Rod Clements saw considerable chart success with folk-rockers Lindisfarne, penning their hit Meet Me On The Corner. Now a solo artist, he is currently recording a new album. Rod is proud to have worked with the late, great Bert Jansch, and he continues to collaborate with various other musical kindred spirits including Michael Chapman, Rachel Harrington and Rab Noakes. We trust you’ll enjoy the latest of Rod’s regular musings in which you’ll find he’s NICELY OUT OF TUNE Recently I had the pleasure of flying to Shetland for a gig. The pleasure, I should say, lay in the visit to Shetland, not in the flight, which – although domestic – was the familiar ordeal by security that has come to characterise air travel. Before boarding, everybody meekly endured the usual rigmarole of unpacking and semi-undressing in a hangar full of total strangers, and having our bottles of water confiscated. The welcome I received at Mareel, Lerwick’s stunning new arts centre, made it all worthwhile. But the journey got me thinking about a time before the fear of mad-eyed shoe-bombers and waves of illegal immigrants changed travel from being an adventure to a state of latent anxiety in which you’re constantly being reminded to expect the worst. Once in the early seventies, as Lindisfarne were returning by ferry from a short European tour, Alan Hull and I happened to find ourselves in the bar with fresh pints just as the boat was about to dock. The others had already left for the car deck. I suggested to Alan that we should sup up and get a move on, but he was in no mood to hurry (he rarely was). True enough, though the bar was thinning out, there remained enough drinkers to provide reassurance that there was no need for panic just yet. After a while Alan got up to answer the call of nature. I gulped down the remains of my pint, stood up and shouldered my bag – to be greeted by the sight of Alan returning from the bar with two more pints. He was clearly on a mission. He sat down with the relaxed air of one settling into his favourite corner of the pub for a long Saturday afternoon. By this time the few remaining customers had been replaced by cleaners, and I was certain we would soon be given our marching orders. We felt the boat docking and saw the first trucks trundling off. But despite my warnings about getting left behind, possibly clapped in irons and forced to cross and re-cross the North Sea again without access to the bar, Alan refused to be moved until his pint was finished in a leisurely manner and it was obvious that there was no more to be had. There was no point arguing. We picked our way through empty corridors and down staircases in search of our blue Transit minibus. Eventually we stumbled into the harsh afternoon sunlight flooding through the ferry’s open jaws and glancing off the wet surface of the deserted car-deck. No vehicles, no passengers, no crew, nobody. We headed for the light, and up the ramp onto dry land. Some way ahead of us we could see the passport control and customs area. A few uniformed officials looked as though they were tidying up after dealing with the last passengers. Not wishing to put them to any further trouble, we looked for an alternative exit. To our left, a low wire fence separated the empty car-park from an open field. We could hear and see the distant traffic on the main road beyond. We crossed the field and found ourselves in a layby just as a familiar blue Transit minibus appeared and pulled in. Alan climbed into the front passenger seat, lit up a Benson & Hedges and immersed himself in his newspaper. Nothing was said. I don’t think the incident was ever referred to again. We couldn’t have got away with it now, of course. But we’d have more sense than to get into that situation in the first place, wouldn’t we?