The Truth Keeps Marching On

Dear Katie’s Arm Regulars 

Thank you for still being our regulars at the Katie’s Arms even when the bar lady has gone walkabouts on tour. It is great to be back, LIVE in person at theatres around the country, but of course I miss our wine nights by the piano in our pub. 

And at the same time, the importance of taking a break from the daily news here in Great Britain, and around the world has never been greater. 

This last month or so has felt like a daily beating; a poor man nearly beheaded in Belfast, now blind. A young boy crying as his father is arrested, a white man left to bleed out in handcuffs, the brave Scottish girl blasted as a liar by the ‘better kind of people’ who write columns in the press. 

And all the before you get started on Kier Starmer’s latest plan to bring in Digital ID by the back door via a ban on social media for under 16’s, thereby requiring every adult to create a digital ID to be online. 

The media is like a helmet of noise. All of it dark and exhausting.

Escaping all this has never been more vital. 

My large glass of Merlot may provide some temporary relief. But there is much better stuff to be found out there on the road.

There is James and his granddaughter Dottie, sat smartly in our crowd, three generations apart yet joined in laughter, 

The White Van lads that reach out of the windows to yell their support, proper grafters who are the spine of the country 

Sweet people tending for animals and gardens, surrounding themselves with the stuff of life you can always count on, dogs, poppy’s and bumble bees. 

And the Scottish football supporters in America, singing so loud they broke the noise record for the stadium. 

Go You Good Things Go!

I invite you to come drink it in with me; either at the shows, or by trying to find it in your own ways. There is always someone out there who would welcome a little funny chat about nothing in particular to help make a brighter moment in a dark day. 

And there are many more of us than you know. I always say ‘you are not alone’ because I have the privilege of seeing just how many we are. You are surrounded by good people. 

If we take off the helmet of noise foisted on us by the nutters in power, we get to hear much more of the good stuff too.

These are the times to be alive. I’ve been waiting twenty years for them to arrive and am so grateful to still be here to see them come. 

Desperate tyrants do terrible things. Banning information, staging ‘news’, fabricating statements  from the bereaved, and arresting or imprisoning those who speak out. 

They may lock me up, but freedom cannot be contained. It is in all of us, and is no one gets to take it away. 

As we sing together on the road, the truth keeps marching on. 

Glory Glory Hallelujah!