The Gift that keeps on Giving

I've just come back from the French Alps where I told one evening the story of how, almost three decades earlier, I'd been given an amazing guitar by a complete stranger and how I'm still able to share that gift in places as diverse as schools, prisons, care homes and caves!

I was speaking to a group of fifty L'Arche assistants, mainly from France, and telling them that it was the tenth time that I was there on the team for the 'Walking Retreat.' I'd also come one time with Yim Soon. We had stayed in that stunning ski resort of St Pierre de Chartreuse, which nestles in the foothills of the Alps at an altitude of 900 metres. We had done some of the walks in the mountains that I've now done so many times but never tire of. We had had a cup of tea with the members of the Focolari community who run the large house where the L'Arche group stays for a week every June and who welcome us and feed us with such kindness.

Music is a central part of the retreat. I'm there with my aforementioned Ovation guitar. Emmanuel from France comes with guitar, banjo and a range of amps, mics and other equipment. We were also joined this year by Sofia on recorder and Stan on djembele. We sang in a variety of languages and, as usual, we made a great sound. And as part of my talk to the group I explained how I came to be in possession of such an incredible guitar.

It was 1995 and Yim Soon and I and our then six-month-old first child Kieran had been at a L'Arche event in Portland, Oregon called 'Renewal.' It was a wonderful ten weeks but I had my guitar stolen. Before returning to the UK we were due to spend three days with a Korean friend of Yim Soon in LA (who has the popular Korean surname of Kim) but Yim Soon had lost the address. We tried to find her name in the LA phone directory but there were hundreds of Kims so that didn't work! Yim Soon thought she remembered the address so we caught a taxi there but that address didn't exist! We had very little money left so got out of the taxi and wondered what to do. Yim Soon had the phone number of a Korean priest that we'd known in Canterbury. We found a phone box (no mobile phones in those days!) and called and he was in (he explained that he was due to go out in five minutes time!). We told him roughly where we were and he told us to wait. In the meantime a Korean family came past and we got chatting and they gave us some doughnuts which was our first food since breakfast. And then eventually a large car pulled up. Two Korean nuns were in the front and told us to get in. We were brought to their convent in the Koreatown and given a gorgeous room and a feast of a meal.

In the morning, Fr Joseph arrived with a family who were part of the Korean Catholic community of Orange County. We stayed in their very nice house, had lots more delicious Korean food and were taken to Disneyland. And on the final evening the brother of our host came to meet us and he had with him a guitar but didn't actually play it. He asked why I had an empty guitar case with me and I explained. He said, "I want you to have my guitar," and he handed it over to me with such joy. The theme for me, by the way, on that Renewal programme in Portland had been gratitude!

About four years ago I wrote about how I'd got the guitar in an Irish Chaplaincy newsletter and we received a letter from a Traveller man in HMP Berwyn in Wales who said he had been touched by the story and wondered if I could bring it to Berwyn and play some Irish songs to the large Traveller community in the prison. I was interested but then Covid happened! Finally, in June 2023, I went into the prison with Sally who is our Caseworker in the North West. There were thirty Travellers present and they were pretty unruly to start with. During my first two songs some of them were giggling and shouting out and generally being a bit disruptive. I think they just couldn't help themselves but I thought, 'Oh my God, this could be a tough gig!'

What did I do? I just kept on singing, and gradually the mood changed and I seemed to get them on my side. They really enjoyed both the singing of, and the story behind, the song I'd written after a night out in a Belfast bar, 'Fibber McGees' and a couple of the guys even knew the place. 'When you were sweet sixteen' drew some tears from the audience and one of the men who had been most disruptive at the beginning said to me, with a tear in his eye, "There'll be a lot of us calling our wives later to say that we love them."

I was happy to sing 'The Star of the County Down,' and they were touched when I told them it was the last song I ever sang to my Newry-born mum. And there were requests. One guy wanted Elvis so I gladly obliged with 'Blue Suede Shoes,' which got the room rocking. Another wanted 'The Fields of Athenry,' and I never need to be asked twice to play that moving song about a man being sent away to prison! I was also touched when one of the men came up and started a song but could only remember a couple of the lines and ran back to his seat embarrassed. Despite the teasing he received he came back later for another go.

I was playing for at least an hour in the end, and the guys were giving me bars of chocolate and it was a wonderful occasion. Sally had been at the other end of the room dealing with a range of issues from people. She remarked to me later that it had been much calmer than it usually is. 'What on earth is it usually like?' I thought to myself!

Three days after that, as I also told the group in the Alps, I'd brought the guitar to Holy Family Primary School in West London. It was the latest event of our Inter-generational project which brings together children and older Irish. After our feast of tea and sandwiches and cakes I took the Ovation out of its case and went into 'The Black Velvet Band.' This was a room that needed no warming up. Rory took to the floor with Ann, and others got up as well to waltz and later there were large groups of pupils and the ladies dancing round in big circles. It was a magical sight to behold.

And so two days after that event at the school I was back for Alps No. 10. It's always a fantastic week. I encounter in that incredible, beautiful place the most incredible, beautiful people. We walk together, we sing together, we bathe in a very cold river together, we dance till late on the last night. We couldn't go this year to the cave, where we usually sing '500 miles', as it was filled with water after the heavy rainfall. No matter; there were plenty of other opportunities to sing that and our other favourite retreat songs.

At the end of the week we go our separate ways, but how my heart is filled again: with goodness, with joy, with gratitude. And I have the chance to share again with people that gift that was given to me all those years ago. The gift that keeps on giving…