A ‘powerful and moving’ music night has been held in honour of a much-loved former Barrow musician who passed away from cancer last year.
The Words and Verses of Paul Wright was held at Full of Noises, Barrow Park, on Friday, October 16, in a ‘fitting tribute’ to the musician, poet and Furness Cavaliers legend.
Bob Graham, 66, organised the event to pay tribute to his good friend after he was unable to attend his funeral due to poor health.
He said: “He was great and he was a good laugh. It was a bit of shock when he passed, it was just really sad because he really was such a nice guy.”
The shipyard worker felt he needed to put together a night that celebrated Paul's musical and artistic side with performances from South Lakes Rock Choir, Sally Ann Staunton, Sarah Miller, Lovebuzz Indie disco and even Bob himself.
The 66-year-old got together with friends Dave Duffy and Gary Powell to play songs that he had written beside Paul and even slipped in one of the Barrow man's favourite songs: "Love Will Never Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division.
Old recordings of the BAE worker were also played, alongside 'moving' performances of his poems by other local poets.
Bob said: “It was all stuff Paul would have loved, especially when Kerry and Margaret recited some of his stuff.
“That was very moving, very powerful and moving.
“Recordings are good, and it was really good to hear Paul himself but when they were reading the poems out live, it was so moving.”
The Full of Noises event was a full house and raised £360 for St Mary’s Hospice and Bay Charities Oncology Unit.
It was especially important to Bob that some of Paul's family were in attendance: “They really enjoyed it. I mean that made it for me when they said to me afterwards how he would have been well chuffed with it and it was a really fitting tribute to what he did.”
The 66-year-old first met Paul in the 1980s when he answered an advert in a local music shop to be a bass player in a band called The Valley Forge that Paul helped manage.
“With Pauls help, that was how we spent a lot of the 1980s, practicing, gigging all over the country and generally having a good time,” said Bob.
They lost touch after the band ‘ran out of steam’ but rekindled their friendship around 15 years ago at a band reunion.
The pair played music together again right up until Paul’s death, getting together every Friday evening in Bob’s recording space.
He said that, despite Paul’s health worsening, the BAE worker always ‘lived his life to the fullest’ and helped others wherever he could.
Paul even became chief civil engineer on Goggleswick Metropolitan Railway, Bob’s steampunk-themed Victorian model railway layout.
Bob recited how one autumn afternoon, when they were working on the railway together, Paul said: ‘No matter what happens Bob, finish the music… and the railway.”
Bob said: “And so that’s what I’m doing, I’m gonna finish them both.”
The 66-year-old said he hopes to complete the railway with a statue of Paul as a worthy tribute to the work he put in on it.
Paul was also well-known in the town for extraordinary amount of time, effort and passion he put into grassroots football - most notably as secretary and groundsman of the Cavaliers, but also through various roles in the Furness Premier League.
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