Sometimes when I’m upset, stressed or deeply confused, I like to play the piano. Not many people in my adult life really know that and if they do find out in conversation, I can automatically see by their sceptical look they’re thinking ‘Oh shit …..Chop Sticks’. I am quite proud that I have never played ‘Chop Sticks’. It’s cathartic. It’s my medicine. It’s my high. It’s my sanctuary and hiding place from this difficult world, just for a little while anyway. Although, as the decades have passed and made my fingers more stiff and frustrating to manage – I’ll never be the pianist I once was, I’ve tried to keep as much dexterity as I can.

I sit on the white piano stool and briefly look out the window across the frosted lawn and winter saplings with their squabbling grey squirrels running up and down. I barely notice anymore the girl from the ground floor flat in the next block, whom insists on doing the washing up at the sink in nothing but her bra, every time. Or the old guy on the next floor up from her, sitting at his dining room table incessantly brushing what looks like his false teeth? I sit there and gauge the severity of my mood and therefore trying to decide what and whom to play. I may knock out some Brahms, or Schubert and occasionally Lana del Ray or Adele. If I’m feeling really angry, I attempt the challenge of Chopin or Rachmaninoff. Or there again, maybe just compose a soothing melody of my own to bring me back from the brink. The music flows first from my mind to my hands, to my fingers, through the keys and back into my ears almost symbiotically. I either cry uncontrollably to cleanse the deep sorrow or anger I’m feeling, or often break into broad smiles and giggles as the passing of my raging internal storm gives way to the rays of sun and calmness is restored. Sometimes it can be loose, sweet and lyrical and sometimes it’s filled with precision, fury and indignation. But, however it comes out at the end of an hour or so I can feel that I’m soothed and cajoled inside. Whether I’ve sobbed uncontrollably or rage myself ragged over the black and white keys, I manage to find my way back to my level self with a sigh.

Music has always spoken to me on a level that I know many cannot hear or understand, no matter how hard they try. It’s not just noise or music to me- it’s a whole language and mathematical equation to grapple with at the same time. It’s not just the sounds in my ears but the very instruments that I can play that also excite me at the same time. Synthesised music and instruments have their place and I use and like the results sometimes. But there is something more satisfying about solid wood or metal and type of wood and the way its gorged or shaved or put together in such a way to make a very specific sound or pitch. There was a time my party trick was to be able to tell the specific make – Steinway,Yamaha, Bluthner, Kimble, some cheap Korean thing and sometimes even the model of a piano being played, just by the sound and resonance it made. How precocious.

Conscious that I am connecting physically with metal and wood and steel and plastic that in return resonate and shake, only because of what I’m doing to them. The strength I use, the touch I employ subtly changing the way the sound comes out. Knowing I’m in control and that I make these inanimate things vibrate and ‘sing’ in such a way, that what they produce can make another person smile, or cry or feel a whole myriad of emotions. I can connect with anyone listening, converse and tell them a whole story- without saying a single word. If there is a God, he really did grace me with a gift simply amazing and beautiful and it makes me so humble and glad to have had the chance to have been able to master it. It really did help save my young and fragile life when I stumbled on it. It still does.

I randomly found this out when I was 10 years old, a very late ‘bloomer’ in the scheme of things musical, when I decided to have a go at the old Victorian rosewood thing my Gran had sitting against the wall in the dining room. She had always had it- but no-one had ever played it least of all me. It was just a neglected piece of very old fashioned ‘furniture’ collecting dust. I remember hitting a few keys and loving the sound it made and the realisation that it only made it because of what I had done to it. That enthralled me. So as with many things in my life I just knew then I had to master it and I wouldn’t settle until I had ‘owned’ it. I was an aggressively determined little sod even back then.

I was a child split into two at that time. To the outside world, away from my usual environment; I was a blonde blue eyed cutie, smart as hell, charming and lovable, kind and caring. I really liked that Rupert. But at school (which was just an extension of home really) and at home, I was anything but. Not just a norze but belligerent and truly evil. I fought with my demons and therefore just about everyone else almost every minute of the day. I was filled with uncontrollable rage. The reasons were plentiful and maybe I’ll go in to those another time. Maybe. The point being that when I found music, or more aptly music found me, my mother and grandmother were over the moon. I had found something I truly wanted to do and also quieten me down, even if just briefly.

It was as if I had been born with the music inside me all along but never knew it was there. Within days I had learnt the notes. Within weeks I had taught myself to read the written music. Within a few months I was accompanying the whole school in assembly, bashing out ‘Sing Hosanna’ followed by a performance of a ‘modern’ piece (a recent film theme tune no less) I’d fallen in love with. Almost completely self- taught at the time, my mother at great sacrifice and expense, had acquired a piano teacher a couple of weeks before the impending performance. I remember showing this teacher what I’d already promised the music teacher at school I was going to play in assembly. She clucked her tongue, rolled her big eyes and heaved her heavy bosom and told me it was too difficult for someone so new to this. She gave me some simple Bach melody with all the fingering marked- child’s play, true beginners stuff. As I’m wont to do when anyone has ever said to me that I ‘can’t’, I said no way. I’m playing what I want and that was that.

Sure enough a week later, with pounding heart, dripping palms and hours of excruciating practice behind me- I played my selection note perfect, to resounding applause, wide eyes and the gapping mouths of 500 kids and teachers. Bloody hell, Rupert can do more than swear, beat people up and cause catastrophic trouble! Who knew? Where the hell did that come from? The teachers (probably all the kids with black eyes and bruises too) praised the Lord. I must admit as I leaned on the corner of the school hall piano, took the first of many more to come solemn and deep bows, I sighed a whispered thankful prayer that I’d actually pulled it off- ‘Stick that in your numpty pipes and smoke it bitches! Amen’.