Chapter 11

Willow tried to laugh it off, but the article attracted a lot of attention, especially if you had read the previous articles. She started to get invitations to speak at various industry events, but the first one that she attended was close to her heart.

She went up to Coventry, to attend the first assembly of the new school year at Blue Coat, invited by the Head. She stood in the wings as Reg played the organ, listened to Reverend Jack bless the new term, listened to the Head give her opening address, and then walked out when she was announced as a surprise guest speaker.

Her speech was in a few parts. The first, aimed at the new first years, was all about using the resources of the school and the need for hard work. The second was to all the school to respect the best teachers in the country, while the last was to the seniors to be proud that they were about to go out into the world as alumni of the Blue Coat School, and to use their education wisely. She finished her speech with a smile.

“While I was here, I was thrown into the deep end several times, but it made me resilient and stronger. Never be afraid of what you’re asked to do. You first years will be presenting a stage production before the end of term. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, as this school is one where you are supported to the hilt. When I left here, to do a degree course in Business, I left behind a lot of friends. Not just those I sat with in class, or in the orchestra, but friends who had taught me more than just the school curriculum. They taught me to believe in myself and in those around me. I thank all of the teachers here, today, and I urge you all to look towards them as being future friends. Thank you”

There was applause as the Head gave her a hug, right there on stage, and Reg started playing ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow’ and the assembly sang it with gusto, before giving her a cheer and then starting to file out.

The Head laughed.

“Well, that started the new school year with a blast. We have a board meeting this afternoon, while you’re here, to discuss the purchase of a proper organ for this theatre, as well as the alterations needed to support it. I hate to be the bearer of the news, but some of the board are looking to you to supply funding.”

“I’ll be happy to help, my friend. It would make it easier to perform the big pieces here. I would offer to play the first concert, but that would be presumptuous of me.”

“Jim was thinking of names for it. He thought that we could call it ‘The Wonderful Willow’.”

They were both laughing when they joined Garry in the wings to go to the Heads’ office for a talk and a drink, passing the Honour Board that had a new addition, the framed article about the ‘Willow Effect’, next to another new one that showed The Vines on the school stage. Willow pointed to that one.

“We’re working on Sam to let them play more. I could send them around Europe or America, but he doesn’t seem to realise that they’ve grown up. He said that he had been told that they may have run away if they hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t be surprised to be told that they’ve got themselves a flat somewhere. He’s insistent that they go to Uni and stay living at home. I was married at the age they are now, they’re not children anymore.”

“Those girls were ideal to follow you, and, in turn, they have inspired quite a few that are now in third and fourth year. It’s made the last ten years very interesting. I’m retiring in a couple of years, and Reg is in line to take over my seat.”

“That will be good. He’s well-liked but firm. He helped a lot when I was here, without being overbearing. I would have thought that Howard may have been in the mix if he hadn’t moved on; the same could be said for Hilda.”

“They would have been, had they been ten or twenty years younger. Hilda is finishing at the end of the year as well. Jim was asked about it but is very happy working with the techs and the budding producers. He’s embraced that technology and is a very good teacher.”

Willow stayed for lunch with the teachers and then attended the board meeting. She agreed to help fund the organ project but drew the line at the suggested name. The discussed it and ended up with the ‘Blue Clarion’. Sam Vines had pledged a quarter of a million, and Willow pledged the same, knowing that it would be more than double the already pledged amount, so said that she would talk to Clive about getting an album made when it was installed, and would return an income when it sold.

That was her first foray into public speaking. She was called on to do more, but picked those that appealed and would donate towards the Blue Clarion Project. The Randalls kept in touch with the office but allowed their staff to gain the confidence to back their own instincts. The West Coast Office doubled the client list there in the first year that Bryan and Eleanor were in charge. They sold their house and bought a flat nearer the office, and another near the Los Angeles office, flying back and forth as needed.

Edward and Olive rented a flat near Tokyo, as buying was out of the question, and their client list grew as well as them arranging local tours for bands that were deemed suitable to the Japanese taste. Nancy and Nathan had bought a flat in Sydney, where they would stay when they were there. Nathan was brilliant with the business side of that office, while Nancy saw the talent and could talk to the artists as one of them. The office had several pictures of Summer Rose on the wall, taken when they played in Australia, as well as pictures of ‘Enlightened’, their biggest client, now regularly touring overseas.

Garry and Willow went to meetings, sat on the boards and spent a lot of time writing music. They reworked an album of the unused ‘Garreth’ songs into something that ‘Blank Slate’ could appreciate and were then asked to write more. They were commissioned to write, and sing, the opening credit song for the new Bond movie, ‘Shaken to Death’, being given the preliminary draft of the script, which Vivienne delivered, having been cast as one of the villains’ henchgirls.

Towards the end of summer, they took a trip around the world, stopping at Orlando for ten days to look at properties and talk to recruitment offices about setting up a Red Wolf office on the East Coast. This would only be small, about three staff, as it would be in contact with London in real time. They had an idea that one of the girls that handled the East Coast part of the tours could relocate with a promotion.

Then they went to Los Angeles to talk to Bryan and Eleanor, and to make sure that this office was now squeaky clean. The six girls that had been there was now just three, and working more efficiently, without Miss Turner, and with a new receptionist who had been interviewed by Eleanor. Bryan had upgraded the computers and made changes to the way things were handled, with the financial side now processed in London. They were there a week before heading south to Sydney.

After a week in Sydney, they went to Bathurst in a rental car to see Mac and Mae. It had been arranged before they left and there was a welcome and a bedroom for them. Mac had done what he had said he would, and there was a large shed on the property with a nice collection of vintage sportscars, as well as a car that he explained was his new, everyday drive. It was, on the face of it, an older Chevrolet Camaro, but when he lifted the bonnet, it took Garry’s breath away with the additions in the engine bay.

“This is one of the engines that were built a few years ago to compete in the local supercar races. That engine put out over six hundred horsepower and was a brute to handle in competition form. This one has been tamed, with a more peaceful gearbox and the interior returned to the normal configuration. Mind you, at over six litres it drinks fuel at an alarming rate, so I only use it locally. The town is gearing up for the annual race around the mountain. They’re putting out the concrete safety walls and setting up the pits. There’ll be thousands that come here in a week or so. When the track has been set up, I’ve arranged for one of our team drivers to take you on a few laps in the VIP Drive car. You won’t be allowed to drive yourself, as it’s classed as a temporary racetrack, and you’ll need a racing licence.”

They had a pleasant stay, filling Mac in on what had happened since they took over Red Wolf, going into the town and also visiting the motor museum. Mac was now a well-known town celebrity, and the Randalls were welcomed as Rocks and ‘Garreth’ members. In the week before the race, the town filled and there were people camping around the track some days before anything happened. Willow had never seen anything like it. The big carpark where they had played was filling with huge trucks that carried racing cars of all types as the weekend was filled with races of different categories.

The track was ready on the Wednesday, and they got the promised laps. For Willow, the first bit was all right, and then they climbed the mountain with the turns becoming hairier as they got nearer the top. There was a bit of a flat section across the top as the driver told her that they were coming to Skyline. She screamed as they reached that slight bend, as all she could see was the countryside across the valley as they dropped into a corner and then onto a range of bends at high speed, with concrete walls on both sides. When they came out of that section, the driver laughed.

“This is called Con-rod Straight. It has been the one place where engines decided they had gone far enough in the older days. With computer assisted engine management, it hardly happens now.”

Willow could hardly breathe as they dropped down towards the town at two hundred miles an hour before drifting through a right-hand bend at one-fifty, passing the hotel that they had stayed in when they had played.

The next two laps weren’t such a surprise, but she still couldn’t see where they were going at Skyline. She needed to be helped out of the car when they stopped in the pits and was still trembling when Garry spoke to her.

“How was it, love?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out, my darling. Have fun.”

She went to change out of her racing suit with a grin on her face.

The next four days were surreal. There were more racing fans around the track than the biggest concert they had ever played, the TV station that covered the event was live throughout Australia for the weekend, starting at dawn. The race itself was a thousand kilometres on the Sunday. Mac explained that it had been different in the early days, when it used to take around seven hours to complete when it was five hundred miles, as the cars would do some laps at a fast pace, cruise for the middle part and race to the end.

“These days, there’s no letting up. These guys are on pole-winning lap times all day, and the race is now a thousand kilometres, rather than the eight hundred that it used to be. It now takes less than six and a half hours to complete the hundred and sixty-one laps.

Macs’ team didn’t get on the podium, but they did well enough to have a party on Sunday evening. They had another couple of days with Mac and Mae before driving back to Sydney to catch their next plane to India to investigate the possibility of a new office there, to handle prospective tours of Indian artistes in Britain, to play to the large Indian population now living there. They spoke to several producers and agents about the plan and left after appointing an agency as the sole management for Red Wolf in the country.

Back in Britain, they were busy with meetings and writing until they got the news that Margaret had died. It was a shock, as she had seemed so happy the last time Willow had seen her. The funeral service was arranged at St. Marys, Stoneleigh, and Sandra asked Willow if she would play the organ for the service. When Willow went to Stoneleigh to see about the music, she had another shock.

There was a new vicar to perform the service. He told her that the Russells had moved to Winchester, where they had met and married. He said the Hilda and her husband were living within walking distance of her brother. He introduced himself as the Reverend Abbott and was around forty years old. Willow quite liked him, bolstered by the fact that he was helping out at the Blue Coat, as he had been trained by Jack Heinrich when he had been in the seminary.

He showed Willow the list of hymns that had been chosen, and she surprised him by going up to the organ and playing a verse of each one. Sally had been asked to sing Amazing Grace as the coffin was carried out of the church, a tune that Willow needed to download and practise before the service. When she spoke to Malcolm, she found out that the Village Choir wanted to add their voices, as they considered Margaret one of them.

The day of the funeral was overcast, and the church heaters were on. The church was packed with locals and invited colleagues from Margrets’ time on the opera stage. The choir was thinned to the best seven, with four standing next to Willow on one side, and the other three with Sally on the other, to provide a strong lead for the congregation. The TV station was there, making a record of the service to be added to a look back on Margarets’ life.

The service was taken by Reverend Abbott, with help from the Bishop and Tom. Willow played the refurbished organ with a feeling of sadness that such a wonderful voice had been silenced, but tempered with joy as the voices beside her filled the church, with Sally now singing professionally with the ENO, something that may never have happened if she hadn’t met Margaret.

The post-funeral affair was in the club. Malcolm and his chef had put on a lot of sandwiches and finger food, with the urn on to provide hot drinks. Willow and Garry were able to talk to a lot of people who they hadn’t met for a few years. Her parents were there, with John, who shadowed Garry, much to Garry’s joy. Willow could see them together and wondered about talking to her husband about adoption. That, she thought, would only happen when they weren’t flying around the world.

Eventually, she found herself standing with her parents and discussing the design studio. Then her father surprised her.

“How busy are you with Red Wolf, poppet?”

“Not as much as the first couple of years, Dad. The office staff have gained a desire to lead, once the first shareholders’ bonus was paid out. It’s going to be huge, this year. We’ve been expanding the number of regional offices, and the new one will be up and running next year. Moving to a dedicated building has allowed us to grow.”

“No plans for going back on the stage?”

“I don’t think so. We’re happy to write for others, but touring is hard work, and we’ve been there and done that. I was thinking about having a rest.”

“I was in the PMs’ office the other day. He’s starting to think about the next election already. He asked me if I would talk to you about considering a run to take back Beaconsfield. Marlow is right on the western edge of it. Although we had held it until twenty-nine, it was lost by a very thin margin. For some reason, there was a big swing against the sitting member. She had more than a nine percent swing against her in twenty-four, and we thought she was safe with a good margin, so there was a mistake made by not funding her enough. It looked as if the voters that wanted us to stay in the EU had sided with the independent to give us a slap. His father was previously our own, and very high up in the government of the time, but a staunch Remainer. That electorate was just about fifty / fifty back then. The incumbent got in at the thirty-four vote because we didn’t have a strong candidate, one of those single topic guys who pop up now and then. I think that he was wanting to reroute the flight paths out of Heathrow. The PM thought that your profile as a singer and businesswoman with an OBE would be good to swing it back our way.”

“That’s a bit sudden, Dad. I’ll have to think about that for a few days. I’ll get back to you.”

“Please do. I won’t promise you, but you would be ideal as Secretary of State for culture, media, and sport.”

“Culture, I could do, but I’ve never been a sportsperson.”

“But you do understand how teams work, and many sports are more about business and profits these days. Right up your street. You would have plenty in the office to keep you abreast of the things you would need to know.”

“I’ll have to talk to Garry about it. Are we doing the pop-ups again next summer?”

“We are. There are still plenty of places yet to visit. The office was thinking that it would be good to visit the Scandinavian countries this time, with longer visits to the main places.”

“We’ll have an agent up and running in India, if you want to pencil that in for the year after.”

“We’ll give that some thought, poppet”

“You know. When you say something like that and are talking about the British Government, it sends goose bumps up my back. You’ve been an MP now for over seven years, and I think back on my younger days with wonder. I believed that you would be great as an MP, and you’ve made me proud that you’ve handled the responsibility so well.”

“I think the same about you, love. You made me proud to be your father when you built Summer Rose into an international sensation, then turned around and remade yourself when it broke up. Then you became a Rock and then created a whole new band when that ended. You have the ability to build teams, to lead them to become greater than they would have been without your input. You have impressed the PM to the extent that he wants you on his team. Not just to win a seat back, but to help us to stay in power for a couple of decades, or more. It would be the ultimate use of your degree.”

Willow and Garry talked it over for weeks, making lists of the pro’s and con’s without a decision. They kept it to themselves and stayed working on new songs and new activities with Red Wolf. As the new office in America came online, one of the girls who used to handle tours there was promoted to manage it. It seemed that every time they went into the office, there were small changes, with Sue, Thomasina, Jacquie and Helen driving them. Helen had become the Events Manager as her duties with the Randalls had lessened because they were now more independent. She ran a spreadsheet with all their clients who were on tour, in a permanent show, or just resting, allowing others to concentrate on the details.

In order to clear their heads, the Randalls contacted Gina about visiting her before Christmas. They flew to Florence and stayed with the Innocenti’s for two weeks. Gina was having a short break from concert playing, as she was entering her third trimester for her second child. The were shown the new addition to her husbands’ school, with a performance space and modern recording and post-production technology.

They spent a lot of time talking about how life had crept up on them. Now creeping past their later-twenties, school seemed so far in the past. Garry and Guiseppe would go off and do things, leaving Willow and Gina to sit and talk, or play the grand piano and sing some of the old songs. Willow was able to tell Gina about the other band members that were now working with Red Wolf. Gina already knew about the ‘Third Rating’ line-up as she had been to one of their concerts with ‘Cauldron’.

At the end of the holiday, the Randalls flew home and into the round of parties that now were a part of every Christmas. At the beginning of December, they had a big one for the staff of Red Wolf, when the shareholders all received their yearly bonus. The regional offices were having theirs on the same day, according to the time zones. There were smaller ones in Watford and Leicester at the studios, and another in Birmingham at the design studio.

At that one, Ashley asked her again about running, but she wasn’t ready just yet. A week before Christmas, the shopping centre team manager got in touch and told her that the multi-national had made an offer to take over the site, with a response needed in January. Willow sent a group email to Gina, Vivienne, Nancy, Edward, Bryan, Roy and Victor, telling them of the news. The offer was fifty million in cash, and twenty-five million in shares of the multi-national, which equated to five million in cash and two and a half million worth of shares for each share in the syndicate.

She didn’t push it, but it must have struck a nerve with all of them, and she had agreements from all the others to let the manager know that they were going to sell. The paperwork would be signed in January.

That was enough to make Willows’ mind up. With her holding three shares in the syndicate, she would be getting fifteen million and another seven and a half million worth of shares. That was enough to just about buy the seat, but she would do the work properly.

At the party for New Year, in Parliament, she told her father that she would stand, if the party wanted her to, He took her to The PM, who hugged her when he heard the news. His wife hugged her as well.

That night, they stood by the window as Big Ben tolled the witching hour. They kissed to welcome in the New Year and then the fireworks lit up the sky. They looked out over the Thames and Garry stood behind her, holding her close. He whispered in her ear.

“When you get elected, it will be interesting. I can be your Private Secretary.”

She laughed and turned around to give him a kiss.

“When we get home, Mister Secretary Randall, I’ll give you your first job.”

“What’s that going to be, my love.”

“That, secretary dear, will be to make passionate love to me to welcome the year and then I’ll think of other things. Maybe it will be a repeat session. I did hear that having immense power increases ones libido. It’ll be fun finding out if they’re right.”

Marianne Gregory © 2025