Be More Moore
“Mr. Blue, you did it right
But soon comes Mr. Night creepin’ over
Now his hand is on your shoulder
Never mind, I’ll remember you this
I’ll remember you this way
Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long (so long)
Where did we go wrong?
Hey there Mr. Blue (sky)
We’re so pleased to be with you (sky)
Look around see what you do (blue)
Everybody smiles at you”
Jeff Lynne
Yesterday was a good day.
I made a card for Mam’s friend Mrs. Whitmarsh’s birthday. Mam and Mrs.Whitmarsh , along with Mrs.Hurley, have been friends since they were four or five years of age and all living in Fr.Murray Park in Dundalk. Whenever I think of Mrs.Whitmarsh, I think of the Electric Light Orchestra, ELO, and the famous logo/album cover. I remember seeing that album in her house and it looked so different to the Denis Rousseau and Mary Poppins soundtrack albums that we had in our house. Mrs. Whitmarsh has always been cool.
Happy Birthday Mrs. Whitmarsh !
My favourite ELO song is Mr. Blue Sky, mostly because it was the opening and closing song on The Magic Roundabout movie that the kids and my Soulmate and I adored, and watched so often that we wore out three copies of the DVD.
And I also thing of Richard Moore when I hear the song.
Yesterday morning I got a message from Richard with a link to a podcast, ‘From The Horse’s Mouth’, which this week featured himself and the great project he started , One Equine Trust, which seeks to facilitate equine assisted learning and therapy to those in need of them. In very simple terms he saw the benefits of spending time on or with a horse on severely autistic children had on their learning and became an advocate for making more people aware of those benefits and connecting learning institutions, the horse world, and health and government departments.
He loves a challenge.
I listened to the podcast while having my breakfast. There was just enough milk left for a decent cup of tea, and I spilt it when I laughed as Richard referred to something as ‘Woo-woo’ in his lovely North Down accent. It was worth it.
I was listening to it later at work while I was writing the ‘other’ blog, the Brix one, and several times I stopped and rewound it a bit to take in more details of the wonderful work and his passionate explanation of it. The whole thing is a sheer joy. This is a link to it.
I left work to go to my reflexology appointment. I always feel better after my appointments with Edel, but I don’t always think that Edel feels the same. Unfortunately, my feet can spasm sometimes and it seems to interrupt our sessions every so often. The more I try not to think about it, the more likely it seems to happen. Edel apologises, and I feel guilty. But yesterday I sat back and I still had Richard’s voice in my head, and I smiled and relaxed and thought back to different times we’d met.
Back in 2008 I was introduced to a business network/commune called Vistage. It was quite American in lots of ways, good American I hasten to add, there were no plots to invade Greenland. It consisted of groups of CEOs and Managing Directors , usually between 12 and 20, all from disparate, non-competing industries, and led by a facilitator/tribal leader/guru. The group I ultimately joined was led by Edmund, who was wise, patient and kind, all three of which I tested to their limits. On my very first day visiting the group I was seated beside Richard, and I can truly say that my life has been different ever since.
The Vistage group meant a lot to me. A lot of the time I felt like an imposter among all of these actual business people with actual businesses, but that feeling came from me, every single member of the group went out of their way to welcome and support me. It was an incredibly difficult time in my life and I don’t think I’d have made it through, in every sense , without them. The best thing Vistage ever did for me was to give me the friendship of Aran, Clare, Edel, Robert, and Richard. I was only a member for 4 years, and that ended in 2011, but the friendship persists.
During my time there Ricard got involved in a charity called Water Aid. This was a charity that dug wells in African villages so that girls didn’t have to spend all day travelling miles to a river to fetch water for cooking and cleaning, and could put that new found spare time towards education. Richard was invited to visit Uganda to see the charity at work and came back determined to help. At our next meeting this soft spoken group father figure broke down in tears telling us about his trip and how the charity’s work changed the lives of so many. We all offered to help. We organised a fundraiser where we got sponsored to carry a 5 gallon water can up Slieve Donard. Twenty of us took part in a wet, wild, windy and wonderful day.
Richard’s next fundraiser was an auction. I couldn’t make it. Someone had donated a donkey as a lot. I spoke to Richard the next day.
“How’d it go ?”
“Grand. We had a great night.”
“Did anyone bid on the donkey ?”
“Which one ?”
“How many were there ?”
“Two.”
“Did they go for much ?”
“A lot more than I expected.”
“Jeepers ! Who goes to an auction to buy a donkey ??”
“Me !”
“You bought a donkey at your own auction ?”
“No, Paul, I bought two donkeys at my charity auction.”
“Why did you buy the second one ?”
“Ach Paul, you couldn’t have just one wee donkey on it’s own, it’d be lonely.”
That’s Richard.
With the exception of my Soulmate, no one has encouraged me more in my writing. I published a book ‘The Christmas Kakapo’ based on a story I told my kids one Christmas, featuring themselves as characters, and a flightless parrot called Dave. Richard insisted on hosting a dinner in Belfast to celebrate. It was an epic evening.
He also introduced me to , and insisted I speak at Ten x 9 in Belfast on a semi-regular basis for a number of years. Every single one of those occasions became an event. I would drive to Bangor, throw my bag into Richard and Joan’s house, we’d get the train into Belfast, have dinner near the Black Box theatre, have a bottle of wine with dinner, have great craic, almost forget that we had to go to Ten x 9 , and run there in time to make my slot. Then we’d go back to Bangor, open a bottle of wine, Ricard would fall asleep, Joan and I would open another bottle and stay up until the wee hours talking about art, life , love , and Richard…in that order. Every one of those evenings have been a joy. Over the years we’ve been joined on occasion by some of our former Vistage buddies, and my Dad, our Jake, my evil Goddottir, Ger, and my Soulmate, and they all talk about Richard and Joan afterwards…and never mention the talk I’ve given.
The single best thing about Richard is that he has absolutely no idea how wonderful he is. This can be endearing and incredibly frustrating at the same time. His fundraising efforts for Water Aid provided two drilling rigs which have gone on to provide countless wells across Uganda and Tanzania, and if you ever say to Richard how great that is, he’ll say “Ach sure all I did was buy a couple of wee donkeys.”
I hesitate to refer to Richard as a catalyst for good, simply because the definition of a catalyst is something that increases the rate of reaction in a substance without itself being consumed. Richard is always consumed to some degree by whatever it is that he’s accelerating the progress of.
This One Equine Trust has been a passion of his for at least 5 years now. But that’s only in it’s present form. He got involved with a group that Joan had volunteered with in Bangor which simply, and wonderfully, helped differently abled kids ride horses many years before that. He then accidently bought a book called Horse Boy. Technically you never buy a book by accident. He didn’t fall into a shop, grab a book to save himself and throw money at the till in gratitude…although knowing Richard, that could actually have happened. But no, he bought the book thinking it was about trekking on a horse through Mongolia, and discovered that it was written by a father detailing the journey he went on with his wife to raise their very autistic son and how a chance encounter with a neighbour’s horse changed everything.
Of course, you never really read a book by accident. That book was meant for Richard. Finally , after many years of looking for true meaning in every single self help book ever written, Richard found it in a book he bought by accident.
I love that.
I also love Richard.
I’m meeting him in Belfast tomorrow for dinner and a gig, along with some of the other amazing people I’m fortunate to call friends. Most of them I’ve known for many , many years, some since school, none of them have met Richard yet. They’re in for a treat !
Listen to the podcast !
The world would be a better place if we were all a little more Moore.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is ELO’s Mr Blue Sky, for Mr.Moore
