Andy's Tribute to BRIAN PATTEN

Once again, I don’t know where to start, writing of the death of my old friend and colleague Brian Patten.

Brian and I met in 1965; we were both 19. He was already the real deal, a seasoned contributor to the Liverpool scene. Poet and publisher. Later he added playwright and novelist to the list of his accomplishments.

Our earliest collaborations were recorded by Mike Steyn, in London, but Brian never sought out music in the way that Roger McGough and Adrian Henri did in the early years of 66 and 67. I guess he felt there was music enough in his words and I can attest to that. Brian‘s innate lyricism was a perfect partner to Adrian‘s painterly eye and Rogers scalpel wit and observation through poetry. He certainly worked hard at it. Many a night I would be wandering back to 64 Canning Street from the pub and Brian would be framed in the front window of his flat in Huskisson Street, working at his typewriter. His keyboard skills had been honed by his job as a young reporter on the Bootle Times.

He had a real wanderlust; he wanted to stand apart from the more showbiz elements of the Liverpool poetry school. He had already rejected the chance to join Adrian, Roger and me on what became our first record together in 1967. We were all a bit miffed when he moved to Winchester, though he came back to Liverpool, and eventually moved to London at the start of the 70s.

We really clicked once my time in the Liverpool Scene band was over. Brian had started writing plays for children at the Everyman Theatre, and I was contributing music to them. Happy train journeys to Liverpool followed, as I was back home in London as well. His imagination was wonderful and once he settled into an extended period with GRIMMS, he developed a highly theatrical onstage persona. He would appear in white face, with clown make up. I particularly enjoyed an illusion that he created, where he would read his poem The Right Mask, a dystopian comment on his own art in lyrical form, and at the end he would tear off his hair, to reveal his own hair! He had been wearing an exact replica of his trademark shock of curls. It was a masterly coup de théatre, aided and abetted by Mary Moore, his long time companion. In a similar vein he wrote Good Evening Ladies And Gentlemen to open one GRIMMS tour: it ended “The pianist has been shot in advance, the clowns certified long before this performance began, and if our show’s not to your liking may we suggest you face one another and assess from what we have drawn our material?” A counter to these rather astringent works was his beautiful poem An Interruption At The Opera House, where a lone nightingale magically reclaims the music from the evening’s lavish presentation.

Brian finally found more rich musical bonds with Neil Innes and sometimes Zoot Money during our years of touring. The blend of humour and whimsy was his special talent in those years, as shown in The Prophet, recorded for the Rocking Duck album, Once GRIMMS was done there were 2 standout albums under his own name - Vanishing Trick with contributions from a host of collaborators, Mike Westbrook, the yet to be married Richard Thompson and Linda Peters, Neil Innes again, Norma Winstone and Joy Yates. In 1977 came another standout - The Sly Cormorant with a brilliant collaged score from Brian Gascoigne, and shared readings with Cleo Laine. With its accompanying book, this collection was the first but not the last time Brian dived into the task of reimagining Aesop’s fables. His love of nature would be a constant in his life. When Sally and I visited Brian and Linda in Dittisham, only a few years ago, he was glowing with pride at the badgers who emerged into their garden in the late evening.

It wasn’t always sweetness and light with Brian. He came from a tough upbringing, and who knows what he might have had to endure growing up with so little conventional love in his life. He certainly had a confrontational streak. He provoked Mike McCartney into dropping out of GRIMMS after a spat on the tour bus, and there was a highly charged incident in a restaurant in the Lake District when the Liverpool poets, with myself and Willy Russell toured as Words On The Run in 1996. Only a tense forum the following morning ensured we could stay together for one more night to complete the run of shows. It was a close run thing. This turn of events was a disappointment, because Brian, in his midlife collections, Storm Damage, and then most notably Armada, had hit the heights; the latter dealt with his mother’s death in such a compelling way, with raw emotion laid bare, and of course the book contained his homage to Neruda, So Many Different Lengths Of Time, which has justifiably found its resonance in so many hearts at times of grief.

In contrast, his collections for children from the 80s on sparkled with sly anti-authoritarianism. He delighted in being read and taught in schools despite the subversion in his material. Kids loved him. Sadly, Brian’s health was on a precipice for many years, it seemed, with remissions and then new disorders cycling through his life. He would happily accompany Linda in her work as a travel writer, the suntan masking his underlying problems, but his friends knew this time would inevitably come.

I always enjoyed his company; the sound of his voice, with its idiosyncratic grammar and pronunciation, was like cream in your coffee. I shall miss him terribly. Brian was the real deal, and where shall we find another?

 

ANDY ROBERTS

(October 2025)

BELOW is a London Weekend Television ALIVE AND KICKING poetry programme presented by Adrian Mitchell, and recorded and broadcast in 1971.

" The best British poet to be born since the war..."

Adrian Mitchell

www.brianpatten.com