An interview with Ray and Sarah Lakeman, whose sons passed away in December 2014 after taking a lethal dose of ecstasy. A special commemorative CD titled 'Something Happened' featuring local musicians has recently been released in their memory.
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00:00I just wanted to start by asking, obviously it's been 10 years now since
00:04since Tom and Jack's passed away, how are you both doing?
00:07Obviously this time of year must be difficult, sort of this time of year
00:11it's when it happened, so I wanted to ask if you're both doing okay and
00:14you know how's it been?
00:19The best thing to say is we're coping, we're coping, we're doing okay
00:22we're doing okay, we're never going to be absolutely like we were before
00:26we're never going to be happy again particularly, but we're doing okay aren't we?
00:31Yeah we've found ways of dealing with it
00:35and one of the ways that we've found of dealing with it, particularly
00:39at this time of year, is through the music.
00:42So the first one would have been for
00:48Jack's 21st birthday, the first one which was the
00:52February after they died, they died in the December
00:55so we thought we wanted to do something, we thought well
01:00Jack would like a party, so we had a party
01:03so we hired the town hall and we got some
01:07people who'd played with them before and people who knew
01:11and then after that we decided we'd do one for the anniversary
01:15which would help us cope rather than thinking about it, we'd have
01:19other things on our mind. So we did that for
01:23a number of years and it was getting big
01:26it was the last time we did it, it was over two nights
01:31and we raised money for charity doing it, for Parkinson's
01:36and we had four bands on each night
01:42The bands have been absolutely brilliant, they've been so supportive
01:46they don't charge anything, they just turn up and they play and they really enjoy the
01:49evening as well and they were quite upset some of them
01:52when we stopped doing it but it was just getting too much
01:55They were queuing up really and it ended up, so we had eight bands, two
02:01two disc jockeys people playing tunes and you know every time we did it
02:09we had more people wanting to come and do it next time
02:13Was it a good turnout as well, a lot of people turned up?
02:17Oh yeah and I always used to worry that nobody had come
02:21and so it was a bit of stress, we tried selling tickets and things
02:26like that and we didn't sell the tickets, people
02:30turned up on the night and every year that was worrying
02:33because we always thought that nobody had come and then it always ended
02:37up bigger than the year before
02:41The thing about the CD though, when we stopped doing it I said some of the
02:45bands were disappointed but partly for doing the CD is a
02:49obviously it's a way of remembering our boys, it's a permanent reminder but it's
02:53also a permanent way to thank the bands and they've now got a copy and
02:57it's a way of giving a little bit of publicity, a little bit of thanks for
03:00everything they've done for us really as well
03:02as well as being a lovely memory for the boys
03:05So would you say that pretty much every band that's performed in these
03:09concerts used to do all the gigs
03:12in Port Erin, every single one has got together for the CD or is it
03:15Well there's something, what I did
03:19we actually thought about doing it two years ago and I said to Jip
03:24Jip again, Ballad Groove, this is what I wanted to do
03:29and you know and I wanted to do a CD and I wanted
03:35original songs so we drafted a letter and sent it out
03:40to people that supported us and people
03:45who wanted to, there were a couple of bands who hadn't played like
03:49the Pahuki, is it Pahuki? Robbie Miller's band and
03:57he said you know next time you do one we want to
04:03we'd like to be part of it, so we had a couple of
04:07bands like that, there were other people who
04:11we thought might want to contribute who couldn't for one reason or other
04:15they never got together but in the end we
04:18you know we ended up with 17 tracks so there was a limit anyway
04:24There are some other bands that played at the gigs that haven't
04:27managed to, for whatever reason they haven't managed to do but
04:30a lot of them have and people that support us in different ways
04:35Bruno for example, Cavallac, he did a track and we've always
04:41supported him as an artist and we've always bought a lot of his paintings he's
04:44always taken an interest in us and everything and he did
04:48so he did a lovely track for us, he's never played at the gigs but he did a
04:50really nice track for us. I think I've done a story with him
04:54before, is he from Peel? I wanted to ask as well I hope
05:00it's not a sensitive question but the title of the CD
05:03Something Happened, where did that idea come from for you?
05:08I think it's not funny
05:12it was
05:15well it's all on the back yeah yeah it was basically trying to
05:22articulate our feelings as briefly as possible
05:27on the night that it happened
05:32yeah we became aware of a problem, they went to the football on the
05:37Saturday and it was
05:41by half past six, Jack was living in London and
05:45Torian was at Aberystwyth University and by half past six it was
05:49plain that they they hadn't got back and well they were staying over night on
05:54the Saturday night and we didn't know where they were
05:57staying because the books from accommodation and we didn't,
05:59they haven't told us where they were staying
06:03and it was on the Sunday we were trying to contact them to find
06:08out how it had gone and whether we
06:11couldn't answer, neither of them was answering the phone
06:13yeah and that's when we started to think hang on there's something wrong here and
06:16they haven't got back to their respective
06:18accommodation and we kept saying something's happened here, something's
06:22happened and that's that's the thing and we were
06:24like it was a long night yeah of course yeah
06:27and we kept on you know we knew something had happened
06:31but we carried on with different scenarios, boys will be boys they'll be out of summer
06:35of course yeah we rang the hospitals, we rang
06:38the police, we rang Manchester police, we rang
06:41Aberystwyth police, we rang Allemagne police and
06:45one of the constables from the Allemagne actually came round he said they'll be
06:48fine they'll be fine and we kept saying they won't be, something's
06:50happened to them because they're not on the street
06:52yeah yeah so they're not like that yeah of course
06:56obviously this CD is sort of a way of the community getting together
07:01and showing support in a way, I wanted to sort of gauge at the
07:04time as well how good was the support that you had
07:06like at the time it happened from people around you was it
07:10it's always been phenomenal yeah absolutely fantastic yeah
07:13absolutely lovely, people just kind of wrap themselves around us
07:16yeah you know right from the beginning
07:20um you know we we got an incredible amount of support
07:26yeah from from from every every yeah yeah yeah I mean there was a
07:34a sense of shock really of course because the boys had grown up in
07:37the south and the customer definitely knew that they knew us
07:40yeah all that and it was it was it was horrible for
07:44it was horrible for us it was horrible for everybody, I had kids from a school
07:48that knew the boys coming around to their house and crying and I was trying
07:51to support them as well exactly yeah it was it was a big blow for
07:54the community, it was a big shock all around
07:57yeah in a way it shows the strength of the community in the island as well
08:01absolutely it does yeah it really does and this CD has just been
08:05part of it yeah because when we decided to do
08:09something and do the gigs and this that and the
08:12other we've we've had no shortage of
08:17people wanting to do it yeah a couple of times and I thought well
08:22I don't know whether I want to do another one we've been
08:25the bands have been asking you know yeah are you going to do
08:29one this year so um yeah but it was getting too big
08:33and and this was a wasn't a compromise it was
08:37it was a a conscious thing to do something more
08:43permanent yeah as you say it's a permanent reminder
08:45of yeah you know it's a yeah we've produced the we've
08:51we've distributed a few yeah um yeah we're not selling it
08:56the you know we're giving them away yeah uh
08:59and asking people to make a contribution if they want to if they want
09:03to yeah but charity
09:07I'm more interested in making the music available
09:13as a thank you to the bands and uh it's a good momentum yeah absolutely
09:19and it is something that they would have loved
09:20yeah and lovely little bonus track at the end just a short little bonus track
09:24at the end from davy knowles oh brilliant he's always been very
09:27supportive yeah from a distance obviously yeah and I
09:30mean shaq and tom which i can particularly used to idolize davy he
09:33wanted to be davy yeah of course who doesn't yeah
09:37yeah yeah and it was lovely yeah that he did that it was a kind of last minute
09:41track because he was supposed to be doing one and then he couldn't organize
09:44it was supposed to be doing it with um mad daddy wasn't he um but they
09:48couldn't organize it and then he did a little little coda at the end yeah
09:52yeah it's great to listen to the whole thing and then get to you know even
09:56better thing at the very end it's perfect isn't it it's great
09:59um where can people get them is it in certain places
10:03well all the all the bands all the people um we had a launch a couple of
10:07weeks ago and uh i know that i'd already so the
10:12people who could make it band members who all the people who
10:17contributed to the album who could make it
10:19um i gave copies to them right we had a night in the hour but we just
10:24came down we put some food on for them and it was
10:26yeah we and you know people who couldn't make it
10:30i've been given copies right uh at the moment
10:34um they're available from tord and stores oh yeah
10:38in port mary yeah and trend in port aaron in port area yeah okay
10:45and from us and from the bands yeah uh and from us
10:49yeah you know um we well we
10:56they seem to be going well yeah i mean you know
10:59i mean there's been a good reaction there there has been a great reaction
11:02yeah um and we sent them to friends that don't live on the island friends
11:06been there for a long time and they've all really appreciated as well so it's
11:10yeah fantastic and i think it's a great i do think it
11:13it's a great showcase for the um max music
11:17yeah and also max art celebration yeah
11:22kieran oh kieran kieran's is the artwork
11:25i'm kieran kieran's hand from hanifx right effects and with the innuendo
11:32orchestra he's uh he's got his own band and i was
11:37trying to trying to get him to do a track and for
11:40various reasons he couldn't do he didn't materialize so i asked him to
11:46do the artwork right it's absolutely beautiful because
11:48he's really nice isn't it yeah it's great i mean
11:50i don't know if you did you go to russian prime do you remember and i went
11:53to port spain yeah because later baker used to teach them when they were little
11:56she said that's just them that's just them yeah and on the back
12:01i don't know if you picked up but we we sent their ashes into space and that's
12:04a representation oh wonderful i didn't realize that
12:08yeah that's great it's wonderful and that that there torundra all right so
12:14he's pleased it's going beautifully and it's on a really
12:17yeah he's got all the little uh the figures from the jet tour project
12:21i thought the inside looked great yeah yeah that's really good that's kieran
12:24that's done all of that yes did you tell did you tell him sort of a
12:28brief idea of what you wanted and then he sort of ran with it or
12:31the funny thing is that with all of the tracks
12:34um i just said i want i didn't tell anybody
12:39yeah give them any directions at all so i just said
12:43um you know we're doing this cd the only thing that i said was i'd like
12:49it to be an original song yeah of course and i hadn't heard
12:56any other tracks until it'd been completed
12:59okay so when jib finally did the final track and he gave me the
13:06cd um all the recordings so we we decided
13:11what which order we'd yeah we'd we'd wanted them in but come
13:15back to kieran because you're asking about kieran just came
13:19what he wanted to do and he knew us quite well because he's done other bits
13:22of artwork for us right kind of followed our story and he
13:25was one of the earlier bands to support us so yeah
13:28and that's kieran who sorry kieran kieran hannifan
13:31hannifan yeah so i just said well i didn't i didn't say i said it's
13:38going to be called something something happened yeah and i
13:42want this piece of writing on the back right and the rest of it i i said
13:49you know i said uh torian collected all these warhammer figures
13:54we've been giving those out as to people to take away
13:57yeah yeah we'll be doing that well since the yeah of course yeah
14:03since they since they were cremated i i came up with the idea
14:07so they people take them on holiday they're in over a hundred countries
14:12pictures of where they are so if you have to go to the jacktaw project on
14:15facebook yeah yeah yeah what sort of places have
14:19you gone like here there and everywhere or yeah
14:22everywhere well i mean but again he was it's just a sign of
14:27you know the support we've got all around the world you know
14:31we've got that we got them on tristan da cunha
14:34right st helena the falkland islands you know they're in some of the most
14:40obscure places that people can possibly get yeah i'm taking
14:44on to svalbard in may would have been torren's 30th
14:48birthday right so i was going to go to svalbard as
14:51part of his ma yeah so look at the stars so it's fitting
14:54then it's really nice yeah that's great and was it was the idea
14:58behind the jack the project to sort of make sure their memories like far and
15:01wide and yeah anywhere they could have gone
15:04yeah they lived in a place they could have visited
15:07we said we said to people right yeah uh you can go to places the boys can't go
15:13in yeah um you know it's a way of saying
15:18if somebody's taken one they thought of them for a bit yeah
15:23it's got a little memory of them somewhere around the world
15:27it's it's nice to think um they're in so many countries i mean we
15:33we've just been to lanzarote we took one over there but
15:36it's always nice to think that there might be one there
15:39yeah yeah because i can't keep track of everything
15:42of course and when we sent the ashes up into space
15:46um they're all dropped from a balloon so they're
15:50taken up to god knows how many feet yeah and then
15:53they're released and they'll all come down to earth
15:57somewhere but they could be anywhere yeah yeah that's really quite nice to
16:03think that that they might have landed somewhere
16:06yeah we never know where it could be everywhere
16:09every single place yeah yeah which is really nice yeah
16:12yeah it's a wonderful thought that's with this it's nice
16:16yeah you know it's it's a it's a really nice thought you just never know and
16:20you think yeah and if people want to do this as
16:23well is it just any warhammer figure they can
16:25they can take yeah yeah yeah yeah great