\n \u201cBut he turned up with this folder and there were 35- odd,\u201d Meade recalls.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe said, \u2018They might be rubbish. I can do them again.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade shakes his head. \u201cI just skipped along the road thinking, \u2018Wow, I can\u2019t wait to see them.\u2019 It blew my mind.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was a great honour, even better than seeing the book for the first time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n It is Wednesday afternoon in Glasgow and Peter Howson is in his studio painting when Meade and I arrive. A crucifixion. It looks very Howson.\n<\/p>\n
\n Glowering, dark, full of suffering and pain. Jesus, Meade points out, looks a bit like Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie, much to Howson\u2019s amusement.\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade has brought doughnuts. A sweet tooth is one of the things the two men have in common these days, I\u2019m told. Howson works away for 10 minutes before coming to join us to talk about poetry and art and music and the end of the world.\n<\/p>\n
\n We start with the poetry. Some seven months after Howson gave Meade that folder the poems and illustrations have been gathered together and printed under the title Paper Illness.\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade, it is very clear, is thrilled by Howson\u2019s illustrations. \u201cI think they work so well with the poems. They\u2019re really adding to them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Raymond Meade and artist Peter Howson with the new poetry collection Paper Illness (Image: Julie Broadfoot)\n<\/p>\n
\n There\u2019s a scratchy pen portrait of a man on the cover wearing an eye patch. \u201cIt\u2019s based on him,\u201d Howson confirms, looking over at Meade.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen I was at school I had this eye patch,\u201d Meade explains. Oh, was there a photo? \u201cI f****** hope not,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cI said to Peter I used to have this eye patch and it was horrible. It was a surgical thing. I wanted to look like a pirate. So, he\u2019s made me look like a pirate.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Do they make an odd couple? Howson, now in his late sixties, is one of contemporary art\u2019s big beasts. Widely regarded as one of the great contemporary figurative painters, he was Britain\u2019s official war artist in Bosnia in 1993 where he was appalled by what he saw. In Kosovo a gun was held to his head.\n<\/p>\n
\n No surprise then that his paintings are full of despair and horror. But also the odd celebrity (he\u2019s painted Madonna and David Bowie in the past).\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade, at 44, is a generation younger. Growing up a fan of Oasis and The La\u2019s, he formed the band The Ronelles in 2004 before becoming a solo artist and working with the likes of Justin Currie, Glenn Matlock, and author Iain Banks. He even played with Shane McGowan one night in the late 2000s. He joined Ocean Colour Scene early in 2015, but in 2021 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Even so, he continues to tour with the band.\n<\/p>\n
\n The two men have known each other for years – they\u2019re a little fuzzy on exactly how long, but maybe over a decade. Long enough for Howson\u2019s daughter Lucie to be the one who taught Meade how to play chess. And now they\u2019ve finally worked together.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI had always wanted to do something with Peter,\u201d Meade admits. \u201cTo be honest I thought he would say no.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Howson is surprised. \u201cYou thought I would say no?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYeah, I didn\u2019t want to bother you. But I just thought there was good imagery in it,\u201d he says of his poems.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some of the illustrations featured within the book which is available now (Image: Peter Howson)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAnd I was interested from the artistic side of things in how he would interpret it,\u201d he adds, turning back to me. \u201cSo when I passed the poems over to him there were no notes.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think he asked for a couple of pointers on a couple of them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n And why did Howson want to get involved? \u201cWell, I would never say no to Raymond. I see him as a soul mate.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Howson\u2019s black and white drawings for Paper Illness are, given the scale and brute force of many of his paintings, surprisingly delicate, I suggest.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYeah, the drawings are delicate aren\u2019t they,\u201d Howson concedes, \u201cmuch more delicate than the paintings, though I can do sensitive paintings sometimes. I think I\u2019m known for doing big, brash things.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI felt totally inspired doing them. I just chose certain poems to begin with that appealed to me straight away. And I decided to do tons of drawings.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe imagery is great. Some poetry you probably couldn\u2019t illustrate, but these ones you could. There\u2019s a sadness in them that I like as well. I think that he has done me a favour really. He probably thinks I\u2019ve done him a favour illustrating them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade nods and adds, \u201cJust a bit.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The illustrations are responses to the poems. \u201cI love poetry. I don\u2019t understand it sometimes,\u201d Howson explains, but Meade\u2019s poems he found charming. \u201cThey\u2019re lovely and short and contemplative, fragile, sometimes angry \u2026\n<\/p>\n
\n Paper Illness is a collection of poetry by Raymond Meade, best known as the bass player of rock band Ocean Colour Scene (Image: Julie Broadfoot)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think in this mad world we\u2019re living in poetry is such a beautiful thing to do. It doesn\u2019t serve any purpose apart from enriching lives, I think.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI felt great when I read them anyway. I loved them and I\u2019ve been encouraging him to do more, but I don\u2019t know if he ever will.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey weren\u2019t easy to illustrate. I don\u2019t think poetry is easy to illustrate, but I did my best.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade has been writing all his life. But at the start of the year – with Ocean Colour Scene on a break from touring for a few months – he set aside some time to see what he actually had.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAnd before I knew it I definitely had the bones of something to put out.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The encouragement of Scottish author Jenni Fagan helped him get over any imposter syndrome. \u201cShe has been so helpful. I just think she\u2019s the best writer in Scotland at the moment.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m coming to this as a musician and I know people are going to say, \u2018Oh, the guy from Ocean Colour Scene is trying to be a poet.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAnd she said, \u2018You just need to put that out of your head. Just be a poet.\u2019 And that was powerful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Paper Illness is a collection of 52 short poems – and 10 Howson illustrations – that touch on everything from Brendan Behan and the Aberfan disaster to the deeply personal. Meade even addresses his multiple sclerosis diagnosis.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ocean Colour Scene fans may well smile ruefully at the line, \u201cI miss when MS stood for Moseley Shoals\u201d in the poem Notes On Multiple Sclerosis, a reference to the band\u2019s 1996 album.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen I get a text about a setlist – especially this year because it\u2019s the 30th anniversary of Moseley Shoals – it just comes up \u2018MS\u2019. It was in my head a lot,\u201d Meade notes with a smile.\n<\/p>\n
\n As for the diagnosis, \u201cthe first year was difficult. I got back to playing pretty quickly, but I\u2019ve only recently found out how to manage it.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cMy neurologist, he\u2019s brilliant. There is so much information at the start but he said a thing that really stuck. This is true for everyone, not just MS people. Think of your day. You wake up with an allocation of energy tokens. Just be careful how you spend them.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen I\u2019m on the road with the band we tour a lot. We\u2019re just back from Spain a couple of weeks ago. I\u2019m really strict about having a nap in the afternoon to be ready for the show. Straight to bed. No madness. We come off stage at 11 o\u2019clock. I\u2019m in my bunk at 11.30pm.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Howson has a question about that, given the reputation of rock stars. \u201cCan you sleep with all the racket going on?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n This Howson is entitled Yorkhill (Image: Peter Howson)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYeah, they\u2019re getting old,\u201d Meade says of his fellow band members with a smile.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou\u2019re not like a normal rock star,\u201d Howson suggests.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201c I\u2019m a session musician,\u201d Meade says plainly.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere\u2019s something very stable about you and I think that\u2019s got a lot to do with your wife,\u201d Howson suggests. \u201cShe\u2019s your rock.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade admits he lost friends in the wake of his diagnosis. \u201cYeah. There\u2019s a stigma and I certainly found that I knew in the moment of the diagnosis that my body wasn\u2019t going to be the same and it hasn\u2019t been. But what I hadn\u2019t bargained for was just losing touch with people. I\u2019ve definitely acknowledged it.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m past the anger with it. If that\u2019s how people are, that\u2019s how people are. You can\u2019t make people want to be in touch with you. But the people who matter to me, they are great – whether it\u2019s Peter or the guys in Ocean Colour Scene. There was a lot of black humour around. They thought I could get medicinal cannabis and we could get a parking pass. It was really funny and what I needed at the time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Howson picks up the baton. \u201cIf you can write poetry about it, I think it\u2019s a therapeutic thing. The same with my paintings. If I didn\u2019t paint I\u2019d go mad. I don\u2019t know what your mental state is,\u201d he says, turning to Meade, \u201cbut mine\u2019s unstable quite a lot of the time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n In the book, on the page opposite the aforementioned Notes on Multiple Sclerosis, there\u2019s another deeply personal poem, Notes on Sobriety. Howson has been open in the past about the fact that he entered AA to deal with his alcoholism and drug addiction.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe sobriety thing for me was a choice, not a necessity,\u201d Meade points out. \u201cI never had any problem with alcohol. I just realised that life might be a little easier without it. A week turned into a month then a year and here I am 16 and a half years sober.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been to AA, although I do know a lot of people who attend,\u201d he adds. \u201cPeter and I were introduced by someone from AA, but it wasn\u2019t at a meeting.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Howson recalls another encounter. \u201cI used to see Raymond a lot in the West End. I used to walk my dogs and I was with my daughter.\u201d He does recall meeting Meade in Peckham\u2019s in Hyndland. I think you stood behind me at one point.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade nods. \u201cThat was the moment I made up my mind to \u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cTalk to me.\u201d Howson finishes his sentence. \u201cI was really chuffed about that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Growing up in Scotland it would have been impossible, Meade suggests, for him not to be aware of Howson. \u201cPeter\u2019s work is omnipresent. I knew it before I knew him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n And now they\u2019re working together.\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade, Howson suggests, has been a tonic for him. \u201cIn my early days I used to hang out with a lot of people that weren\u2019t good for me. He is good for me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n What did the two of them bond over?\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re both interested in the Holocaust,\u201d Howson says simply. \u201cWe talk about that a lot. I think we are both interested in \u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n He tries to find the right words. The extremities of human experience, I suggest.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWell, yeah. I\u2019m particularly interested in disasters and famine and death and all that. The older I get the more I think the world is in a very dangerous position.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Howson\u2019s paintings have often been concerned with the horrors of the world. He has always been willing to gaze at the worst aspects of humanity. His artist\u2019s eye is as unflinching as Goya\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n
\n Read more\n<\/p>\n
\n Meade, meanwhile, was moved to work on a project entitled The Railway People about the Holocaust after visiting Auschwitz. He wrote a poem and a song which saw him work with Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor. The resulting documentary, narrated by Michael Sheen, won an award and Meade and Kor remained friends until her death in 2019.\n<\/p>\n
\n In a world where Nigel Farage<\/a> is having to deny Reform would order troops to use lethal force against migrants crossing the channel, are they both fearful for where we find ourselves in 2026?\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWell,\u201d Howson suggests, \u201cthe problem these days is you can be a completely sane, normal good person and social media will turn you into a monster and that\u2019s what\u2019s happening. People are constantly being radicalised. Britain has changed.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cPeople think I was pro-right wing because I used to paint all these thugs with Union Jacks. Completely wrong. But the rise of the right wing is massive. The whole world is in danger at the moment from AI \u2026 And Trump as well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cOver here everyone is really caustic at the moment,\u201d Meade adds, \u201creally quite aggressive about it and quite narrow-minded. People sitting on a dinghy for however many days and the dangers involved in that \u2026 If it\u2019s just as simple as \u2018shoot boats, they can\u2019t come here \u2026\u2019 I don\u2019t want to be a part of that.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI think Brexit caused all this. I loved being part of Europe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n He pauses, then jumps to another train of thought.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019ve got friends who have teenage kids now and they hold up f****** idiots like the Tate brothers or Jake Paul as their heroes.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWhen I was growing up my heroes were Lee Mavers, Noel Gallagher, probably Peter to an extent. People that didn\u2019t want to be famous. They were just really good at what they did. You look at this now. Everything\u2019s disposable. I despise the culture we\u2019re subjected to. It goes beyond vanity. It\u2019s worrying and you couple that with AI \u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n He stops, shakes his head. \u201cI just try to live in a little bubble of my own, don\u2019t do any harm to anyone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n It\u2019s worth saying that there is both light and shade in Meade\u2019s poetry. And maybe, I suggest, there is redemption in Howson\u2019s paintings?\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cOh, there will be,\u201d Howson agrees, \u201cbut only after everything\u2019s destroyed. That\u2019s my religious thing. I can\u2019t get away from it. I\u2019m into Apocalypse. It\u2019s not that I encourage it, but when I see it happening I can feel it and I think, \u2018I\u2019m frightened, but I\u2019ve got to be strong.\u2019\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cAt the moment I\u2019m having to reassess my whole life in art businesswise because there\u2019s a massive dip in the art market. I see myself as a bit of a survivor because I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. There was a golden period in the 1980s. 1990s less so.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt took an uplift until about the last six, seven years.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n The art market aside, he\u2019s also dealing with the passing of time and ageing. \u201cI can\u2019t function quite as well. I couldn\u2019t travel on my own anymore. I don\u2019t have the confidence to do that anymore.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n Time catches up with all of us. Howson is now 68. \u201cI should start working out. I had pneumonia last year and it slowed me down quite a lot. I had to give up cigarettes. All my vices are disappearing. Maybe I took an overdose of Nytol the other night to get to sleep.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n How many hours a day does he work?\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cNot as many as I\u2019d like to. I\u2019ve got a different routine these days. I used to get up at 3.30, 4 o\u2019clock in the morning and work right through to about 10 o\u2019clock at night sometimes. I did have breaks.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI call my daughter twice a day, I call my mum and dad twice a day. My dad\u2019s 97, my mum\u2019s 90, and so I keep in touch with them. They\u2019ve still got a wee house.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cMy daughter, I\u2019m on the phone to her for an hour and a half every day. She comes up quite regularly.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m not in here that much now,\u201d he adds, looking around at his studio which is full of books and newspapers and CDs and paint on all the furniture. \u201cMy routine is different. I\u2019m only here until 2 o\u2019clock, 2.30pm. That\u2019s why when I\u2019m in here I\u2019m working like mad.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cAnd then I go home and Lorraine, my partner, I don\u2019t know how she puts up with me. I really just go back and work. I normally put on the TV<\/a> and it\u2019s behind me so I don\u2019t actually get to see it. But the only thing I can work to is old people\u2019s television like Talking Pictures and ITV3, with Poirot and Miss Marple. I don\u2019t know how many times I\u2019ve seen Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple and Poirot.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI like a bit of Morse,\u201d Meade agrees.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cMorse is fantastic. So, I\u2019m drawing away. Lorraine just brings me cups of tea. She\u2019s a herbal fanatic so it\u2019s always herbal tea. Never anything stronger. And I get my dinner. I get my beans on toast and my soup. Sometimes it\u2019s a bit more adventurous.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n As for Meade, will there be more poems? \u201cI would like to think so. I don\u2019t think that I have a choice. It just poured out. I don\u2019t like the word cathartic, but, in some ways, it\u2019s been just that.\n<\/p>\n \n When I gave Peter the poems I said, \u2018Don\u2019t judge me on this. It\u2019s all woe is me.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Woe is me is amazing. Woe is me is the best form of art that there is..\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cPour out your soul,\u201d Howson adds approvingly. It\u2019s what Howson has been doing all his artistic life, after all.\n<\/p>\n \n Paper Illness is published by Mackerel Editions. For more details visit mackereleditions.com<\/a>\n<\/p>\nThe Tendencies (Image: Peter Howson)\n<\/p>\n