2009

There are no images and I have no records for this year, apart from my diary entries. We did perform at Barrow in Furness in June, but not again until September.

On Saturday 12^th September 2009, The Pierrotters gave their final performance in Morecambe, where we had so often played over the past decade. After 26 years (more than half of my life up until that point), this was to be our final year. It was a sad demise, for although it was a successful gig in Morecambe and the large crowds enjoyed the show, The Rotters were not at ease with one another. Our fierce camaraderie and joyful bravura had seeped away, to be replaced by a creeping sense of despondency and tiredness. I guess that like many touring acts and boy bands, both before and since, the exuberant energy of youth had dissipated and the act was weary of itself. Taffy Thomas – an old friend and legendary storyteller came up to me after the gig and said “It was great to watch you and the other Rotters, Uncle – you performed brilliantly… exactly the same material as I saw you do twenty years ago!” He was right, for although some of the content remained in the repertoire, we could always put across a good show for the crowd, but it had ceased to be fun for ourselves.

I remember feeling exhausted and overcome with an awareness that we no longer looked-out for eachother. I was certainly in a vulnerable state, for my cobb-constructed home in Devon had recently collapsed on top of me and the family – nearly killing four of us. We had been living in emergency housing for the previous 12 months and I had neither the financial resources nor the mental resilience to maintain the act any longer.

We never formally ended The Pierrotters, we drifted into a torpor and eventually, oblivion. The creation of this website has been the first time that I have re-opened the Pierrotter archives, prompted by the opportunity for reflection provided by the current crisis of the 2020 pandemic. It has been facilitated by emergency Covid-19 funding from the Arts Council of England and has provided a means of closure on what was a truly beautiful, joyful and loving 26 years of my life.