Well, It’s the day before our launch of Oldie Composers at the BBC club.

I have no idea how it is going to go – we have had launches at the club before. In fact considering I do not work for the BBC, I have spent quite a lot of happy times there.

We have had Gold Disc presentations (Janet & John CDs) cheque presentations £1,000,000 to BBC Children in Need, two BANDAGED album launches, with so many press and cameras we had to go out into the street, but the memories that will stay with me forever are the mornings when we would go and have coffee with Terry and Pauly to chat about my ideas and what we wanted to do to raise money for CiN. Those were the days when things seemed more carefree.

So here we are again, on the Eve of the launch, but this time it is very different. This time it is down to us, no BBC support, this time it is for Barnardo’s. We have done all our own press releases, all our own PR, you see without Radio 2 mentions, there is no publicity apart from us.

That is not to say we have not had support, because we have had so many people, celebrities and friends offering to help in any way they can and we are really grateful for that. What I love is that these people are helping us because they want to, they may or may not get publicity from it, but it is their gamble. Therefore they are doing it to help us, and Barnardos, or because they think it is a great initiative.

So here I am, 4am thinking  “Have I done all I can do?”, the answer is “Of course not, there is always that one other email to send or one more music journalist to follow” but at some point you just have to stop and say, “What will be, will be”.

The good thing is that no matter what, we have tried our hardest to raise awareness for Barnardos.

Once I reached the age of 50 I started to look back on my life, and around me at others and realised it was time to give back. My parents loved me, and still do. I did all I could to make my children’s childhood fun and to teach them to be confident and caring.

But there are many, many children in this country who have not had that, they do not ask to be born, but surely, if you are going to give birth to a child, they should at least be free from abuse, neglect and should be given love.  I know Barnardo’s are helping to change things for those who do not have love, who are neglected and abused. Not only are they working with those children, but they are working with young parents who know no different, and have no one to turn to to help them.

But of course, no matter how many children and families they help, there are more and more to help in so many ways. Surely all anyone wants in life is to be given the tools to live a good and fulfilled life. It is up to them to use them, but there are so many who have not been given the tools and feel lost and alone. Each individual is so very different and therefore each person needs different help.

We were working with a children’s choir a few years ago, recording “The Unicorn song” with Aled Jones and the children. I gave each child a small Pudsey bear to said “Thank you for using your  talent to help disadvantaged children”. Charlotte the producer asked the children to put the bears on the floor to come and do one more take, but the children rushed to various parts of the room to put the bears down. Charlotte asked them to just put them all in a pile on the floor, but one little boy said “But we wouldn’t know which one was ours Miss”… Charlotte said that they were all the same, and the little boy replied “But we have all given them different love, Miss”.

That little boy’s comments have stuck with me ever since. It is so true, we all give different love, we all are very individual people and we all need different things in our life and we all need different love. BUT we do all need love, and I hope Barnardo’s helps people to understand that.

So on 11th June, we will launch the four winning songs from Oldie Composers at the BBC club and hope that radio stations will like the songs and play them on the radio. But more than that, we hope that everyone who hears of Oldie Composers, will go to the website www.oldiecomposers.com on Tuesday and listen to the songs and buy them (if they like them), not only that, but take that one step further and go to their email address and send an email to all in there with a link to www.oldiecomposers.com asking them to do the same, and also to spread the word. I hope that every Twitter follower (@hellenbach ) will follow me and retweet my link to everyone on their twitter stream, and for everyone on our TOGs Facebook group to tell everyone on their timeline. I do truly believe that if people genuinely want to help, it isn’t spending huge amounts of money, it’s taking a little bit of time to send an email or to share a link. It will only cost 79p (80p on Charity Goods) to download a song, but if you share that link with everyone, that money multiplies.

 

I have been told that my blogs are a bit wordy, so I promise, the next one will be short, sharp and full of pictures.