslade Town Hall for our magic Flute event. Numbers were low as 4 people didn’t turn up but the people who were there were the best. It was a really happy event, everyone enjoying playing Mozart.

So the winter magazine is out, now all I’ve got to do is tidy my very messy office and then start more planning for the new decade. We’ve got something very exciting planned for over Christmas for all of our loyal members so watch this space – or your inbox. Enjoy your Christmas preparations and when you’ve got a minute check out the Jethro Tull website

At Portslade Town Hall - what is Stephen doing?

I told you I was off to Plymouth. I had originally had in my mind Portsmouth (about an hour away). When I looked at travel for Plymouth I realised the journey would be at least 5 hours. So a bit of research was done and I decided the train was the best option. This is what happened:

6.45 am Up, shower, dress, cup of tea and turn on local news on TV. News item – problem with trains due to fire.

7.30 am Manic research on internet to discover train really has been cancelled. Alternatives routes looked at and it’s possible to get there via London if I leave a bit earlier. Then realise another problem – pre-paid tickets only valid for route and journey on the ticket.

8.00 am Kind husband says he’ll take me to the next train station where I had to change. It’s a place called Fratton, well past where the fire is, but and hour and 15 minutes drive away. We rush to get into car, fill up with petrol (why does the car always need petrol when I’m in a hurry?) and drive for about half a mile and hit a huge traffic jam. Of course, there are no trains so masses of extra people are in their cars making what is usually a horribly busy road into a car park. Husband suggests going to Brighton as we’ll never get to Fratton in time to catch the train there. So we turn around and I resign myself to probably having to buy another ticket. But the traffic is awful and looks unlikely we’ll get into Brighton in time to catch that train. Another suggestion – Gatwick. So off we drive.

9.30 am I’m at Gatwick station and I make my way to the ticket office. I explain to the ticket man I need a ticket to Plymouth if there are trains that will get me there on time. He looks at my original tickets and sucks his teeth. £84 for a single ticket to Plymouth! But then the nice man says he could print me out the details of the train being cancelled due to the fire and write a note on it to ask the guards on the 2 trains I’ll have to catch to accept it. He couldn’t promise they would, but it was worth a try.

9.35 am The train was due to leave at 10.03 am so I had time to go to the loo.

9.40 am I got back to the station and looked on the departure board. The 10.03 am train was cancelled! The next one was at 11.03 am. I phoned Stephen as I was now getting a bit worried about whether I would make it. I then had a calming cup of coffee and waited ….

11.03 The train arrived. No problem with the ticket because there wasn’t a guard in sight.

12.30 The next train to Plymouth was due on time. I asked the guard on the platform if he had any idea which part of the train the ticket guard might be. He asked me why, I showed him the print out with the hand written note (I felt a bit like a school child with a note from the teacher giving me permission to miss games or something) and he said not to worry, of course they would honour the ticket. The guard on the train was equally pleasant. I was surprised.

15.10 pm The train drew up to Plymouth station and Stephen was there to collect me just in time for us to get to the venue for the event on time. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that. I’m exhausted just reliving that journey.