Today’s song is ‘Solitaire’. This a ballad that was written by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody. Cody employs playing the card game of ‘solitaire’ as a metaphor for a man ‘who lost his love through his indifference’. The song is best known by its rendition by the Carpenters.
Neil Sedaka recorded "Solitaire" as the title cut for a 1972 album. Both Tonie Christy and Petula Clark had album releases with this song. ‘Solitaire’ had its first evident single release in February 1973 as recorded by ‘The Searchers’; however, it was an autumn 1973 single by Andy Williams which would reach Number 4 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’ and afford Williams a Number 1 hit in South Africa.
The Carpenters recorded "Solitaire" for the 1975 ‘Horizon’ album. Richard Carpenter, who was familiar with the song via the versions by Neil Sedaka and Andy Williams, was ‘not crazy’ about the song, but he felt it would showcase Karen Carpenter’s vocal expertise. Despite assessing her vocal performance on ‘Solitaire’ as "one of [her] greatest", Richard says that "she never liked the song [and]...she never changed her opinion”. It hit Number 17 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ and was their least successful single since ‘Bless the Beasts and Children’ in 1971 It signalled a downturn in the group's popularity, but ‘Solitaire’ did afford the Carpenters their twelfth of fifteen Number 1 ‘Easy Listening’ hits.
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I am sure that (unlike the message of the song) ‘I have ever lost love through my indifference’. There have been many times in my life when events and circumstances have obliged me to act alone, be alone, or prefer to be on my own. Ever since I incurred a serious traffic accident at the age of 11 years that crippled me and left me close to death with multiple injuries and unable to walk for almost three years, I have not followed the general path of my peer group, and have instead occupied my body and mind with more adult preoccupations for one of my prevailing age.
I needed to spend my years 11-14 learning to walk again and learning to control my constant high pain levels that my shattered legs had left me with, and which has never ceased throughout my life thereafter. This involved me embarking on a self-learning course of several eastern disciplines and meditational methods such as progressive relaxation, transcendental meditation, Indian Dance (for balance) self-hypnosis, breathing exercises and imagination exercises. I had to obtain numerous specialised books, read them and understand them, at a time when the library was the only resource for obtaining out-of-the-ordinary information (1954-1957). I essentially needed to learn how the mind and body connected functioned independently and together. I particularly needed to know how mental and psychological approaches could be used to one’s long-term benefit and how they related to one’s belief system. This essential meant reading medical and body/mind literature.
I had discovered during my nine-month period of hospitalisation that I had a high IQ after one of my schoolteachers arranged to have me Mensa tested. These tests essentially confirmed that I didn’t think in the same way as most peers and that most of my communication images were abstract ones (essentially conveying that I thought in pictures and images as opposed to words and actions). I was to discover that approaching all manner of situations from a different angle and perspective to most people is a great advantage in most problem-solving situations.
Most of the latter half of my teens were spent in the company of mates who were much older than me. I found myself being more comfortable in the presence and company of fully-grown adults as I needed the stimulation of adult conversation which my peer group couldn’t supply. Don’t get me wrong, I still liked to go out with, drink with, dance with, womanise and fight alongside my own age range. However, regarding my relationships with females, I always felt better having a liaison with an older woman than with a girl of my own age. Where dancing was concerned, however, I preferred a young woman of my own age who could strut her stuff on the dance floor.
By the age of 18 years, I had distinguished myself as being the youngest Shop Steward in Great Britain when a workforce of over 300 men and women at Harrison Gardeners in Liversedge elected me as their work’s representative. Six months before my 19th birthday, I became the youngest paid part-time Youth Leader in the country. Between my 18th and 20th year of life, I would spend part of my weekend as a St. Vincent De Paul volunteer with the church visiting the sick and the dying in a Cheshire Home in Cleckheaton. By the age of 21, I travelled to Canada alone where I lived and worked for the better part of two years. By 23 years of age, I was a textile foreman and by the age of twenty-six, I’d become a mill manager on nights. Between the age of 26 and 30, I went to night school three nights weekly after my day’s work had been done and obtained the ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level certificates I needed as a mature student to enter university. In order to do this and institute a career change, I relinquished my mill manager’s job on nights and returned to a semi-skilled post in a Brighouse textile factory.
From 21 years onwards, I have usually preferred my own company plus ‘one other’ as opposed to a group of friends. By twenty-one years of age, I had established myself as a truly independent man.
By the age of 30 years, I abandoned my idea of becoming a History Teacher and decided instead that I would be more suitable as a Probation Officer having been a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’, so to speak. I soon discovered as a new Probation Officer that my training had in no way equipped me to handle the situations of the clients I was expected to deal with by helping them to stop doing the criminal things they were doing, especially when their behaviour was often beyond the conscious control of their bodies. Many offenders were addicted to either drink or drugs (alcohol was the most prevalent addiction of many offenders during the early 1970s and drugs would not become so until the 80s onwards).
The upshot of this was that I was to do my own research on client’s response patterns over the next twenty years, and develop practical ways of genuinely helping to change criminal behaviour (especially when such behaviour was displayed involuntarily like spontaneous aggressive outbursts leading to violent action or sexual impulses that some clients could not prevent themselves acting upon). Between the ages of 30-50, I would work, work and work; forever researching and learning as I kept up with the latest advancements in physical response patterns and mind-body interconnections.
The upshot was that I became the founder and pioneer of ‘Anger Management’, a process and discipline that I essentially stumbled across and which I freely gave to the world. Within two years (1972-74) ‘Anger Management Groups’ based on my research and work had mushroomed across the English-speaking world.
A few years later, I had become the first Probation Officer in England and Wales to introduce Relaxation Training into Prisons; and during the 80s, I ran ‘Relaxation and Assertion Training Courses’ for Life Prisoners in a woman’s prison in Wakefield. A few years later I also operated relaxation groups for male s in H.M.P. Wakefield. By the 90s, I was running Relaxation Training courses in Hospitals, Hostels, Psychiatric establishments, Probation Offices, Educational establishments, Churches, Prisons, and Community Halls. I even provided Relaxation Training input on training courses for psychologists, nurses, psychiatric nurses, psychiatric patients, probation officers, police cadets and firemen trainees all over Yorkshire.
Throughout my entire career, while I would naturally mix with colleagues in the pub or staff room during coffee breaks. I must admit, however, although I was a political animal, I never allowed what was happening out there in the world to interfere with and affect whatever was going on inside my head. I was simply too involved with my own work and research findings. I had made my Probation career a vocation as opposed to a job.
There have been many occasions when I have stood alone against the majority opinion, and I can resist all force except the force of logic. Were I a prisoner, I could probably survive five years in solitary confinement? I’d certainly make out, were I shipwrecked and the sole survivor on a desert island. Although sometimes headstrong, I am not immune to changing my own behaviour whenever required. All anyone in dispute with me needs to do is to show me where I am wrong in either thought or deed and I will instantly change either.
There is a game that psychologists sometimes play by asking you to identify an animal or a car that you think most resembles you and your personality. Were a psychologist to ask me which game best resembled and reflected my personality throughout most of my life, it would undoubtedly have been the game of ‘Solitaire’.
Love and peace Bill xxx
Neil Sedaka recorded "Solitaire" as the title cut for a 1972 album. Both Tonie Christy and Petula Clark had album releases with this song. ‘Solitaire’ had its first evident single release in February 1973 as recorded by ‘The Searchers’; however, it was an autumn 1973 single by Andy Williams which would reach Number 4 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’ and afford Williams a Number 1 hit in South Africa.
The Carpenters recorded "Solitaire" for the 1975 ‘Horizon’ album. Richard Carpenter, who was familiar with the song via the versions by Neil Sedaka and Andy Williams, was ‘not crazy’ about the song, but he felt it would showcase Karen Carpenter’s vocal expertise. Despite assessing her vocal performance on ‘Solitaire’ as "one of [her] greatest", Richard says that "she never liked the song [and]...she never changed her opinion”. It hit Number 17 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ and was their least successful single since ‘Bless the Beasts and Children’ in 1971 It signalled a downturn in the group's popularity, but ‘Solitaire’ did afford the Carpenters their twelfth of fifteen Number 1 ‘Easy Listening’ hits.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am sure that (unlike the message of the song) ‘I have ever lost love through my indifference’. There have been many times in my life when events and circumstances have obliged me to act alone, be alone, or prefer to be on my own. Ever since I incurred a serious traffic accident at the age of 11 years that crippled me and left me close to death with multiple injuries and unable to walk for almost three years, I have not followed the general path of my peer group, and have instead occupied my body and mind with more adult preoccupations for one of my prevailing age.
I needed to spend my years 11-14 learning to walk again and learning to control my constant high pain levels that my shattered legs had left me with, and which has never ceased throughout my life thereafter. This involved me embarking on a self-learning course of several eastern disciplines and meditational methods such as progressive relaxation, transcendental meditation, Indian Dance (for balance) self-hypnosis, breathing exercises and imagination exercises. I had to obtain numerous specialised books, read them and understand them, at a time when the library was the only resource for obtaining out-of-the-ordinary information (1954-1957). I essentially needed to learn how the mind and body connected functioned independently and together. I particularly needed to know how mental and psychological approaches could be used to one’s long-term benefit and how they related to one’s belief system. This essential meant reading medical and body/mind literature.
I had discovered during my nine-month period of hospitalisation that I had a high IQ after one of my schoolteachers arranged to have me Mensa tested. These tests essentially confirmed that I didn’t think in the same way as most peers and that most of my communication images were abstract ones (essentially conveying that I thought in pictures and images as opposed to words and actions). I was to discover that approaching all manner of situations from a different angle and perspective to most people is a great advantage in most problem-solving situations.
Most of the latter half of my teens were spent in the company of mates who were much older than me. I found myself being more comfortable in the presence and company of fully-grown adults as I needed the stimulation of adult conversation which my peer group couldn’t supply. Don’t get me wrong, I still liked to go out with, drink with, dance with, womanise and fight alongside my own age range. However, regarding my relationships with females, I always felt better having a liaison with an older woman than with a girl of my own age. Where dancing was concerned, however, I preferred a young woman of my own age who could strut her stuff on the dance floor.
By the age of 18 years, I had distinguished myself as being the youngest Shop Steward in Great Britain when a workforce of over 300 men and women at Harrison Gardeners in Liversedge elected me as their work’s representative. Six months before my 19th birthday, I became the youngest paid part-time Youth Leader in the country. Between my 18th and 20th year of life, I would spend part of my weekend as a St. Vincent De Paul volunteer with the church visiting the sick and the dying in a Cheshire Home in Cleckheaton. By the age of 21, I travelled to Canada alone where I lived and worked for the better part of two years. By 23 years of age, I was a textile foreman and by the age of twenty-six, I’d become a mill manager on nights. Between the age of 26 and 30, I went to night school three nights weekly after my day’s work had been done and obtained the ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level certificates I needed as a mature student to enter university. In order to do this and institute a career change, I relinquished my mill manager’s job on nights and returned to a semi-skilled post in a Brighouse textile factory.
From 21 years onwards, I have usually preferred my own company plus ‘one other’ as opposed to a group of friends. By twenty-one years of age, I had established myself as a truly independent man.
By the age of 30 years, I abandoned my idea of becoming a History Teacher and decided instead that I would be more suitable as a Probation Officer having been a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’, so to speak. I soon discovered as a new Probation Officer that my training had in no way equipped me to handle the situations of the clients I was expected to deal with by helping them to stop doing the criminal things they were doing, especially when their behaviour was often beyond the conscious control of their bodies. Many offenders were addicted to either drink or drugs (alcohol was the most prevalent addiction of many offenders during the early 1970s and drugs would not become so until the 80s onwards).
The upshot of this was that I was to do my own research on client’s response patterns over the next twenty years, and develop practical ways of genuinely helping to change criminal behaviour (especially when such behaviour was displayed involuntarily like spontaneous aggressive outbursts leading to violent action or sexual impulses that some clients could not prevent themselves acting upon). Between the ages of 30-50, I would work, work and work; forever researching and learning as I kept up with the latest advancements in physical response patterns and mind-body interconnections.
The upshot was that I became the founder and pioneer of ‘Anger Management’, a process and discipline that I essentially stumbled across and which I freely gave to the world. Within two years (1972-74) ‘Anger Management Groups’ based on my research and work had mushroomed across the English-speaking world.
A few years later, I had become the first Probation Officer in England and Wales to introduce Relaxation Training into Prisons; and during the 80s, I ran ‘Relaxation and Assertion Training Courses’ for Life Prisoners in a woman’s prison in Wakefield. A few years later I also operated relaxation groups for male s in H.M.P. Wakefield. By the 90s, I was running Relaxation Training courses in Hospitals, Hostels, Psychiatric establishments, Probation Offices, Educational establishments, Churches, Prisons, and Community Halls. I even provided Relaxation Training input on training courses for psychologists, nurses, psychiatric nurses, psychiatric patients, probation officers, police cadets and firemen trainees all over Yorkshire.
Throughout my entire career, while I would naturally mix with colleagues in the pub or staff room during coffee breaks. I must admit, however, although I was a political animal, I never allowed what was happening out there in the world to interfere with and affect whatever was going on inside my head. I was simply too involved with my own work and research findings. I had made my Probation career a vocation as opposed to a job.
There have been many occasions when I have stood alone against the majority opinion, and I can resist all force except the force of logic. Were I a prisoner, I could probably survive five years in solitary confinement? I’d certainly make out, were I shipwrecked and the sole survivor on a desert island. Although sometimes headstrong, I am not immune to changing my own behaviour whenever required. All anyone in dispute with me needs to do is to show me where I am wrong in either thought or deed and I will instantly change either.
There is a game that psychologists sometimes play by asking you to identify an animal or a car that you think most resembles you and your personality. Were a psychologist to ask me which game best resembled and reflected my personality throughout most of my life, it would undoubtedly have been the game of ‘Solitaire’.
Love and peace Bill xxx
