You don’t have to have much to have fun. Too right. Not many people can afford to go to Glastonbury, I was among the millions that tuned in and listened and watched to Faye (and Jarvis and Doechii , Charli, Neil Young and Scissor Sisters). It doesn’t cost a penny to tune in to music.

It doesn’t cost a penny to read this blog for that matter, though it costs a lot to read the FT, which is tough when you’re Sarah Smart and wanting to get a message across about not needing a lot of money to have a good time.

How did your upbringing impact your view on money? Up until the age of 10, there wasn’t much money around. My parents had four kids under the age of five by the time I came along and lived on a dairy farm and worked the dairy farm themselves. But we didn’t want for anything — we just wanted to run around and get really dirty. My very early years taught me that you don’t need money to have fun.

Which brings us to her career which has a very special feel to it. I only have one friend who is as talented as her, he’s Luke Webster and he also wants to do something that doesn’t earn him a lot of money but makes him very happy. They are both very clever, I less so but admiring of them and emulating! Here’s Sarah, unlike Luke and me she went to a second rate university but has made the best of it.

Being happy with the now

It’s a hot Sunday morning, a lesser spotted woodpecker is eating on my patio, a swan waits below, flowers from the garden in a vase and nature doesn’t cost us very much. Like Luke and Sarah, I don’t need a lot of money to be happy – and I am. I know Luke is, I hope Sarah is though the last time I saw her, I could see sadness for her loss of her love.  Her career at TPR was not making her happy, TPR has not made me happy these past three years, we will get over it!

I have been spending two hours a week with David Butcher, he’s a kind man in his mid 70s but with the constitution of someone 30 years his junior. We madidate together, he teaches me the techniques to stay level (though I’m not very good). Listening to Jarvis last night I think he has spent time learning not to live in the future or the past but the now. His show made me want the past (30 years + 4 days since he played Glastonbury) and it made me want the future when I can be fit again but in the end it allowed me to enjoy the now where I am right now.

I wouldn’t get too excited to read Sarah’s financial advice, it’s ok but I’d sooner get it from Terry Pullinger or Al Rush , people who have not had their lives lived the way that Luke and Sarah and mine have been.  Sarah is busy finding out what “now” looks like in Scotland and I hope that she is tuned into music. Raye is the genius of her generation and an inspiration for ours. Jarvis the other way round. Neil is a memory of an older generation when I was a teenager and there are a whole lot of bands who are living the now but mean little to me, I should not be sorry, tomorrow a whole lot of Bruce arrives and so does my baby after a month away sailing on an old friend’s boat.

We need to live the now! Thanks Jarvis and Raye and Sarah and Luke- thanks to my partner. It isn’t easy but we can come out the other side into what we want to be- now!