James Silkweaver and Daphne Flowers*
You may be wondering what my stories about James Silkweaver have to do with Pink Floyd? Well to be brutally honest, not a lot. But sometimes in life seemingly unrelated occurrences link up in quite remarkable and unexpected ways. And although, as yet, there is no direct link between James and Pink Floyd, the web of this story has already caught one British rock god.
I’ll get to that shortly.
As it happens, I have managed to keep in touch with James Silkweaver via correspondence with his wife (and personal assistant) Daphne Flowers. (not her real name)
I emailed Daphne shortly after James’s concert. I explained who I was by relating the second–hand Songdude story and birthday card. But the reason for contacting her was I had another birthday card idea.It was only a matter of weeks until James’s birthday, and my idea was to send a copy of the card he’d signed for Julie to James himself.
Inside the card would be a photo of Julie holding the card James had signed for her, thus completing the circle.
I ran all this by Daphne Flowers. She loved the “presumed dead guy and the second–hand book store” story and said James would really appreciate the birthday card. So she was happy to give me a postal address to send the card to.
I soon posted the card and it was well received.I have sent James an original card each year since. Being a big hippie back in the day James liked this next one so much he posted it on his Facebook page :
I will have to leave out a massive amount of detail, but my correspondence with James and Daphne has since led to contact with a rock guitarist whose name and former band name will also have to be changed for legal reasons.
In 2020 I was reading an interview with this particular musician, let’s call him “Stavros Butcher” (not his real name), former lead guitarist with British rock band…er, let’s call them… “Dinner Tyme” (not their real name). The interview was part of an article called “The Soundtrack of My Life” (Yes, it was actually called that!), which I believe is a series of interviews with well-known musicians. Stavros was asked things like favourite song, favourite guitarist, etc. But when asked his favourite songwriter, Stavros nominated James Silkweaver.
I thought James would get a kick out of this, so I emailed Daphne Flowers and told her about the article. She and James both really appreciated me telling them about it, and Daphne asked me to let them know any time I came across articles such as that in the future.
I then thought, if James Silkweaver got a kick out of Stavros Butcher being a fan, then Stavros Butcher would probably get a kick out of James Silkweaver getting a kick out him being a fan too. I mean, me being a fan of both James Silkweaver and Stavros Butcher, I certainly got a kick out of being able to tell James Silkweaver that Stavros Butcher was a James Silkweaver fan, and knew I’d also get a kick out of being able to tell Stavros Butcher that James Silkweaver was a fan of Stavros Butcher being a fan of James Silkweaver. I’m sure you follow.
I fortuitously stumbled upon an email address for Stavros Butcher, although I suspected it was just an address monitored by someone other than Stavros. But I wrote the email as if I was writing to Stavros himself, and told him about my contact with Daphne Flowers, and how thrilled she and James Silkweaver were that Stavros regarded James’s songwriting so highly.
Within a couple of hours I received a reply… from Stavros Butcher himself! He appreciated me letting Daphne Flowers know about the article, and for alerting him to her reaction.
I immediately replied to Stavros’s reply with: “Hello Stajov!e I mean Stabth# I mean Stavros, (Sorry, I didn’t expect a reply from you and my fingers have gone numb!)”
Being the opportunist I am, I thanked Stavros profusely for replying, then asked if it was ok if I wrote him another email to tell him how much I enjoyed his work. He invited me to write, but warned he’d probably not be able to give me much of a reply. (He was in the middle of recording an album in lockdown at the time.)
I confess to my embarrassment that although I enjoy much of the Stavros Butcher-era Dinner Tyme, I’d never investigated his solo albums. I was amazed to find just how many albums he has recorded, and once his Damn Stinkin’ Lockdown (not its real title) was released I bought it and his previous three albums.
I was captivated by these albums, and for quite some time listened to nothing else. And I sent Stav (I’ll call him “Stav” from now on. Stavros isn’t his real name anyway, so it shouldn’t really be an issue dropping the “ros”, huh?) a few emails commenting on particular aspects of the albums, and I’m happy to say he replied every time, within a couple of hours.
Knowing how utterly impossible it is for fans to get in touch with members of Pink Floyd, I was blown away by how approachable Stav was. But in typical Albert Magoolie/Mooglie fashion I have since found a way to stuff it all up.
I’ll get to that later, when I throw Stav on the pile with the rest of the rock stars I’ve upset!
*Not really James Silkweaver and Daphne Flowers