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No more anthems – my Bohemian Rhapsody

I saw the film last Monday at cinema club with Stuart.

It’s completely extraordinary and you have to see it.

On that day in July 1985, Live Aid, I came back from town on the Peter Hart bus after I had met my friend Kevin Judge for chips and on and off I watched the afternoon of Live Aid (some of it wasn’t great and jumped between America and the UK as they set the stage up for different bands)

I watched Queen.

It feels like I can remember every single minute of that set.

I remember Freddie singing Bohemian Rhapsody at the start with the saliva spitting out of his mouth onto his microphone.

I wasn’t a Queen fan but I was absolutely transfixed.

The funny thing is that I didn’t know what had gone on behind the scenes. Later I found out about what happened to Freddie in Munich, what he’d done, but I didn’t realise he had been diagnosed with HIV in the week leading up to Live Aid.

I didn’t realise that he was begging the band to get back together after they had got to the point where they were ‘sick of anthems’

I loved that. Live Aid shaped my life. It taught me about altruism and empathy and causes that were greater than myself and, as a 13-year-old, I was a sponge for that stuff. It was all Amnesty International, Simple Minds and U2 and Live Aid.

But the bit that struck me the most was the being ‘sick of anthems’.

Queen had played in Rio de Janeiro to the biggest paying audience of all time and they got bored because there would always be another one coming along in minute. The old ones of us now, the cynics, the battered soldiers, we know that won’t always be the case.

In July 1985 I was a 13-year-old, under 13’s basketball player and a year later I took my team to the Scottish cup final. We were leading with 3 minutes to go when our Captain got fouled out and had to leave the field, losing us the match and the cup – and the Captain was me.

I was devastated when my coach said to me “you can carry these dirty strips because you don’t have the Scottish cup to carry”

But he was right.

But it was alright… there’ll be another one along in a minute.

And there was. In January 1987 we played Ireland in Dundee and we lost by 3 points. One of our team had a 3 point shot in the last 3 seconds to tie the game and he missed – and it was me.

And I was devastated. But it’s alright…there’ll be another one along in a minute.

It wasn’t that I was bored of anthems but it was fine because they just kept coming. Games against Wales and England, Scottish cup semi-finals, Scottish cup finals.

All of a sudden they weren’t there anymore and later I would try to get them back again, but as a fat, older, arrogant former international basketball player, it was never going to happen.

So I learned that this stuff finishes and that it’s ‘already late’

I learned that in 1986 as I sat behind the stands and listened to my team lose in the Scottish cup final by 2 points.

I would get to one more Scottish cup final but it wasn’t even close.

I would learn it in the aftermath of the Ireland defeat a year later (we never beat Ireland after than – we never came close)

We are all, it seems, so bad at not appreciating the right now, forgetting that as we walk around the next corner there could be tragedy right in front of our face.

I saw a patient on Monday. I have been looking after him on and off for 15 years, since I was ‘the dentist at Bilborough’ which is one of the most socially challenging areas of Nottingham. He has followed me around the city and he’s nearly blind now. He tells everybody he can that I am ‘the master’ – he is a bit deluded!!

I sat with him and listened to what was wrong then offered him the best solution I could (including funding his taxis to and from the practice to access the treatment)

This is what I do and that is what I do and I will miss it when it’s gone.

You never know how long you will have left at the things that are a privilege, even if they don’t feel like a privilege every single time you do them.

By Colin Campbell on 24/11/18 18:00