Musician, composer & performer, Mikey Kirkpatrick shares his experience of performing in London’s Queen Square, Bloomsbury, Camden, surrounded by some of the UK’s leading specialist hospitals, including Great Ormond Children’s Hospital. You can listen to the striking song that he performed to great acclaim from passing pubic [here]
Mikey Kirkpatrick
This recording was made on Remembrance Day 11/11/13 at Queen Square London, just after the 2-minute silence observed by Silent Cacophony organiser John McKiernan and myself, hats in hand. My performance took place at the exact spot where a Zeppelin bomb fell and exploded at 10:30pm on 8th September 1915. Although no one was injured by this bomb, 26 people were killed across Bloomsbury as a result of the air raid and there was damage to the buildings surrounding the square.
The attacks would have been unpredictable, preceded by an eerie silence as the Zeppelin engines were occasionally switched off to avoid detection as they neared their target. I sang between 10:50am and 1pm sometimes with an audience of nurses, patients, early morning drinkers, deliverymen, security guards and city wanderers; even the odd crow and pigeon perched on a nearby tree out of curiosity. I met a young man, a patient of a nearby hospital, accompanied by a nurse as he fed his toast to the pigeons and smoked a few cigarettes. Other patients listened through the windows and sent friends who weren't bed-bound to take pictures. Another nurse said she was looking after someone who had been a bomber in the Second World War and was always fascinated and moved by his stories.
It was a powerful experience to sing these two 1918 Walter de la Mare poems. On this day, at this time, in this place, and it was an opportunity for reflection and to take much needed time to contemplate the power of reviving the words of a poet from their slumber and sensing them reverberate through the city, weaving through the rain, carried in the gusts that ease the rust brown leaves from the branches. I felt the age of the words I was singing dusty in my mouth, and myself becoming another echo in all that’s past.
Listen to Mikey’s Performance in Queen Square [here]
View the Gallery of this performance [here]