Listening to the wind picking up outside my window reminds me of a synchronous event that occured to me in my teenage years. I had bought the Jammy Smears album by the Scottish humourist Ivor Cutler after a shopping trip to Sheffield. Half-way through one of the album's sides one of his Glasgow Dreamer stories started: "The sky grew black and white, the wind whistled under the door. 'Let us go for a walk' said father..." the harmonium Ivor played adding to the dour atmosphere of the story. On this occasion, however, from the very first syllable of Ivor's voice, a violent storm blew up. Standing, staring out of the window, I was quite impressed with the added effects provided by nature outside - trees bent double, leaves shredded from their twigs, the sky turning black and white just as in the story. It didn't really strike me as strange until the storm died out a minute or two later, just as the track finished with the words "...it was all part of going for a walk." Seconds later it was a normal peaceful cloudy day outside.
It's not the only time this has happened to me.
On the train travelling down to London ten or so years later, I was listening to a Kraftwerk tape on my sony walkman. I had just finished listening to one side (I forget the album) and as the train waited it's five or so minutes at Leicester station, I fast-forwarded the tape, turned it over and hit the play button for the other side, Trans-Europe Express. The train lurched and started moving at the precise moment the first notes of 'Europe Endless' hit my ear drums. As the train gathered momentum it appeared that the music followed suit and picked up speed - all rather marvellous as I sat there with my head resting on the window, watching the landscape speed by. It wasn't until the music wound down and the train slowed for Loughborough that I noticed anything peculiar. When the train stopped within a second or two of the music I was almost laughing out loud from the synchronicity.
I remembered the Ivor Cutler event years before and reflected on my old record player and my suspicions that it was haunted, but more of that another time... |
