The Waiter Brought a Tray – George Lovell

Marianne Seidel • George's Verlorene Liebe finally found

Dear Esteemed Fans of Procol Harum:

We are 'strangers in space' no more.

A good many of you paid me the compliment not only of buying The Waiter Brought a Tray, a memoir of my twenty-seven outings (to date) to hear Procol Harum play live in concert, but also the honour of actually reading the book, and paying attention to detail. This I know from inquiries relayed to me about Marianne Seidel, who plays a pivotal role in Chapter 8, 'Summer in the Soul.' Just as A Salty Dog marked me while working as a student in Germany that glorious summer, so too did Marianne, whom I fell in love with, alas only to have her disappear after I returned to Glasgow to start university. Forty years later, most miraculously on the eve of the Procol Harum concert in Germany on October 8 and 'Beyond the Pale''s twelfth birthday, Marianne reappeared. I was unable to get to the gig in Hagen, Marianne neither, but “meine verlorene Liebe” was surely there in spirit, as was I.

In brief, after a fruitless search for Marianne en route to hear Procol Harum play in Denmark in 2006, I returned to Germany in September 2009 to attend a conference. I placed a 'Wo Bist Du/Where Are You?' ad in her home town (Rendsburg) newspaper, the Schleswig-Holstein Landeszeitung. A friend of hers noticed it, contacted Marianne and me, and 'Shalimar!' – we are 'strangers in space' no more. Who says 'the story always ends the same?' and that 'you can’t turn back the page?': 'Soldier on,' I say.

I look forward to relaying further details of 'Something Magic' to many of you when next we meet, as I plan to be at Procol Harum gigs scheduled to take place in June 2010 in Boston, the Finger Lakes region of up-state New York, and Toronto. With any luck, Marianne, with whom I had a wonderful reunion in Germany earlier this year, and who later visited me in Spain, will accompany me to hear Procol Harum play with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and Choir in Copenhagen in January 2011.

Shine On,
Toujours (l’Amour),
George