Simon Carroll

When I was sixteen, I was part of a gang. Some were friends from school, others we had met in town or thereabouts – the way kids do. We hung around; some of us dressed up and called ourselves punk or adopted some other tribal tag. There were coffee shops we were thrown out of; my father hated boys hanging around the house who drank all his coffee and sat late at night at the kitchen table eating cereal. A boy nicknamed Wacko used to eat dog food from the tin.

One of the gang, who everyone trusted and confided in, was a big built boy called Caz, or Simon Carroll. He always wore a long tweed coat and with his strong Herefordian accent, would put both his thumbs up and say: ‘Right Ju?’ Always with a big smile. The biggest. He was into rollups and cider, dancing and drawing. Particularly good at the latter, he once showed me a picture of skulls he had drawn for an art lesson. The light and shading, the infinite delicacy of everything he had drawn and shaded on the page, was remarkable. It was no surprise when he went to Art College and I would still see him around when I was at the nearby Sixth Form. He’d be in a pair of Doc Martens, looking a bit like a dangerous skinhead. Except he wasn’t. There was a gentleness to him, this boy who took six sugars in his tea and lumbered around when the rest of us were all flitting around as exhibitionists, obsessed with our hair or our bondage trousers. He played in a band and a friend sent me a clipping a couple of years later, profiling his band as the worst in Hereford. That was Caz – everything for a lark. But he also fell in love a lot, often unrequited. We all went for the haircuts, the attitude – when right under our noses there was a sensitive, loving boy who had sixteen already looked like a man. I think he fell in love with me once and of course, I was blind too.

Caz lost one of his lovely brothers to cancer. I left Hereford, where we had grown up and had wild, teenage times. Then I found that humble boy had become a potter of note. Very avant-garde, profiled in magazines and exhibited in the Tate, St Ives. I looked him up, admired his very individualistic work and even saw a film of him beach painting with Rolf Harris. He was the true essence of a free spirit – where so many people try to be he was effortlessly so. I know that he struggled with an addiction to alcohol, the roots had been there in our adolescence. But everyone smokes and drinks, takes the risks that define a hormonal teenager. We were reaching that time in our lives where some of were reconnecting, enjoying a shared past.

Some time ago I sent him an email. He replied through a mate’s Friends Reunited account. It was a cheery note and I could hear his voice so clearly in it. I replied and told him how proud and pleased I was with his success. If anyone should have had recognition in life, it was Caz. People always smiled with recognition when you mentioned his name. A little bit mad. An enormous heart.

But I didn’t get another response and I put it down to eccentricity, his creativity…better to let him work. I thought about going to Cornwall to visit and another idea, a Hereford reunion of the old gang, was discussed by a friend. We could walk down by the river and shout our names under the bridge with the echo, or see how long one cup of tea could last. Of course we would be older, some of us with families – but you always carry a part of that time with you.

You should seize the day. Tonight I was called by a friend to tell me that he had only just heard that Cazzy had died.

But I refuse to be maudlin, or look back with any regret. I will remember those tweedy hugs, wrapped in fag smoke by strong arms. Him walking down the stairs in my house with that huge daft grin.

Simon Carroll, the talented potter. Caz. An artist but more importantly, someone I will always think of with such fondness.

All right Ju?

I’m all right, mate.

http://www.ceramics-aberystwyth.com/simon-carroll-interview.php