Music At Night, Radio 4, May 1st 1968
(A harpsichord recital by my father, Alan Cuckston)
From a cupboard full of memories I did not share,
A store of music hidden on a reel,
Not catalogued or stored with any care,
Some minutes of your life I can reveal.
Hearing what they speak and yet conceal
The brilliance, the intellect, the flair,
Beside a tension none must sense you feel,
From a cupboard full of memories I did not share,
Some damaged now, beyond repair?
An obsolete machine now turns the wheel
And winds the tape on to its empty pair,
A store of music hidden on a reel,
Your playing now the means deep grief to heal,
Yet no intention of that kind is there,
Just pure musicianship expressed via brass and steel
Not catalogued or stored with any care,
But yet retained and so I dare
To dull my pain as by the heap I kneel
And bag up tapes to take to where
Some minutes of your life I can reveal
And sense the intellectual appeal
So lacking in this present day, so rare
When all is ‘relative’ and there’s a zeal
For dumbing down. I’ll send you out once more upon the air,
From a cupboard full of memories.
