As you may or may not know our president is not averse to writing the odd poem or song! Over Christmas there was a documentary on the rugby league player Rob Burrow who has been struck down by the dreaded Motor Neurone Disease - which seems to disproportionately target sportsmen and women - and the great fundraising carried out by his team mate and friend Kevin Sinfield who ran seven marathons in seven days. Kevin wore Rob’s number 7 on his back with the aim of raising £77,000 ... he has smashed that many times over.
On the Saturday of his week long marathon he met Rob in his wheelchair outside Elland Road and the embrace of the two RL legends was an emotional moment that could not fail to bring a tear to the eye. “It certainly brought a tear to mine“ said Brian “and really moved me. I usually write my best songs when I’m ‘in the zone’ as it were and I wrote the outline for this one - ‘A True Pal’ - in only about 10 minutes. The tune came into my head shortly after”.
Brian gave his first performance of the song recently at the Baldock Virtual folk club that goes out every second Wednesday and thought no more about it other than it had gone down well from the likes received. So it was a bit of a surprise a few days later to answer a call from the Scottish and Lions legend Doddie Weir who had just heard the song.
“Brian my man ... you have made my day … your song really lifted me”. All Brian could say was “Doddie, you have made my week with the call!”
Brian told us “I have offered the song to the charity and maybe they can get a ‘name’ to sing it so who knows what could happen. I also sent him one I wrote about the Lions which I have also offered to the charity. So let’s hope that the combined inspiration from Rob to Kevin through me to Doddie can reap some real benefits to battle this cursed disease!” … watch this space!
Both songs are available below:
