Shortly afterwards, Bob got the position of writer-in-residence at Lumb Bank and moved into the adjacent cottage. It was lovely weather at Lumb bank, We would walk the moors, relax, drink in the White Lion at Heptonstall, or sit out in the evening as the pipistrelles flitted around outside up from their roosts in the ruined mills below.
It was while at Lumb Bank that I wrote a poem on the dining room table. I didn't actually
write it ON the table, it was just that the imprint of my pencil went through the paper
and marked the soft wood underneath. The impression remained there for long afterwards -
or so I was told. We had been discussing Alfred Watkins Book - The Old Straight Track, and
had become very interested in the idea of 'leys' and it was this that led me to write the
poem. That poem was called THE PATHFINDER.
Not long afterwards Mal Laws and I tried putting the poem to music - it came together
well, but we were hardly going to make an album out of it.We had to come up with something bigger. Not long after it occurred to me - why not use the recent 'Coast-to-Coast' Walk adventure as the framework for a mystical journey along an imaginary 'ley' in search of some kind of spiritual truth? Brilliant huh?!
The walk was a rich vein of material - lots
of folklore, archaeology and topography. The Pathfinder would be the first song lyric ever
written that needed explanatory footnotes!
So the overall idea of 'The Pathfinder ' was born. The poem was to become the basis for
'The Prologue', and the lyrics for the rest of the song sequence quickly followed.
Putting all this to music, however was to prove an ambitious, time consuming and difficult undertaking.. The first recordings were made on a Sanyo tape recorder in Mally's attic bedroom on Halifax Road, Buttershaw, Bradford, with help from Dave Hughes and Graham Anderson.
They must have sounded good (the idea was folk-rock with a 'Vaughan Williams' touch!), for not long afterwards we not only got a good review from Margaret Grimsdell in the Yorkshire Arts Magazine, but also an offer of free use of the YAA's recording facilities at their Communications Centre on Chapel Street, Bradford.
All musical and lyrical material on this site is COPYRIGHT JIM JARRATT & MAL LAWS 2002. No part of THE PATHFINDER may be reproduced or performed for commercial purposes without the express permission of the authors. While it is accepted that parts of the site may be freely downloaded for private use, we ask in return that you respect the ownership of our work.