{"id":75,"date":"2014-03-20T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=75"},"modified":"2014-03-19T19:32:02","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T19:32:02","slug":"march-20th-our-eurovision-song-contest-entry-dont-lose-sight-of-my-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=75","title":{"rendered":"March 20th – Our Eurovision Song Contest Entry – “Don’t Lose Sight Of My Shore”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scan<\/a><\/p>\n

“Recording “Don’t Lose Sight of My Shore”<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/02-Dont-Lose-Sight-of-My-Shore-2.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

“Don’t Lose Sight Of My Shore” featuring Louise Rednapp and Cole – arrangement John “Hodge” Hodgkinson<\/p>\n

First some apologies. The tutor group that started the \u201cProm\u201d was not in fact my first tutor group. I had earlier inherited a tutor group from Miss Sue Jones when they were in Year 3 (Year 9) So my apologies to Julie Toomer was Windsor, Kevin Vass and all the rest of that class. Apologies also to Miss Jones who I forgot to say, \u00a0in blog of March 6,th,<\/sup> was the original Music Teacher. \u00a0I have also had other great tutor groups- \u00a0the one which included Si Cook and Nikki Miller, the one which included Kate Russell and Rich Martin – (Ricky Martin who won The Apprentice 2013 ) The \u00a0tutor group which included Rachel Vardy and Aaron Beale and my last one which included Ali Tut and Chloe Hawksey.<\/p>\n

Also apologies to all the sports teams that I have not yet mentioned such as the Hampshire Basketball Winners which included James Shearsmith, Zaine Brookes and Alex Adams. The Hampshire Basketball Cup Runners up which included Chris Shearsmith, Simon Shields \u00a0and Andy Wilkinson. The National Cup Basketball stars who included Matt Ancell, Nigel Kershaw and Mark Sandford. The Hampshire Cup Football winners which included Jon McTernan, Neil McRoberts and Andy Davis.<\/p>\n

I feel I also should take this opportunity to put the record straight to admit that I did leave one of my tutor group up the Eiffel Tower during a weekend trip to Paris.\u00a0 It was however an initiative test which he passed with flying colours. He managed to communicate to a friendly \u00a0Gendarme \u201cJe suis perdu et mon Professeur est un idiot\u201d \u00a0and the friendly Gendarme got us reunited at our next port of call which might have been The Louvre or some other small Parisian attraction! No mobile phones in those days by the way.<\/p>\n

My son Chris and Jez Field passed a similar initiative test when I left them at Gatwick Airport after returning from a trip to U.S.A.\u00a0 I realised they were missing when we were about 30 minutes from \u00a0eaching Stubbington. The coach driver did not mind turning around at all (not!) I am sure Chris and Jez stayed calm knowing that we would return (eventually.) Jez\u2019s mum did speak to me again but I think it took about ten years.<\/p>\n

So with all this going on at school the music took a backseat until one day I went for a meal at the home of Mrs Jan Davies and her husband Barry. \u00a0Jan was the first PE teacher at Crofton, having started a year earlier than me when the school was housed in the temporary accommodation at Crofton Hammond.\u00a0 Jan had twin boys Tudor and Alun.\u00a0 Tudor was really into music (he now works for the BBC Sound Department) and had a keyboard in his bedroom.\u00a0 I left the adults downstairs drinking coffee (which is a pet hate of mine) and went to chat to Tudor.\u00a0 He played me some stuff on his keyboard and I hesitantly asked if he could play something if I sang it to him (apologising profusely about my voice of course) I sang him a new song I had made up \u201cDon\u2019t Lose Sight of My Shore\u201d\u00a0 Again not the happiest of lyrics – \u201cWhen you start your journey tonight , have to leave my arms once more, please don\u2019t forget all that\u2019s been said don\u2019t lose sight of my shore. Stay in touch with my touch, let my emotions still soar, keep my hand within reach, don\u2019t lose sight of my shore\u201d<\/p>\n

To hear him play the melody back, which up to then I had only heard in my head, was utterly amazing.\u00a0 He then played \u201cIf Love Had Never Died\u201d and some of the other songs I had made up. I went home buzzing.<\/p>\n

Next day I went to see my mate John Hodgkinson (Mr Hodge) who was Crofton\u2019s Head of Science and also a brilliant musician, in fact he played in a band with Tudor – \u201cTrilogy.\u201d When I told John what had happened the night before he said \u201c I can do that. My nickname is Xerox<\/i>–\u00a0 I can copy anything. \u201c \u00a0Sing me your song.\u201d \u201cNo way\u201d \u00a0\u00a0I said whilst secretly hoping he would persist- which he did. So that break -time I sang to John \u201cDon\u2019t Lose Sight of my Shore\u201d which continued\u201c For we made magic held each other spellbound but our love was no illusion just the truth that we both found\u201d<\/p>\n

John was quiet when I had finished and then said\u201c We had better record that- come over to my place – I have a recording studio\u201d\u00a0 And that\u2019s what happened.\u00a0 We then got a girl in my tutor group Louise Rednapp to record\u00a0 a somewhat better version than my effort and later we decided that it worked better as a duet so we added the voice of a guy called Cole who was lead singer in another band that Tudor played in -\u201cYellow Cab\u201d<\/p>\n

And\u00a0 then we sent it off to record companies and believe it or not\u00a0 we got a \u00a0phone call from a record company that had produced a big hit – \u201cI love Rock and Roll\u201d by Joan \u00a0Jett and the Blackhearts. They said they wanted to use \u201cDon\u2019t lose sight of my Shore\u201d for their Eurovision Song Contest Entry – Fame at last ? – I\u2019ll tell you in next week\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Recording “Don’t Lose Sight of My Shore” “Don’t Lose Sight Of My Shore” featuring Louise Rednapp and Cole – arrangement John “Hodge” Hodgkinson First some apologies. The tutor group that started the \u201cProm\u201d was not in fact my first tutor group. I had earlier inherited a tutor group from Miss Sue Jones when they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}