At the end of the noughties…

… the Squirrelytics was one of Prof’s ideas (that was roundly rejected by Dave) for a company name for their new spinout from Queen Mary, University of London.

That company was registered as “Actual Experience Ltd” in March 2009, became a plc (listing on AIM) in February 2014, and ended its journey (calling in the administrators) in November 2023.

The day after the administrators took over, Vince Lerigo-Smith shared (on Actual’s Slack channel, before it was switched off) an update to a poem he’d written some years before. The poem (When the Trees were Full of Summer Sun) is part of a collection Vince published as Time Weeps Alone later that month.

The following day, Prof emailed Vince asking permission to turn the poem into a song, and Vince very kindly said yes. And six months later, here is the result…

The single was released on 23 May 2024, and is available on all of the usual digital streaming services and stores (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music / iTunes, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal).

You can also listen to the single right here, right now:

When the trees were full of summer sun,
And we were the song, sung once by the young,
On the green, green, grass, reaching out forever.
The moon could creep low, stealing time,
Shutter our games, but never our rhyme,
When the trees were full, full of sun in summer.

Laughter shaped our souls, our eternal tune,
Time a sweet whisper, that swept us along.

We fought hero and villain, in equal verse,
Wore butterfly wings, time couldn’t hurt,
On the green, green, grass, reaching out forever.
Dreams filled our hearts, all sorrows slain,
We lived our fearless lives, without refrain,
When the trees were full, full of sun in summer.

Laughter shaped our souls, our eternal tune,
Time a sweet whisper, that swept us along.

When the trees were full of summer sun,
And we were the song, sung once by the young,
On the green, green, grass, reaching out forever.
And for us there’ll be no journey’s end,
Forever the boys, with castles to defend,
On the green, green, grass, reaching out forever…

Time Weeps Alone, Vincent Lerigo-Smith

An invitation from Prof

If you’ve had anything to do with Actual over the years (as an employee, PQE, customer, investor, channel partner, adviser, contractor, etc.) and you can sing (or even if you think you can’t), and would like to contribute to the Actual Choral Ensemble (ACE for short) then please get in touch by emailing me using the mailto button at the bottom of this page.

I will then send you details of how to access the guide vocals track (an mp3 file) and the musical score (a pdf file), and where to send your recording.

The idea is to produce a collaborative version – based on volunteers recording themselves at home (e.g. on a smartphone). I will then mix and master the result into a fabulous sounding choral ensemble, and release it into the world-wide musical ecosystem.

Rough timescales: (updated)

1. End of July 2024: for submission of vocal recordings made at home
2. End of August 2024: for completed (mixed and mastered) track
3. End of September 2024: for world-wide release date

And we’ll have a Release Party in October to celebrate!

Don’t expect any royalties though (the voice of experience – royalties don’t cover costs). The point of doing this is to have a record (if you’ll pardon the pun) of our time together in a great work environment with fantastic colleagues. It is my way of saying thank you to you all.

Don’t be shy

If you think you’ll feel at all “exposed” contributing your vocal recording, let me reassure you that voices blend together in a choir (and you’ll be amazed at what can be done with DSP plugins these days!).

To give you an idea, here’s one I recorded earlier with seven singers from my local church (and they each recorded their own vocals at home on a smartphone or tablet) – it is a very old Christmas carol (lyrics written by Coelius Sedulius about 450AD and translated by Rev. John Ellerton in the nineteenth century) which I set to music a few years ago: