The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

'Legacy: Life Reflections' with Louis Vause: Pianist, Composer, Artist, Teacher & 'Chaotic Journeymen' on a Rich Life Well-Lived as a Happy Musical Interlude! Includes original track "Dimanche: Les Cloches De Paris" from his new Album "Paris Interludes"

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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Welcome to a very special 'Legacy: Life Reflections' episode of The Good Listening To Show. Please welcome to The Clearing Louis Vause, who was 'Passed the Golden Baton' to be in the Show by none other than Charlie Higson.

"Louis Vause is a reminder of a different era, when Musicians lived exuberant near chaotic lives. They devoured all the music they encountered and then they let in re-emerge, coloured effortlessly with their own personality. 

Ivan Hewitt The Daily Telegraph, Review of Louis Vause's "Midnight in Havana"

Join us for a remarkable journey through the extraordinary creative life of Louis Vause, a multifaceted and highly versatile artist known for his extraordinary talents as a pianist, composer, teacher and writer. How does one overcome initial reluctance and fear to become a master of their craft? Louis shares his incredible story of transformation, from his early days with iconic figures like Mark Bedford and Terry Edwards, to the personal challenges he faced, including a liver transplant. Discover how saying "yes" to unexpected opportunities led to a thrilling and sometimes chaotic life filled with artistic achievement.

Louis has also very generously gifted one of his original Piano tracks from his brand new Album "Paris Sketches", written in tribute to both his daughter Melody & to his 'Clearing', sketching on the St Martin's Bridge close to  in the Cafe Paris "Demanche: Les Cloches de Paris"

Ever wondered what it’s like to grow up on a boat and in multiple flats across London and Edinburgh? Louis Vause recounts his uniquely adventurous upbringing and the whimsical yet grounding routines that shaped his chaotic but organized life. Hear about nostalgic memories from working at Lily White’s to profound moments at a Parisian café with his daughter Melody. Louis's tales of spontaneous adventures, like a cycling trip to Morocco at age 16, and inspirations from childhood readings of Enid Blyton, offer a vivid glimpse into the life of an eternal seeker of meaningful connections and experiences.

Delve into revolutionary teaching practices in music that challenge traditional methods, focusing on playing by ear and improvisation to nurture children's musicality. We explore Louis's reflections on his legacy, the therapeutic nature of music, and his desire to be remembered as a good father. Revel in the celebration of literary accomplishments, nostalgic performances, and quirky artistic obsessions that make Louis's story a heartfelt blend of admiration, resilience, and creative passion. Tune in for a captivating conversation filled with wisdom, humor, and inspiration.

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)

Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the Clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me. Chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. Oh, yes, indeed, and very, very welcome to Louis Vos.

Chris Grimes:

This is a very special Good Listening To Show legacy life reflections episode. Louis was passed the golden baton to be in the Good Listening To Show by none other than Charlie Higson from the Farm Show, from the Fast Show, from the Farm Show Silly me. And yes, charlie was in the show about four or five weeks ago and I'm delighted that he's passed his old alma mater, you, into the clearing as well. You were at the University of East Anglia together back in the housing days of when Paul Whitehouse, charlie Higson and you were there. I hope I'll do you justice, louis, because you've got an extraordinary story to tell, and in fact, just last night we were sort of wrestling with a quick conversation about OK, so how will I go about describing what you do? So shall we start off by just asking you that open question.

Louis Vause:

It depends what I've been asked to do. Really, as will become clear, I had absolutely no ambition at all to be anything, due to various factors in my upbringing. So, um, I sort of fell into things or stumbled into things, um, almost against my will, because the last thing I wanted to do was perform. Um, you know, it scared the wits out of me and uh, so yeah, it's whatever. And it also it's whatever day you catch me.

Chris Grimes:

It depends what I'm doing that day or that week or that month, and I don't know, I don't know, in researching you, obviously you are a pianist, a composer, an artist, an occasional writer, and and also you've had the most wonderful review, which I'd just like to position and blow a bit of happy smoke at you. Louis Vos is a reminder of a different era, when musicians lived exuberant, near chaotic lives. They devoured all the music they encountered and then they let it re-emerge, coloured, effortlessly, with their own personality, and that was a Daily Telegraph chap called Ivan Hewitt who gave you that review.

Louis Vause:

Yes, I love the album Midnight in Havana, which I was recording just before I had a liver transplant in 2012. I was trying to finish it before I died, but failed, but luckily well, again, this will come up in my story. Yes, and it's completed afterwards. Yes, I wouldn't die.

Chris Grimes:

And it's far from over, because here we are. Your newest creation is Paris Sketches, and I'm also delighted that you've gifted you, very generously gifted me a track that we're going to texture into the fabric of this show as well. So, at your core now you're a musician. I love the fact that in your early career, you were put into bands only being able to play in the key of C, and then you did the hard work where you went away to achieve mastery by spending eight hours a day using a different key each day, but what was extraordinary was Each week Each week Over a 12-week cycle.

Louis Vause:

So that's three months going through all 12 keys, just doing everything. I knew what I had to do, but I was just. People kept having more faith in me than I had myself. So that was Mark Bedford and Terry Edwards saying why don't you come and join our band? Um, and whatever I was doing, they were impressed enough to to sort of include me in the project.

Louis Vause:

That was in 1988 yes and I, I, I was surrounded by professional musicians who were, you know, playing a, d, flat and b, and and I, if I had to do a solo in that band, I'd rehearse it diligently the night before and pretend it was spontaneous. And, um, I thought I've got to, I've got to get my act together and left my job which I'll come to later, yes, which is also a job that changed my life working for Quartet Booth and did the eight hours a day to try and catch up with what seemed to be being thrown at me, which is the story of my life. And I tend to say yes, I made a promise to myself quite early on just say yes, and then you put the phone down and go oh, my god, can I do this?

Chris Grimes:

That resonates so deeply and richly for me too, by the way, because of my love and joy of comedy, improvisation, with that mindset of yes and yes and, and the idea that in life you should say yes more and then work it out afterwards if you don't know how to do it yet.

Louis Vause:

Yes, exactly, and so far you know, so good, but so terrifying at the same time well, we're teaching on the end of.

Chris Grimes:

Let me pull you into the structure because the story will emerge. But you were there at the beginning of. You know two-tone scar you. You know you're associated with the likes of madness, suzzy, the nutty boys. It's just so, so exciting. You were there when charlie higson and paul whitehouse are around. You were in the higson's or you close to.

Louis Vause:

It's all very, very exciting so, yes, yes, three or four initial gigs before I left norwich, but um, yes, you've been.

Chris Grimes:

There's an incident in your life called carry on up the nile. There's so much stuff anyway, let's get you going. So, louisville's welcome to the show. We're going to do a special Legacy Life Reflections, as I've mentioned. So, yes, there's going to be a clearing a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. There's going to be some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare a golden baton and a cake.

Chris Grimes:

There is work to be done and it's all to play for. So, with your extraordinary journeyman-ing story, let's get you going on the open road. So, louis Vos, musician and many, many other things, you are as a real, true polymath. Where is what is a clearing for youing?

Louis Vause:

one of the few times I feel I'm absolutely connecting to the world. So it could be a bridge on Paris. I remember walking across the Canal Saint-Martin a few years ago and halfway across I just stopped and went. This is out loud to no one in particular. This is brilliant and sketching. You know, whatever I'm seeing? I've always kept a sketchbook diary. My whole body seems to just relax and I feel completely at one with the world. It's a really remarkable emotional feeling and I love it.

Chris Grimes:

And the way you said it was brilliant reminded me of Paul Whitehouse going. It's brilliant. You stopped and you did a brilliant sketch. I love that Also. I know that sorry, I couldn't resist. I know that you worked in Horns menswear at one point and I really wondered where the suit you sir, that obviously Mark Williams and Paul Whitehouse got from that Not related at all.

Louis Vause:

I did cut off lengths for bespoke suits and I loved that job and in fact, again, that's what I thought my life would be. I was a stockkeeper. Something about my mind love stockkeeping. I remember as a young child at Christmas doing a little chart of what I'd get the radio times, three channels and make a list, date, channel, program and then at the end of time, tick when seen wow, how very diligent.

Louis Vause:

Once said to me much later on you you're the most organized, chaotic person I've ever met. You know what part of your life is complete chaos and the other half is super organized and I think that's partly to do with my upbringing no reflection on my parents at all, but it was quite all over the place and brought up on a boat after six flats in london in my first, six in edinburgh in my first six years, where my mum tells me I was actually nostalgic at the age of four when we used to live in William Street or or Rose Street or whatever, because my dad did out flats and so and in your Louis Boer's website there is your.

Chris Grimes:

You've written your biography. It's there and it's so lyrical how it begins the idea that you were born in a snowscaped Edinburgh on February the 14th 1958, as a Valentine's baby. And also you lived, at the age of six to 16 in a floating library of the boat that you've just described.

Louis Vause:

Yes, so I think part of the stockkeeping thing and my love of say I swim five days a week open air at the Oasis. I have my luxury bubble bath on a saturday morning to what was cd review or whatever's on. I want those. I have these routines which a close friend of mine said they'll definitely lead to alzheimer's. You know you've got to get, but they're really necessary to me to to sort ground me. And there's something about stock keeping. I mean, my height of stock keeping was the golf stock keeper at Lily White's in Piccadilly Circus. Yes, which was thrilling because you're in the. You know Christmas, when Lily White's was a proper store where they had golf professionals teaching, well, failed golf professionals, customers, their swing and you know all the interdepartmental rivalries, um, and I just loved it and I'd listen to radio for pricing up golf balls and organizing this chaos that came in on lorries into stats.

Chris Grimes:

By the way, talking of chaos and lorries, we've just got a. I've got my dust cart truck just arrived outside mid-podcast recording. So that was a nice segue into me saying sorry if there's a bit of noise pollution, but it's the dust cart outside. Chaos ensues Also your luxury bubble bath of a Saturday morning. That's reminiscent with Charlie Higson's own clearing, which is in his bathtub. So I'm not trying to put you in the same clearing as that, but where would you like then your clearing to be? Because you described the bridge scape in Paris, which is great.

Louis Vause:

But let's choose your clearing for you okay, just over that bridge is a little place called Chez Brune and it's a sort of cafe bar that just does food at lunchtime and it's just a gorgeous little place on on the banks of the canal san martin, um, and it's just a place of content and in fact, me and my daughter, melody, um, since I took over her full-time care when she was six, we we have three or four days, three days at Christmas, not Christmas itself, but prior to Christmas in Paris, and so it means a lot to me, that place, because we went through some trauma when she was five, six, but it's where we connect. You know, now she's 30, we catch up, and she actually said to me some years ago um, dad, when you're in your wheelchair, I'll still bring you out with my family and we'll still come to paris every. I said, oh, so you're going to make it a family. And she said, yeah, dad, of course, so it's, it's something that?

Chris Grimes:

did you say melanie or melody? Forgive me because melody. What a perfect and appropriate name for a sort of extraordinary musician. To have a daughter called Melody, how perfect. I'm afraid it's from Captain.

Louis Vause:

Scarlet and the Mistrons the pirate.

Chris Grimes:

Sure, romany Melody, don't be afraid, that's beautiful. Okay, so we're in your cafe of choice in Paris and you're the first person in the circa 200 episodes that I've done that's actually chosen a cafe in Paris, which is lovely. Also, what's wonderful is the track that you very generously gifted to the program is from your newest endeavor, paris Sketches, and I'm very much looking forward to texturing that in at the end. Yeah, okay, so in your clearing. I'm now going to arrive with a tree in your clearing to shake your tree, to see which storytelling apples fall out. How do you like these apples? And this is where you're going to interpret the four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and that's where the borrow from the film up the squirrels come in. Oh, squirrels. And then the one is a quirky, unusual fact about you, louis vores. We couldn't know about you until you tell us so over to you. It's not a memory test, just just interpret that as you like.

Louis Vause:

Well, the first what got me reading was enid blighton, but she had a profound effect on my life, not her naughty books or anything, but I remember the first time I got excitement from reading was the secret seven, when I six, seven years old. And then the Famous Five. And I remember distinctly walking back to the boat at the end of a summer holiday thinking what a wasted summer holiday. I haven't been catching criminals on Kirran Island. Nothing's happened. And this had a profound effect on me. And this had a profound effect on me and reading. Apart from a lifelong love of reading, it was a Zen for adventure. So when I was 16, for instance, I had a bet in pottery class that I could cycle to Morocco.

Chris Grimes:

And they went, no you can't.

Louis Vause:

I said, well, it's easy, it's just like cycling to school you just don't stop. And it took me three days to get to London on a three-speed Halford bike with only one gear working. And then a day to Brighton and I was terrified. I'd never been abroad, apart from one brief school trip.

Chris Grimes:

There's a lovely appropriateness there in the equivalenceence of a three gear bike, one gear working, when you've got a job in a band with only one key working, which was the key of c when you first started, but then you got better so.

Louis Vause:

But you know, I remember that, you know, every evening I'd be really scared where am I going to stay tonight? And I'd stay in barns. And it developed into this wonderful adventure, um, where, for instance, um, I stayed at a subsistence farm. Two ancient french kindly put me up in the barn uh, they were both over 70. And in the morning he woke me up and said and I chased after them and his one cow had escaped and run down a lane, and I helped him get Coral the cow back into the field and they made their own bacon, they made their own butter. So they invited me in for breakfast. And, you know, this wonderful experience wouldn't have happened had I not done that.

Louis Vause:

The £10 bet was lost. I ran out of money at Port Boo in Spain, but it didn't matter. By then, when I hit set in the middle of a thunderstorm, which is when I first saw the Mediterranean, I was looking for somewhere to stay. There were some lightning flashes and a person said L'Eglise, the church up the road, and I went there and there were all these hippie girls dancing to Pink Floyd with barrels of you know, and I was very naive, very young, 16, and I was there for two or three days, you know, as you would A church full of girls dancing to Pink Floyd at the age of 16.

Chris Grimes:

I can't imagine why you know, as you would, a church full of girls dancing to Pink Floyd at the age of 16. I can't imagine why you stayed.

Louis Vause:

Well, the cemetery was full of tents and camp beds, so it was a kind of hippie hangout. And I remember the first night lying in a camp bed and a girl in the middle of the night disturbed me and I'm terribly sorry. I'm in your bed and vacated it's only afterwards. I wonder, was there more to that than? But you know, it never even occurred to me that. You know, I'm just a completely naive cyclist abroad.

Chris Grimes:

You know so already there's a lovely through line of happy chaos because you're just very spontaneous. If you hadn't been at that farm that night you couldn't have helped with the chaos of the cow escaping and then the wonderful hippie chaos of the church full of I'm. I'm going darkly comic or happily comic, into a church full of vestal virgins dancing to pink freud, but they, they were a preponderance of a very young hippie, 20-year-old.

Louis Vause:

We were adults. I was a kid, yes, so I lost the bet. I had to pay him £10 when I got back, but I think the birth of all of that was Enid Blyton. And then, at 18, I went to the Sudan, got robbed in Cairo. 25 pence was what I filled out on. The ambassador of Sudan was furious. How did you get in? And I've been standing next to a Swiss guy and he'd been writing 50,000 Swiss francs and he wrote it out in full and I went right 25 new English pence sterling. I had a lot of money. They just stamped it and I was in. I was lucky. I mean, I was unlucky enough to be sexually assaulted, but that again.

Chris Grimes:

Again in your biography. It's very compellingly, it's by a vast millionaire. You described him as being yes.

Louis Vause:

And he ran the hotel ambassador and agreed to take me in. But I had no idea. I mean, it was very distressing in a way watching him do the same thing to all the Eritrean boys who were fleeing the war in Eritrea at the time. Yes, and he'd abuse one intern every night, but that was after he'd tried it on with me and when his false teeth fell out as he tried to kiss me. I just thought this will be one hell of a story. At the Ring of Bells I tend to change traumatic things that happen to me into stories, yes, of survival and um. So, yes, it was carry on up the nile, it wasn't a deep, horrible thing. And and I was lucky enough to be taken in by a family, sheikh adin gabril, as their 22nd child in madadobi house in Omdurman and spent a wonderful three months there.

Chris Grimes:

And that's a great first shapeage, if I may, just sorry to interrupt you about the idea that the sense of adventure born out of Enid Blyton, the famous five and the magnificent seven. So shapeage number two.

Louis Vause:

Right. Okay, I've got to get this in the right order. Yes, Just before I became a professor, I was dabbling in music. I was in a band called Hackney Five-O, working for a book publisher, quartet Books. In 1984, I think I started there and that was an eye-opener. As I say, I grew up. My dad, unfortunately, aged about 28, got MS. He then became increasingly a drinker. My mum, when I was about 12, I think, to london from lancaster.

Louis Vause:

we were in the boat in lancaster and I didn't want to go and it's no reflection of my mum at all, um, but she offered to take me. She took my sister, took my brother and she had to forge a new career for herself. You know, the money had dried up. My dad was ill, he was drunk a lot of the time and shouting, and I I said to my mom go, but I've got a new school, I want to stay here.

Louis Vause:

So I was in the boat with someone who was, on a daily basis, extremely verbally abusive, basically saying you're bloody useless. And the way I dealt with that was I discovered on BBC Two at the time there were things like the Dolce Vita, which had subtitles. So I remember he shouted all the way through that, which is three hours long, and he was a very intelligent, university-educated man and I didn't respond. So I discovered Fellini. I was discovering this world I knew nothing about and all these other things, and I must have soaked it up, really, because I just went into life assuming I was bloody useless and you know, that's been an issue ever since, really, where um, unsurprisingly, if that's your conditioning from the early age.

Chris Grimes:

Obviously, and you know, pardon you for staying around to take care of him is the extraordinary hindsight, really, he wouldn't allow that anyway.

Louis Vause:

um, I, I'm just there because I had new friends and I didn't want to move school Totally selfish, really. And he was very independent and a brilliant man in many ways, but he wasn't a father.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah, brilliant, but fatally flawed, obviously yeah.

Louis Vause:

So I kind of believed that you know the school. I went to secondary school. Um, their careers advisor said well, you can work at the mills, that's a job for life. Or, if you were passing your exams, you might get a job in a bank. Uh, and that was it. So, um, I, I managed to pass all my o levels, um, and went to, uh, managed to pass all my O levels and went to the grammar school, passed A levels and ended up having an interview at Cambridge.

Louis Vause:

So, from a kind of Kessler secondary school where Mark will beat you through blackboard dusters at you too, I studied in Cambridge where at my interview the guy actually said the professor open, open, fire study. Would you like some sherry? And I is this a trick question, you know? And I didn't go there, although they did offer a place if I changed to English and went to UEA instead, yes, which was a life-changing moment. But to get back to quartet books, this is where I realized that, perhaps because, you know, between then and there I'd been a stock keeper and I was very happy as a stock keeper. That's what life is about.

Louis Vause:

Fridays pay, um, have a good time. Monday get a sub, you know, and yes, and work eight hours to day and so on. And we had authors who were full of confidence and I was looking at their manuscripts going. They can't write, these people. You know, I thought these people were different film stars, authors and I slowly realised that I could do better than that. And I didn't try. You know, writing seemed a bit, but it dawned on me that these people were just people like you and me. It's become ever so obvious lately with the.

Chris Grimes:

I don't want to get Well with politicians of all stripes, but we're all just winging it and all making it up as we go along. Yes, Absolutely.

Louis Vause:

That's what Quartet Books taught me. Yes, it's a brilliant job, you know.

Chris Grimes:

So there's a through line in two of your shapings being about books actually, because there's Enid Blyton and then also the publishing house. If I may sorry, I'm just curating the structure and getting the length right as well Can we go to the shapeage number three please, which is shapeage number three please?

Louis Vause:

Well, I fell into teaching by accident again and I started to teach because a parent saw me playing a party in Camden Lock and said do you teach? And I said no, no, I don't know the first thing about teaching. He said well, we'd like you to try with our kids. I went oh, all right, how much do you charge?

Chris Grimes:

And this is piano, obviously, but I know that you've been a drum teacher as well because on your Facebook page it says drum teacher.

Louis Vause:

Well, that's, that's a mistake I did. I gave a lecture to drum school. Okay, I don't know how that some kind of glitch with the internet saying, oh, he's taught at the drum school, so he teaches drums.

Chris Grimes:

No, I was teaching music different type of percussion on the piano, obviously with notes.

Louis Vause:

So I I tried and I found it's a one, a fascinating present. But two, they enjoyed it and I enjoyed it and very quickly I realized piano teaching is, at that time, was largely completely wrong. Uh, why, when it's a language, it's international. Are we teaching people to read before they can speak? So why are we teaching them to read music before they can play? Yeah, so I'd bring in reading after a year or two.

Louis Vause:

But what was remarkable about children is that all babies dance, they all sing, they all draw, and then adults, it seems to have been edited out of them by the education system. Exactly, yes, and quite often I was told aged five by Mrs Dixon, you'll never be an artist. Now, if you want to judge like that, go into the legal profession. Do not be a teacher, and it depends whether you can do it or not. Do not be a teacher, and, yes, whether you can do it or not. If I have people who's struggling or who has got, um, uh, dyspraxia or whatever, I've never, and they enjoy it. The point is they're enjoying it. It doesn't matter whether they're very going to be a constant to your point.

Chris Grimes:

They're expressing themselves through innocence and the joy, rather than being struck sorry to stuck to a regime of writing so by ear is so important but what?

Louis Vause:

yes, very, and. And if you learn to read first, the tragedy is you can never improvise. Um, yeah, I remember yahoodi menuhin playing with, um, uh, stefan grappelli. And stefan grappelli was just chatting on his violin. You could hear his brain ticking going. Well, a modal chord, that might work. And it was like me speaking French. I was thinking my way through it, I wasn't just expressing myself.

Louis Vause:

What was remarkable about the children was that they could play remarkably quickly. And that's when Jay Rayner, who was a young reporter at the time, kept coming across kids playing really good, boogie, woogie, aged eight, seven, I'm going. Who the hell's doing this? I did a fantastic Guardian review of this revolutionary teacher and I just said it's just obvious, isn't it? You know it's, but what they taught me was more important, yes, but what they taught me was more important? Yes, because I started to analyze why they couldn't keep a left hand going and while the right hand? And that's because of the lobes of the brain, yeah, and one being a dominant one, yeah, uh, the left brain is dominant in most of us. The right brain, the artistic side, controls the left hand, so the right boss is the left hand around. So I developed loads of processes to get over that quite quickly, um and uh, just by observing and listening to children and we don't listen to children enough, by the way, and I'll come to that later with melody um, they've got a wisdom that far outshines what we perceive, yes, and they've also got a whole new take on life.

Louis Vause:

I remember teaching blue monk to an eight-year-old uh, michael, that's right, michael, he's probably 40 now. But um, hello, michael, if you're listening in Thelonious Monk. And at the end I looked at him, he looked really worried and I said are you alright? And he said why was the monk so lonely? And, wow, the loneliest monk yes, yes, wow, how lovely.

Chris Grimes:

What a beautiful interpretation.

Louis Vause:

I know, I know and so I was imagining, you know, a monk on top of the loneliest monk. I love that, so, and you just learn so much from them and I've they've made me, rather than the other way around and and the joy they get. So I talked to all kinds of people, for instance, um, uh, merlin and cosmo sheldrake, who merlin's written a book on fungal. You know all these kids, whether they play piano or not, uh, most of them still enjoy it. They're out there expressing themselves and that's the most important thing, whether they can play or not.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, it's almost like you've got your own sort of approach of boogie-woogie-vores or vores-boogie-woogie or whatever it is that you did.

Louis Vause:

It seems to be the easiest way in. Yeah, I'm not a, I don't specialise in boogie-woogie, but you know in fact. In fact, I get a lot of pleasure from playing classical not very well, and again, it relates very closely to my own love of comedy improvisation.

Chris Grimes:

It's prepare for the freestyle and that's what jazz musicianing is. So prepare for the freestyle.

Louis Vause:

So three chords, and then we'll add another chord and then another key, and so on, and it's all fun. I do it with games. So, for instance, a blues scale to the top of the piano, right, the first octave. What's the? There's a crocodile lake underneath there. So if you get the fingering wrong, and I'm sorry, oh god. And then the second octave, because it gets harder and more confusing. The second octave is uh, what's the worst thing you can think of? A bee, bee's nest. All right, that's a bee's nest, and I write it down, um, and within three days you know they've got yeah, and great, oh no, you stop. Oh no, you know all of that. So, um, parents have quite often told me that they listen in just because you enjoy it. Lovely, and I must stress, now I've stopped teaching for the moment because of illness, yeah, but there is a DVD on my website, the Beginners, all you.

Chris Grimes:

Beginners, we'll be pointing listeners to your website, which is delicious in its sumptuousness. At the end, can we have the foot shape?

Louis Vause:

Anyway, I'm still recovering from lymphoma, so please don't swamp me with requests for teaching, um sure the fourth and final shapeage before we get on to inspirations I'm not sure it's an inspiration, but it was, in a way, the transplant, the liver transplant, I was told by um, my consultant.

Louis Vause:

I had two years to live and I took a microphone to that meeting because I couldn't find anyone at short notice to accompany me. And listening to it now is revelatory in a way, because we ended up joking about um lexus, and I think it was a mercedes or a rolls royce, which refers to the shape of the scar. If I was lucky enough to get, and I was going well, is a Lexus any good? I don't know anything about cars and they go well. We think it's pretty good. And what they said afterwards was your lack of stress was remarkable because we were having a laugh about my two years left to live. And I remember walking down Haberstock Hill afterwards looking at the blossom it was april, april 28th, I think, uh, 2012 and going. Oh well, that's a bit of a shame. And this complete acceptance of dying, which turned out to be, and has turned out to be, quite important and I have to stress here, I get very upset other people dying, but with me, I don't know why, but it just doesn't. Concern is something that's going to happen, um and um, you know I'm kind of shrug. Really, the most distressing thing about all of that was telling my daughter, melody, that I had cancer and so. But the actual experience, if I can tell you, just the night of going to the hospital it was a day after I'd gone onto the waiting list and I'd had a surgeon say many people die on the waiting list, death, and which disappeared completely as soon as he. So yes, they die, and um, and I'm saying this accent because he came from somewhere in central europe, so it's a bit like addressed by father lugosi, as can dracula. And I spoke to a friend of mine, mary, who works for the nhs, and she burst out laughing and said, of course lou, you't know, many of our best surgeons are on the spectrum. So someone told him to smile when he mentions the word death. So two days later I got a call saying come up to the hospital now. I went well, I haven't even bought a toilet bag yet. No, we've got a little thing. Now Come, we're sending an ambulance. And so the ambulance arrived. Melody was going to follow me.

Louis Vause:

I had to wake up at two o'clock in the morning from the ambulance. I saw two friends exiting the pub at the end of the street and just wondered if I'd ever see the street again. And then the ambulance driver said um, those books are all right. You know the big books with operations, full colour. You know all of that, they're all right, but you can't beat the real thing. I went oh right, he said you know that show where they all faint at the beginning. You know they're watching the post-mortem. And I went Quincy, do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. And he went yeah, that's right. He said you, you know, it's not what they're seeing that makes them faint, it's the smell. It doesn't bother me at all. Um, because I've been to falklands, I've seen limbs blown off. You know, just, I could have lunch over a good post-mortem, um, and so he's telling me this on the way to the hospital.

Louis Vause:

And so I remember stepping out of the ambulance God, am I going to be completely smelly when they opened me up and they gave me pre-med and all of that, and it turned out that your liver couldn't be used. So I was sent back home. But I remember I had an ear appointment because I had terrible hearing. Your whole body seemed to shut down. An ear appointment because I had a terrible hearing, your whole body seemed to shut down. So I had to go to the ENT which had just opened on Gower Street, so I may as well go. And so I went there and it had just opened, so there was a harp player downstairs playing, you know, with flowers, and there was a little old lady in front of me and I said she said to me they don't normally have music here, do they dear? I said I don't know, it's the first time I've been here, but I don't know about the instrument, a harp.

Chris Grimes:

Like an angel playing a harp. What dear.

Louis Vause:

And I said, well, it's what they play in heaven, isn't it, when dear? And then I realised I was in the hearing department and she couldn't actually hear.

Chris Grimes:

So was it a mystical harp, or there was a harp, or she was just hearing harps in her head.

Louis Vause:

There was an actual harp player there for the launch, to make everyone feel at home in this new venue. So I got home and that night I got another phone call. I went you're kidding me and I was back in hospital, um, for the actual liver transplant. And melody came with me and, like my one of my closest friends, jody, who'd been halfway from brighton the night before, she went what again? And she's all the way up and and melody went oh, this is a telly dad, I want to watch hollywood wives.

Louis Vause:

And in my head I was thinking I don't want to spend the last minutes of my life watching hollywood wives. But I said no, melody, I think I need. And then I remembered hold on melody, um, just in case I'm in here a while, didn't want to mention that she was 17, 18, that the electricity key is there and blah, blah, and here's my bank and here's, you know, but you know I'll see you soon, et cetera. And comforting her, wheeled into operating. Apparently the last thing I said, jodie and Melody. Apparently the last thing I said was I love you. I don't remember that yeah to whoever was there.

Louis Vause:

Um, yes, and the first thing I remember after that uh, and there is a point to all these stories, sorry, um was I came to and there was three tunes going on in my head and my feeling is that your mind tries to keep you alive. The first tune was Queen's first single, keep Yourself Alive, keep yourself alive, you know, and I thought, well, that makes sense, and I was completely out of it. You know, morphine and all of that. The second tune was the first few bars of Prokofiev's first piano concerto, which was blended into that, yes. The third theme was the theme from the Wombles.

Chris Grimes:

I like the idea. There's a thing about overground, underground, and that's life, death, life, death, life, death.

Louis Vause:

And this was blended in to keep yourself. Are you trying to keep irritate yourself to life? I mean because that's.

Chris Grimes:

It's sort of a Bernard Cribbins bedside matter. Great Uncle, bulgaria will save your life.

Louis Vause:

So I, you know, came to with that, but we go back to this kind of reducing my life to really living life as it happens and seeing what's going on with all these strange.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, so bits of chaos. The thread of chaos is there.

Louis Vause:

Which goes right back to storytelling and story. You know what this is about. I mean, I could go on for another. I won't, but I've left out quite a lot.

Chris Grimes:

So let's move on to another of the inspirations now. So maybe we won't do three, maybe we'll do a couple of these. What would you say? What three things inspire you? So we're in that scape now.

Louis Vause:

My first memory of music is Frederick Delius. On hearing the first cuckoo in spring, I was about three. In fact, my parents were going through a Delius phase. My dad was also a cornet player and played bebop and we lived in a flat in Edinburgh that had no neighbours they were all slums then but in the poshest part now of Edinburgh, the new town and so the seeds of my music were Frederick Delius, who, interestingly enough, was banished to his father's plantation in Louisiana, I think, um to get him off music.

Louis Vause:

But he listened to the spirituals and all of that and that infected his, uh, caudal and musical thinking. Although it's regarded's quintessentially english, he's actually um using harmonies that charlie parker and and all the jazz people loved, yeah, and this you know. And then it was west side story at four or five at the cinema. Um, so very early on my musical makeup was very Americanized. Yeah, and Gershwin. So from Bernstein to Gershwin to, you know, ravel, et cetera, et cetera.

Louis Vause:

So you know people like Mozart, and I apologize to any Mozart lovers out there, I just find him a bit predictable. You know, it all seems a bit predictable, it all seems a bit classic to me. I apologise to Mozart lovers everywhere, I know he's a genius, it just doesn't excite me. And I remember talking with Graham Coxon, who I was lucky enough to do a few albums with from Blur, about Chord X, and that's the unexpected shift in a song to a place you weren't expecting at all and that's what excites me. It's a bit like comedy where the unexpected yes, wow, you know it makes you laugh almost. The element of surprise yes, exactly, and it's Mozart doesn't surprise me, I'm afraid. Yeah, it's unfair to single out. I love bach, interestingly enough, but um beethoven, uh, that is piano music, but his orchestration are a bit all samey. Yeah, I'm sorry, handel, I could tune Smith.

Chris Grimes:

So we're going to go through all the classicals and give them a sort of thumbs up or a thumbs down. Can we get the second inspiration now?

Louis Vause:

Yeah, well, my daughter, yes, I, as I said, brought her up through circumstances and I don't want to go into those because, again, we'd be here all day but they were fairly traumatic and she's been an inspiration to me in so many ways. I mean, we became I don't know if you've seen the film with Ryan and Tatum O'Neill where, God, I can't remember the name of it. Now she's eight and he's a grifter in 1930s America and they have this relationship where she's actually in charge, this eight-year-old. So I remember, you know, she'd come to gigs with me and I'd be on stage and she'd be learning chess with one of my friends in the audience and people loved her because she was really funny and really chatty and all of that.

Louis Vause:

I love the fact she's the accompanying melody to your being on stage playing the music yeah and um, you know I'd be chatting to people about, you know, yes, perhaps we should go on to. And she'd suddenly pipe up 50p dad. You just picked your nose. Oh no, someone else would say what are you saying? Why 50p melody? And you just picked his nose and I'd say I was scratching it, I've got etc.

Louis Vause:

So he had a nose picking jar well, it was a relationship where people would actually say in neighboring tables, lean over and go, I'm sorry, but you two are unbelievable. I mean, I mean so you'd have melody, age eight, swapping emails with an australian tourist and, um, we must have made an odd pair. But going back to listening to children, listening to her, we don't. You know, I see parents going baby, baby, shut up, stop it, stop it. And all of that.

Chris Grimes:

You know listen. Yeah, that's anathema to you. Getting a child to be quiet. You'd rather listen.

Louis Vause:

absolutely no, no absolutely, and they talk a lot of sense, believe me, yes. So she's an inspiration.

Chris Grimes:

She's inspired me to do the best I can it's lovely as well that children are the equivalent of human jazz entities because they are totally improvising by being truly monumentally present and not restricted societally no, no, extraordinary, and so you know, do listen to your children and talk to them, because you have these long conversations.

Louis Vause:

Is there a piano in heaven? Well, it wouldn't be heaven if there wasn't melody, etc. Etc.

Chris Grimes:

So can we get on to anything else you want to say about Melody, just before I move you on to the third?

Louis Vause:

No, but we continue to argue occasionally and she's generally more right than wrong, I have to say.

Chris Grimes:

How old is she now? 30., 30. Forgive me, I think you did say that at the beginning. Okay, now I believe we could be on to two things that never fail to grab your attention. So what are your squirrels or monsters of distraction? Whatever's going on for you, what never fails to distract you? This is a weird one corners, tell me more.

Louis Vause:

I see a corner, you know, the cheddar cheese shaped uh yeah, wedge and buildings in in paris, for instance, going back to paris, they just move me so much and I have to draw them. I've got one of my gifts if I have any is a perfect eye for perspective, and it just seems there.

Chris Grimes:

I just have to get that down up, you know, and then, and I have no, it's not like you have to turn the corner, it's you need to draw the corner always, and my sister once said you're always drawing pubs, you know, and I go.

Louis Vause:

Well, the pubs are on corners. Yes, not the pub I'm drawing, it's the corner, and that's one thing that stops me in my tracks. The other thing is the unexpected chord, chord X. I remember pouring a pot of tea I think it was El Amor Brujo on Radio 3 one morning and I had to stop the kettle. You know, there was a chord movement that was so beautiful. I just had to stop in the middle of the kitchen and listen and wow, you know, um, shivers up down the spine. Yes, so music. Going back to music and visual and I think I'm creative, not because I'm eager to I remember at a party, some posh guy saying very drunk in oxfordshire uh, it must be really great being a musician and getting your rocks off in front of thousands of people. And I went, not really. No, I do these things to survive and to try and earn money for new melody. That's it. Yes, I've got no desire to walk on stage, really, um, but I do it wonderful stuff and now quirky unusual fact.

Chris Grimes:

This is the one now in the 54321. What's the quirky unusual fact about you, louisville's?

Louis Vause:

we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us I keep and I've had the one that I don't get stressed out about much. My mum once said to me God, louis, you're the only person I know. When the lights are red for a pedestrian, you lean on the lamppost. Everyone else is eager to get off. But I've had nightmares about being late. It's the only nightmare I have and it's not terrible, but I wake up palpitating hard. I'm trapped in some kind of weird transport system in somewhere like germany. But it's not. It's a dream world with entangled tubes and the airplane and I haven't got my passport. And I had one at the weekend where I realized I'm not going to make it. The plane takes three hours and I'm still stuck on this weird in the suburbs somewhere you know.

Chris Grimes:

I love the irony that you've been also relaxed about. When you are stopped at a red light, you'll lean against the lamppost. So that's quite a nice sort of paradox there. Although you're stressed about being late, you're quite happy if suddenly life is on pause because it allows you to stop.

Louis Vause:

This is why I'm I'm early and this is one of the arguments I have with melody. I'm not wasting my life. You know, she's turned up at the cinema at three minutes too, and I'm there 20 minutes to have a lemonade and um, you know. So, uh, nightmares about lateness.

Chris Grimes:

That's my quirky fact and now we've shaken your tree, hurrah. Now we're stepping away from the tree, we're staying in the clearing and we're going to talk about alchemy and gold. Now and this is about your real life purpose. When you're at purpose and in flow, uh, louis vaughan's eclectic polymathic musician and and athlete um, what are you absolutely happiest doing?

Louis Vause:

That's a tough one Drawing, certainly, playing the piano certainly, and sort of on some deserted road on my bicycle on my own, not knowing where I'm going to go. And the great thing about travelling by bike anyway, for instance going across France is that your car does get louder each night. This is something you wouldn't notice in a train or a bus or a car.

Chris Grimes:

And I'm hoping you've got more than one gear working now, metaphorically, because you started off on a bike to Morocco with one gear out of three I've got, I think it's 17 or 18.

Louis Vause:

Upgrade we like that, you know to get racing.

Chris Grimes:

So you're still on your bike, your bike. That's relatable to me too. I often say my bike is my freedom, so that's very relatable.

Louis Vause:

Yeah, so that's what I'm happiest doing.

Chris Grimes:

And now I'm going to award you with a cake. Now, huzzah, you get to put a cherry on the cake. Now, louis, with stuff like what's the favourite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you toward your future, there's one that stands out by mead lux lewis um, the great boogie player from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, uh, who wrote honky tonk train blues.

Louis Vause:

He said everyone's got something, no one's got it all. But now, if you think about that, it's really kind of comforting. When I started playing piano, it was kind of I want to be like him and I want to be as good as him and hey, you know, you've got something that's yours, that's the important bit, playing as well as Art Tatum. You'll never do it anyway, but you know, forget that. Just concentrate on expressing yourself. And every album I've done has come out of crisis and it's been an expression of where I am. It's not me, it's not me trotting out an album, because that's what I do, man, it's. It's kind of. It's been a way of surviving and a way of expressing yes at this point in the center of the clearing.

Chris Grimes:

Uh, we could texture in the track that you've gifted to the program. Uh, so do you want to tell me about the paris sketches track dimanche that you've actually donated to the program, and we'll texture it in and I'll just say, um, it could be a postscript, depending on where we put it. So if you don't hear it now, it'll be a postscript, but would you like to just tell me about it?

Louis Vause:

yes, it's uh, the seventh, uh, the one for each day of the week, and these are a tribute to both melody and to paris, um and um. This one is dimanche uh, les cloches de paris, the bells of paris, and um, I actually wrote it in the os's swimming pool in hoban. In fact I wrote most of those pieces there. You could probably hear the rhythm of a breaststroke. Ah lovely, bash home on my bike and find out what key it was in, and find out what was in my head on the piano, and so that's where it. That's the genesis of it. It's a tribute to my daughter, a tribute to Paris. And again, it's just me being me really.

Chris Grimes:

And just say the name of the track.

Louis Vause:

one more time no-transcript cake um, I had prepared this. Yes, it's a tablet. Do you know edinburgh?

Chris Grimes:

tablet. Tell me more. I think I do but Made of carnation, milk and sugar.

Louis Vause:

Yeah, and there was four. They used to put it on the slab, I remember, over the road from Brunsfield Street and cut you a bit before all this prepackaging nonsense and forget cocaine, forget anything else. It's the unbelievable taste, you know.

Chris Grimes:

Still, I have to be wary of buying it at all so, and it's a homecoming for you because, of course, you were born in edinburgh in the snowscapes of 1958, so the edinburgh tablet is the cake that is yours, and this is what you're putting the cherry on. So far, you've given us the beautiful track that you've donated to this texture. Um, and now, um, what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given, louis?

Louis Vause:

Again, it was another piano player going. You know what, louis, you're really good at that two-handed thing. Why don't you just concentrate on that? I can't do that. And you know, I really respected this pianist. I was sort of trying to get lessons off him. He said you've got something that's you know, just do that. And I went, oh, all right, all right, let's you you know, just do that.

Chris Grimes:

And I went oh, all right. Um, all right, I'll do that, then meaning keep playing piano. Is that what he was saying? That's what you meant by the time, what you're doing because you've got a sound that's yours. Yes, I love the fact you've described your track of. You can almost hear the breaststroke because you work out the rhythm of it. That's an incredible sense. It's a sensory way to to write music. How extraordinary.

Louis Vause:

Well, yes, music should come from life and you know, Rachmaninoff was playing the blues. As far as I'm concerned, because he was expressing his heart. The blues are an expression of, you know, getting the misery out so you feel better. Yes, and that's what I've always done. That's where I'm able to make make myself feel better. I'm playing the blues, but they're not blues as you understand them, although sometimes I can play all that stuff and do but it's, it's, as the telegraph quote, it's, it's all the music I've ever been exposed to yes.

Chris Grimes:

And next question um, with the gift of hindsight, what notes, help or advice might you to a younger version of louisville's?

Louis Vause:

well, you're not as ugly useless um as you think you are such a perfect antidote to the way that your dad was verbally abusive to you.

Chris Grimes:

I think that's so lovely that you've arrived at that sense of the wiser, you being able to say look, this is not the truth, it's just perception.

Louis Vause:

At that point, yeah and um, yeah, I mean it sounds bad saying my dad was abusive. I think he was just railing. Um, yes, you know, just railing, and I was the only one there. Uh, it's difficult to avoid in the 30 foot note so you know there was no malice in him, it was just and I was the receptacle.

Chris Grimes:

That's a very kind lens to put on that. Thank you for changing the sort of slant of that. Absolutely. We're going to ramp up to a bit of Shakespeare shortly, where I'm going to be talking about legacy and how you'd most like to be remembered. But just before we get there, this is the pass the golden baton moment, please. So now you've experienced this from within, who might you like to pass the golden baton along to, as charlie higson very kindly did to you to keep the golden thread going?

Louis Vause:

rhoda dakar, who was a member of the body snatchers in the uh with two-tone. She was involved with Red Wedge in the mid-Blair years. She's a feisty, you know, very politically engaged but also hugely talented lyric writer, singer, and she'll have stories to tell.

Chris Grimes:

And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to furnish me with a warm introduction to the lovely Rhoda. Thank you very much indeed. And now, inspired by Shakespeare and all the world's esteemed and all the bittered-witted barely players, when all is said and done, at Louisville Wars, how would you most like to be remembered?

Louis Vause:

I hope with a smile. You know, as a good father, that's the most important thing. I've not always been fantastic who has? But you know I've done my best and I think we've got there. It's great. So I'd like to be remembered as a good dad. And don't mourn me, you know just. We just enjoy life, melody.

Chris Grimes:

Lovely. Where can we find out all about Louis Vores on the old interweb?

Louis Vause:

louisvorescouk. If you want to find out about recordings, louis, vores Bandcamp, there are links on my website to Bandcamp as well.

Chris Grimes:

And Vores is, as it sounds, V-A-U-S-E.

Louis Vause:

Yeah, l-o-u-i-s.

Chris Grimes:

V for Vauxhall, a-u-s. For Sugar E. As this has been your moment in the sunshine in the Good, listening To Show Stories of Distinction and Genius and this special Legacy Life Reflections episode, is there anything else you'd like to say, louis?

Louis Vause:

No, well, it carries on, doesn't it? I'm just recovering from lymphoma now. Well, that's where the latest album has come from me playing piano and not quite understanding where all the work I was doing was coming from through a fever dream of you know. So was coming from through a fever dream of you know. So you know that's another album that's come out of interesting circumstances, I'm happy to say. By the way that I've recovered, I'm delighted that you have so till the next time.

Chris Grimes:

Whatever happens next, I'm fine. So, ladies and gentlemen, you've been listening to the delight that has been Louis Vores. I've been Chris Gromes and tune in next week for more stories from the Clearing, and thank you so much, louis. You've been listening to the Good Listening To Show here on UK Health Radio with me, chris Gromes oh, it's my son. If you've enjoyed the show, then please do tune in next week to listen to more stories from the Clearing. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, then please do so. There's also a dedicated Facebook group for the show too. You can contact me about the programme or, if you'd be interested in experiencing some personal impact coaching with me.

Chris Grimes:

Care of my Level Up. That's chris. At second curve dot uk on twitter and instagram, it's at that, chris grimes. So until next time for me, chris grimes from uk health radio. I'm from stan. To your good health and goodbye, louis. Thank you so much for gracing us with your presence here in the good listening to show. If I can just get your immediate feedback on what that was like to be curated through this structure?

Louis Vause:

Good. I mean, the only problem with it was my mind was teeming with stories and you know I've got a whole list here of things I haven't said. Yeah, one of the things Melody says to me quite frequently is I've heard that one Dad, yeah, that's the, whatever it is one. So yeah, it's quite it was. The good thing about it was they were limited to four, three, two. Yes, because I did do a madness type of blog for a madness fan sign. She asked me a question. 45 minutes later she asked me the second question. I'm not quite sure.

Chris Grimes:

And your relationship and your closeness to the Madness Squad. I mean that was so exciting as well, because Suggsy has always been a bit of a hero in my mind.

Louis Vause:

Yeah, Well, they all wrote, they all write. So you get different combinations of mcpherson, barson, barson, form and, yes, you know, there's no lennon mccartney in that band.

Chris Grimes:

they all, yeah, different combinations, which I think is almost unique yes, and I know that you've worked with the guitar player, the saxophononist, probably Suggsy himself. You've been there. You've been with Jules Holland as well.

Louis Vause:

Well, not with. I've been on his show, yeah, later. I won't tell you the earlier story about Jules or the two. God, you can if you like, but maybe not. But yeah.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah, you can if you like, but maybe not.

Louis Vause:

But yeah, yeah, it's. You know a story. I've admitted, of course, is the George Harrison couple of those as well. He was marvellous and, yeah, I've got to say that life has been a bit of a surprise and you what's the well, just give me the top line of the George Harrison story.

Louis Vause:

About my biggest hit something, and I said, yeah, I know that what he's supposed to say and this was my first meeting he said, well, I was just messing around on the piano and I just moved the thumb down, one note at a time. You know, and that's how I wrote that, and you know, it's true, c, c, major. You know, just move your thumb down and for the middle bit, a minor, move your thumb down. It's there. So there's a simplicity in brilliance. It's always amused me that what breg's an article, probably the finest song of the 20th century, is described by george himself as just move the thumb down, one note at a time and, as I say, brilliance in the, in the, at the core, which is simplicity, which is often the way, isn't it yeah?

Louis Vause:

and the genius in the way he put it together, yeah, but um, uh.

Chris Grimes:

And then hearing him say to danny, get your hair cut uh, just while we're there, I mean is is it, is it inappropriate to tell the Jules Holland story?

Louis Vause:

I don't know.

Chris Grimes:

We don't have to go there.

Louis Vause:

Lee Thompson's Scar Orchestra were with. We were supporting that's right. No, it wasn't. It was the Nutty Boys supporting the Jules Holland Orchestra. And a girl came into the dressing room and said you know what? You've got more in your little finger than he's got in his entire body, pointing at jewels, which embarrassed me, and he stormed off there you go quite drunk, but uh, uh, that's one of them.

Chris Grimes:

Well, you are a great amongst the greats is what I'm hearing now, which is fantastic, and thank you so much. That's one of them. Well, you are a great amongst the greats is what I'm hearing now, which is fantastic, and thank you so much. That's been. That was a really wonderful episode.

Louis Vause:

Thank you so much, okay all right and uh, yes, I look forward to hearing rhoda yes, thank you very much.

Chris Grimes:

Another quick postscript, captain's log supplemental. Uh, charlie higson gifted you with the golden baton and I just wanted to check in on your ongoing long association with charlie hickson.

Louis Vause:

Well, yes, I've worked with him on many things. Swiss tony fast show, blah, blah, blah down the line fantastically funny thing to do for radio 4 at the moment. He's was really impressed with my memoir and he doesn't impress easily and is helping me with his contacts on a publisher or a literary agent. Initially, it's a very important thing, memoir, I think. Well, lawyers have said it's vital. Yes, with the family courts and legal aid being what it is now, it's worse for children than it ever was. But, as Charlie said, it's also incredibly well written. It's compelling, it's funny, it's, you know, disturbing, it's everything.

Chris Grimes:

That's a really good description. I would say that's exactly it. It is really funny and also disturbing. Is it in its complete form on your website? Because it looks like you've given the whole thing?

Louis Vause:

oh, no, this this memoir is 165 000 words long gosh, wow, wow okay.

Louis Vause:

So it needs cutting down and I can't see a way of doing it, neither at the moment. Charlie's saying leave it as it is. We need someone who's got a vision to how to use it. So we're, at the moment he's sending out the first 10,000 words to various people. We've had one refusal, but a refusal you know. The literary agents said this is a vital book. This is, you know, extraordinarily well written. It's long, but it's a tribute to your writing and it didn't feel long. If that makes any sense?

Chris Grimes:

yes, and as we know, some of the best tomes of whatever creative entity have often been turned down by four or five, either music labels or publishers first. So you're in good company.

Louis Vause:

Yeah, I mean so that's just the one we've had. So chad is helping me with that at the moment and we, you know the whole UEA lot. All of us are still very close. There was something about that year in the UEA. Yes.

Chris Grimes:

And I went to see the Fast Show and Charlie was kind enough to let me have a ticket to go and see him at the Bristol Beacon. I'm based in Bristol and I absolutely adored it as a sort of rollercoaster of nostalgia.

Louis Vause:

It was just so lovely. Yes, well, you know, paul keeps thinking he's going to be found out because he was like that in the pub. That's what he did.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, uh, and now they're paying me for it. Yeah, he's lovely. He reminds me my all-time comic hero is stan laurel, and so he he's very reminiscent of that. Yes, wonderful. Um, thank you so much, louie. Really enjoyable and a pleasure and a delight to meet you.