Nigel Clarke’s piece for the Buizengen Brass Band, Earthrise, is going to be recorded soon and, as with What Hope Saw, they plan also to record the poem I wrote (with the same title) to stand alongside the music. It’s all very exciting. Meanwhile, a lady called Lut Mois designed a poster for the European Brass Band Championships and included the last line of my poem in the design; ‘and, just for a while, it seemed that man would think as gods thought.’ It’s easy to forget now, but when men first looked down on the earth there was a collective sense of optimism. They could see no boundaries, no frontiers, no races, and there was a sense – just for a while – that man could transcend himself. We are now sadder and wiser.