The first piece of music was Fauré’s ‘Requiem’. Kirsty had loved this piece, and at the age of about 12 had put a note on the record sleeve that she wanted it played at her funeral. We wanted someone who could talk about Kirsty with some understanding and, after speaking to her friends, Glen Colson recommended a humanist officiant to take the part played by religious figures in traditional ceremonies.
Kirsty’s friend Ronnie Harris also spoke. He said that Kirsty had always given a percentage of her earnings to charity and always checked the annual accounts. He had a collection of toy frogs and wherever she travelled, she always managed to return with a new one for him. I had recorded my own contribution on tape, a memory of Kirsty’s childhood, when she had insisted on feeding foxes and badgers, and this recording was played. Hamish, much more bravely than me, spoke live but couldn’t finish his tribute. The Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’ was played.
In a moving address, James spoke of their love, quoting Tennyson’s lines:
‘’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.’
‘All I have are photos, records, memories,’ wrote James:
but mine are so strong that they’re burning a hole through my head and my heart. We promised each other we would be together until the very end, that we would never break each other’s hearts. Well, my heart is broken, Kirsty: the only promise of yours that somebody else broke for you. And I know how angry you are because I can still feel you inside me, but I know you died safe in my love for you – knowing you were cherished and admired and most of all loved completely by me and the boys.
I want to be anecdotal, but there are too many and this is too hard. I’ll just read what I wrote in my Valentine’s card to you last year. ‘Kirsty, I love waking up with you (like now). I love going to bed with you. I love holding you, touching you, being fiercely protective of you, being proud of you, being part of your life. I love you with everything I am and everything I hope to be. Yours always, James.’
I’ll leave Kirsty to tell you how she felt about me. This song was the last she wrote, and the only one we ever wrote together. I’ll end by saying that no matter how many years go by, I’ll always love you, Kirsty. You were the one for me, and I the one for you.
Kirsty’s recording of ‘Good For Me’, with James on the saxophone, was then played, reinforcing in music our sense of that loving relationship as words alone could not. The ceremony ended with ‘Remember Me’ by the Blue Boy Band.
After the service, as I looked at the flowers outside, a line of people formed, wishing to shake my hand and offer words of comfort. Among the many faces in the line, I seemed to recognise one elderly gentleman in particular, but could not put a name to him. When he came up to greet me, however, I realised with a shock that it was my own brother Pip. Then 84 years old, he was wearing a thin summer’s suit, having just disembarked from a Saga cruise ship a few hours before. I think Hamish, James and I were all operating on autopilot.
Back at home, we had arranged for a marquee to cover the back of the house and part of the garden. There were many guests I didn’t know – mostly people working in the music industry – and there were also many guests that James didn’t know, such as old family friends, and so on. There was such a strong sense of belonging, however, that many introductions and a good number of friendships were forged that day. I was surprised to see the actress June Brown among the crowd. When we shook hands, she told me she and Kirsty had once worked together.
The long and difficult day came to an end. We had done our best, but I knew we had also been sustained by the love and generosity of so many of Kirsty’s friends. Meeting and talking with them, sharing stories and even a few jokes, was a very healing experience. I think we must all have slept a little better that night.
April 2006
Five years after Kirsty’s death, when my grandsons had left school, I asked them where they would like to see their mother’s ashes scattered. ‘Cuba,’ they replied, a country she had loved and had visited many times, taking the boys with her on two occasions. And so at last in April 2006, a small group of us went to Havana on our special pilgrimage – Kirsty’s partner James, her brother Hamish, her son Louis, then 19, and my old friend Denise. Kirsty’s close musician friends Pete Glenister and Dave Ruffy – who had worked with her on Tropical Brainstorm and knew of her great love for the island – also joined us with their wives. I also invited Nigel Reeve from EMI, who had worked so hard to put together the 2005 anthology of Kirsty’s music, From Croydon to Cuba.
As the boat travelled out to sea for a short distance and then drew parallel to the distant Havana coastline, we were suddenly aware that we were being followed by a flying fish, which caused great excitement among the otherwise silent crew. Flying fish had never been seen in that area before. We were all of us conscious that the cover art of Kirsty’s last CD, Tropical Brainstorm, had featured a flying fish under a sunny sky and over turquoise waters. We all felt that she was with us. A voice whispered in my ear: ‘Granny, how much further do we have to go? I don’t like boats.’ It was then that I realised how truly courageous Louis had been to come out with us on this boat.
The boat came to a stop. I said a few words, and as the close family scattered her ashes into the sea, her friend Omar played a piece he had specially written for Kirsty on his violin. Pete and Dave were wearing the Havana shirts Kirsty had bought them. Louis spent a long time looking down into the water and then turned to me with a glowing smile on his face. With this sudden change of mood he had become more relaxed as he tried to explain that he had seen an extraordinary vision. I think it affected him profoundly and I am sure it is an experience he will treasure for the rest of his life. The rest of us were strangely comforted by the flying fish, and our dark mood lightened a little. The gentle breeze, blue sky and warm sun on the way back encouraged us to reminisce over happier times with Kirsty and on reaching the shore we raised our glasses to her and her shimmering, flying spirit.
1959–1963
‘Mummy, was I born in Octember or Noctover?’
KIRSTY MACCOLL TO JEAN MACCOLL, 1963
The glorious Indian summer of 1959 came to an end late in the Saturday afternoon of 10 October, when I remember hearing the rumble of thunder. It heralded the birth of my baby and by early evening I was the proud mother of a beautiful eight-pound baby girl. I had already chosen a name: Kirsty. I asked the nurse to be sure to put the name band on her immediately, but I needn’t have worried: there was no mistaking the soft, reddish down on her head.
That evening our doctor friend Arron dropped in to admire the new arrival and report back to Hamish. Ewan visited the following day. After a difficult few years when he was in denial over his true feelings – wanting to work in the folk-song world after giving up the theatre, but at the same time wanting to save our marriage – he and I had become reconciled. We planned a future together, and I became pregnant. But Ewan had struggled with his conflicted feelings, as became clear when Peggy Seeger gave birth to his son in early 1959. Now committed to