Blog post #67 - David Helgott

​Forty years ago I chanced upon a piano bar round the back of some, I think northern, suburb of Perth. 
I was immeasurably miserable at the time and I don’t recall quite how I found myself there. I’d done piano bar work back in London; The Way We Were, What Are You Doing For The Rest Of Your Life and All That (kind of) Jazz, so I thought I knew what I was in for….
I didn’t.....
For I found myself in the company of a genius. Definitely that and yet there was something profoundly amiss as he swayed and muttered to himself, occasionally looking up with a beautific smile in our direction, but for the most part lost in the works of Chopin and Liszt.

Early in ‘85, I tootled off to Melbourne and a new life where the sun finally shone for me.

Just before Stace died we went to see “Shine.” 
As the story unfolded I realised what I had been party to a dozen or so years before. That piano bar and the music David Helfgott made there were the early days of a long and difficult recovery, I discovered. 
But how could it be that such a tender and brilliant soul should suffer so much that the pressure of his artistry ultimately crushed him?

I saw the movie again just after Stace died. This time with my darling dad who had come to be by my side and my friend Julie Raines as I recall. 
My father was a gruff old thing, but he was an easy target for such a story. And we cried together in sorrow for David Helfgott and the loss of Stace so fresh in the mix. 

Can we rise above adversity? Can we heal?

Well in David Helfgott’s case he did live to play again and in so doing, showed us how the deeply creative mind works. “Shine” gave him permission to be this new, childlike self, unashamedly revelling in the music, reciting the whys and wherefores as his fingers flew around impossibly difficult music.

This evening, forty years after that extraordinary night in Perth, I found myself on my feet, stomping and cheering with David’s fans, wishing him the fondest of farewells with tears in my eyes and gratitude and love in my heart.
Thank you my friend for showing me and so many, that a way can be found to be one’s true, but maybe different self, and not to falter. 
KS - Melbourne - 4th July 2024

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