Reel To Reel

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.