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The Finger
After the Tofus split up in 1998 Paddy built a funny canal boat to live on. In 2005, the morning after his birthday he moved the boat into a lock at the beginning of what was to be his worst morning after. Kel’s boat got trapped against Paddy’s in the lock and it looked as if both could capsize. Paddy quickly opened the top paddles to put some water in the lock to stabilize the boats. The emergency should have ended there but some how when shutting the lock Paddy felt like he had stubbed his finger. Looking down he realised that the end of the finger, just below the nail had been cut off. He ran off with splintered bone poking out the end of his severed and crushed finger. Ali picked him up and took him to hospital. Whilst he was gone Dawn, Cai, Kitty, Simon, Rachel and Malcolm found his finger end in the lock gate. It was quickly put in a bag with frozen hash browns supplied by the local café and rushed to the hospital where it was sown back on. This would be a nasty accident for most people but for a fiddle player it was devastating.
Paddy “I thought I would never play fiddle again. For some reason this made me want to write some new songs. I had no idea what they were for or when I might sing them, or indeed if I could really hack it as a singer without a violin to hide behind”
In time Paddy learnt to play with his mashed finger.