mostly david ephgrave

There's a stretch of raised kerb on a bend near where I live that makes me think of my nan (because nothing makes me reminisce about dead relatives more than roadside brickwork). Seeing it ignites a childhood memory of her watching me balance on it like a tightrope walker whenever we went to the post office. It wasn't exactly the best way to traverse a busy road, though health and safety was a different beast in the 1980s. But I know she kept an eye on me. She was the prototypical nan whose warm presence I can still feel even though she died in 1987. And I have a surprising amount of memories involving her when you consider they all happened before I was six. She would babysit me when my parents went to White Hart Lane to watch Spurs, which often involved a trip to the local shop. We took that short walk frequently.  We'd sometimes visit the nearby playground on the way back, where there was a climbing frame shaped like a spider that's still in action to this day. And w...

I’ve managed to have a reasonably restful day, despite fitting a lot in, primarily due to looking after my mum’s pets, as I wrote yesterday. I had a particularly unusual moment as I sang through a few of my songs from my show, when I realised the song I was running through - Shit Happens - was actually written a hundred yards down the road at our old house on the same street; it was weird to think one of my signature songs was written in the same postcode. I can still picture quite working on it in my bedroom all those years ago. We only lived here for a short while before my mum briefly moved to Norfolk to open a B&B and I moved into my first flat and went to drama school. Musically speaking, this period coincided with the tail end my band being a four-piece and our then lead guitarist leaving dramatically and the three of us deciding to carry on as a three-piece without him, so it was a crucial time in our development; it was also a key momen...

Today saw my second Edinburgh show and my last preview.  I actually felt far better about today's performance compared to yesterday's, which was ironic in a way, as we went up late due to a waiting for five audience members who'd rushed to the door of the venue, thinking they could buy tickets there, to be redirected to the box office only to never come back; I have that effect on would-be punters. This late start meant I had to consciously pace things up and cut the odd line here and there to finish on time, which actually made the whole thing feel more cohesive; on this basis, I'm going to start tomorrow's show next Wednesday.  Amongst today's bijou audience was the technician from Glyn's and my first Edinburgh show The Balloon Debate, with his girlfriend, who we last saw in either 2010 or 2011, when we were up here with Mostly Comedy (and possibly our Meadow Bar show Big in Small Places; it's hard to remember which, as each year rolls into one).  A...

One song that will always send me speeding back to my childhood is The Age of Not Believing from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I loved that film as a kid. I really did. My VHS copy was worn out from constant use. I got so used to watching that tired old tape that when the film was broadcast on TV a few years back, I expected the picture to be warped at the top of the screen. Sometimes, I'm an idiot. I used to know the script inside out. I was the same with the soundtrack. I’d inherited a copy of the LP from my mum’s friend Vivienne, which was often on the turntable of the record player in my dining room. I’d mime along to it when no-one was about; pretending I was David Tomlinson, extolling the virtues of underwater life to Angela Lansbury while surrounded by a school of animated fish. I’d watch my performance throughout in the reflection in the glass door of my mum's display cabinet. It’s no wonder I ended up as a professional show-off with a childhood like thi...

We’re now just a few days away from the dreaded C-word. I refer not to c**t, not to cancer, but to Christmas . I used to love Christmas when I was a kid. I can remember staring at the Postman Pat clock at the end of my bed; tracking the painfully slow progress of the minute-hand as it dragged its way across the clock-face; waiting for the allotted time that I was allowed to check my presents.   One year I became the proud owner of a Big Yellow Teapot. Looking back, this seems an unusual concept: a strange marriage between a dolls house and an outsized drink-dispenser. It’s the sort of thing that never should have caught on; Eighties children just had different expectations. Another year we got a ZX Spectrum. I remember sitting in front of it for hours with my dad, whilst we programmed a primitive tennis game from scratch; entering the seemingly endless code from the back of the manual. (I’m not entirely sure that it was worth the eff...

Like most people, Guy Fawkes Night calls to mind memories of my childhood. I grew up in Stevenage: a much-maligned town, though when I was younger I wouldn’t hear a word said against it. I was an only child – and as a result, would spend a lot of time in my own company, entertaining myself. I was obsessed with magic into my mid-teens – and would often been found in my mum’s bedroom, practicing the latest trick I’d bought mail-order from Davenport’s Magic Shop in front of the only full-length mirror in the house. Any time not spent working on my sleight of hand was split evenly between Stevenage Indoor Market (looking for vinyl to add to my ever-growing record collection), or riding my BMX Panther around the town’s many cycle paths. Mine was a simple childhood. Our house was in the old town in the midst of a natural valley – and my mum’s bedroom window looked out on a view that impressed me. The garden backed onto an allotment with the railway line just behind it. Bey...