A few weeks ago my best friend’s brother died. He was also my husband’s cousin, and I’ve written about Tom before, I think. It was sudden, and shocking, and extremely sad.

Tributes and memories poured in and many people came to the funeral. Including Tom’s childhood friends and members of his group, Just an Odd Few. Their heyday was in the sixties and I was a silent groupie. They were the most exciting people I knew, and when they played at our school’s sixth form dance- a very demure affair Ealing Town Hall, the excitement was almost unbearable. Tom on the keyboards, Chris Niedenthal on the drums. And the rest. Just an odd few.

So at the funeral Chris let slip that he had formed a new group, Sir Hardly Nobody, which would be playing in Warsaw on June 4th – the 34th anniversary of the first partially free elections in Poland after years of communist rule. The gig would also mark the closing of his major photographic exhibition in Warsaw before its transfer to Łódź. Well, this we had to see and hear. We had to go to Warsaw anyway, so we booked to be there that weekend.

The exhibition was fascinating. Chris seems to have had the knack of being in the right place at the right time and his two hundred or so photos that he exhibited seemed to prove it. I was, however, interested in finding two. Many years ago Polish London was very excited about an article about Polish beehives, which Chris had photographed and written about. Every household seemed to have a copy of the magazine, everyone claimed to know him, or his mother or his father. Me too! But I genuinely remembered it and searched the exhibition till I found it.

Eureka

The second photo I needed to find was of course the one taken right at the beginning of Martial Law in Poland. Things were happening in the street. He managed to take some shots from an upstairs window, get the film to the airport, hand it to someone with the hope it would get to the right people, – and it did. He only actually saw it for the first time after it was published.

The exhibition, as I say, was fascinating generally. But these two photos made it for me.

Outside in the street there was a little stage embellished with a frame of red and white balloons. The weather was warm, the evening was light and the little crowd were tapping their feet to the rhythm of Sir Hardly Nobody’s opening numbers. On stage, Chris Niedenthal on the drums. Andrzej Naróżański with his guitar and Andrzej Werno, singer.

They sang old R and B numbers including some Rolling Stones- swoon- and Jimi Hendrix. All very enjoyable. The little crowd watching had its fair share of eccentrics, some of whom were a trifle annoying, but all generally good humoured.

And then I was in tears- Andrzej Werno spoke to the audience and dedicated a song – You got Dimples in your Jaws by Willie Jones- to Tomek. It was so moving, so very unexpected, but such a lovely tribute.

So thank you Andrzej, Andrzej and Chris. It made the evening really special.