In 2004, during one of Frank Farrelly’s workshops, to my amazement, I discovered that he had written a second book entitled “Me and God”. This was the good news. The bad news was that unless you understood German, you wouldn’t be able to read it, as it had only been published in Germany! I therefore discussed with Frank the idea of producing an audio book of “Me and God” and was pleasantly surprised by his interest in such a project and we tentatively agreed to explore recording the book in an audio format setting a recording date for May 2005 and I began to make extensive preparations for the session.
As the recording date loomed closer, and I made my preparations, my first call was to my old friend and fellow recording expert Pete Kelly. Pete is a gifted musician and producer in his own right and has an eye for detail that I could only dream of. We had worked together over the years on a number of projects and it was Pete who in less that ten minutes convinced me that the future of recording was in using computers rather than tape.
If you have ever worked or recorded in a studio, you will know that regardless of all the preparations you make, everything is ultimately down to the ability for the artist to perform on any given day. I caught myself wondering how well Frank would at 73 years old be able to cope with the thirty-seven chapters, consisting of 37,000 words. On the first day as Pete called for a take we looked at each other with the exact same thought, hoping that Frank would find his pace and relax into delivering his story. We soon realised that we needn’t have worried. Frank is like the Ernest Shackleton of therapy, in that once he sets his mind on achieving something, there really is no stopping him!
I had allowed a total of eight days for the project and had anticipated that the entire recording would be around six hours once edited. Previous experience had taught me to allow a minimum of one full day for each fully edited hours work. I had also considered best and worst case scenarios from this session. The absolute
best-case scenario would be that we completed the entire project including artwork in the allotted time. The worst-case scenario would be that Frank would need to return to the studio in November prior to presenting his workshop in Leeds.
On the first day we completed the first fourteen chapters comprising of some 11,000 words! Pete was not familiar with Frank’s work and could barely contain his laughter as he heard Frank’s stories of his interactions with the nuns. Anyone who has seen Frank in a workshop situation will realise that he has an extraordinary tonal range and an excellent ear. Both of these abilities were ably demonstrated throughout the recording sessions.
Our normal recording day would consist of starting the session at 10.30am and recording until around 2pm. We would then usually break for lunch after which Pete would return to his own studio to edit the morning session. Back at Clara studios Frank and my wife Sue would then listen to the previous day’s edits. In the evening we would usually go out for dinner to mostly Italian restaurants and discuss Provocative therapy, movies and all manner of other subjects. When we returned to the house, we would then watch a movie of choice on our home cinema set-up until around 2pm! Fortunately our taste in movies was very similar and I was pleased to find a few films Frank had not seen and subsequently enjoyed. These included Luc Besson’s “Joan of Arc” and “Open Range” with Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner and Tombstone. One of my fondest recollections of these eight days was hearing the comment “good” during the various westerns we watched as various undesirables were gunned down by Duvall and Costner. For a moment I pondered the concept of a Frank Farrelly audio commentary for a series of westerns, which seemed entirely appropriate! Of course it should be no surprise that such a superb teller of stories would also be an admirer of other people’s excellent tales.
During a break on the third day I recorded an interview with Frank on various aspects of his work including his interactions with Carl Rogers and the history of Provocative Therapy from the early 1960s. Frank commented that Carl’s view was that Frank would “never make a dent on the old guard” but rather would have a better response from new up and coming therapists. Many NLP trainers and practitioners have heard of Frank, but few have been fortunate enough to see him
in a workshop situation where you can appreciate just how big an influence he was on the creation of NLP.
On the fifth day we began final editing. What some people forget is that when you record an audio book its important to listen closely to the entire recording, which in this case was close to five hours in length. A good friend of Frank’s, Noni from Germany, who had been involved in the production of the original book, finally located the preface to the book and a copy of a 1937 picture of all the entire Farrelly family, depicted in the book and was kind enough to e-mail a copy to us.
On day 5 we organised the artwork for the project and we contrasted the Farrelly family picture from 1937 with one of Frank and myself in the studio. My good friends Karl and Darren at RRS Music in Leeds worked tirelessly to produce some initial copies of the CD set before Frank departed to Germany. Both of them remarked on how good the audio quality is, which is the highest compliment you can get from sound engineers. We recorded all the speech in 32bit resolution using SE tube microphones, which produce really superb fidelity.
“Me and God” is a fascinating book of stories from Frank’s early life up to the age of sixteen. My view is that the book is an excellent treatise on all human relationships from the personal to the cosmological and divine. The book also gives a good insight into how Frank’s family life was undoubtedly a major influence on the creation of Provocative Therapy. Frank’s unique humour is evident throughout this work and this humour is also reflected in the choice of chapter titles, my favourite being “How I almost lost my immortal soul with a protestant heretic girl one night at a drive-in movie” and “The Crucifixion and the burning at the stake”
