tag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=2Blog2023-12-31T21:37:52-12:00Eve Williamsfalsetag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563462018-09-17T12:00:00-12:002021-07-02T17:24:05-12:00A Day with Rheumatoid Arthritis (Chronic Pain Awareness Month)
<p>I have rheumatoid arthritis plus type 1 diabetes amongst other things. I wanted to put together a little video of what my day with these things looks like in the context of being a professional songwriter. This video contains needles, blood and country music.</p>
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Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563452017-10-09T12:00:00-12:002021-04-21T14:02:45-12:00The Problem with Pain...
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<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BaE9xm6A2XE/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">A post shared by John Wilson (@jayswilson23)</a> on Oct 10, 2017 at 11:29am PDT</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">Since I'm giving a presentation in this year’s CS Lewis Festival my Instagram search tab is full<br>of CS Lewis quotes under the heading 'things you might like'. I really have a<br>problem with this quote from the Problem of Pain and since I can’t argue with<br>Lewis I'm going to post it to random strangers (although Lewis later gainsaid much<br>of what he wrote in that book, in this instance in the very beautiful ‘What the Bird<br>Said Early in the Year’ in my view by talking about how redemption breaks the cycles that trap us). It may be easy to say you have a sore tooth, but less easy<br>to be open about a long term, very painful medical condition. Let me elaborate.</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">Lewis himself<br>was remarkably good about expressing very painful emotional things. Letters<br>between Tolkien and Lewis after Tolkien's attacks on 'English in the Sixteenth<br>Century' and Lewis' marriage are so visceral that they are nearly unbearable to<br>read (although in our age they would probably just have texted 'soz, bro'),<br>culminating in Lewis’s generous spirited but agonising 'I love you and I miss you’, written in the year of his death.<br>'Surprised by Joy' is full of similar candour (although he wrote ’A Grief Observed'<br>under a pseudonym). Infact, Tolkien bewailed in a letter to his son that Lewis was<br>'the most impressionable of men', neglecting to guard his heart, the wellspring of<br>life.</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">It is not easy to tell people that you are in daily pain, even on morphine and after<br>many surgeries, superdrugs and medical cannabis. It is not easier to deal with<br>physical pain over mental pain because long term physical pain, in my case 27<br>years of it, causes a high degree of mental pain – the pain of isolation because<br>your life cannot contain within it some of the things your peers treasure, not<br>being able to let anyone support you too closely or their lives will also be directed<br>by it to a certain degree, fearing a future in a medical institution with daily pain<br>assessments, losing battles such as my recent battle to be able to wear whatever<br>clothes I want. I'm sure when Lewis found himself in hospital after the Somme for<br>3 months having learned that the shell that injured him killed 2 of his comrades, it<br>was more painful to him that his father never visited than that he was wounded.<br>But that physical pain healed; it is not the same for people whose pain is chronic.<br>Imagine waking up in the morning in terrible pain, afraid to move because as soon<br>as you do the pain will be blinding. Getting out of a chair hurts. Opening a car<br>door really, really hurts. Walking hurts. Sitting in one place too long hurts… that is<br>not easier to deal with than burying half my family in my 20s and losing the only<br>person who would have understood what I'm saying now.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The bravest thing some people do is to get up in the morning, as brave as Lewis’s last letter to Tolkien or</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">his risking his academic career for writing about his faith. Today's prescribed pain management task for me is to write a list of things I can change and things I can't,</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">but I am a Christian and I don’t believe in impossibilities. As Lewis said in ‘What<br>the Bird Said Early in the Year’s, "we shall escape the circle and undo the spell".<br>Heartbreak and physical pain will not always hold power; they only pretend to<br>hold the future. I had a broken heart once. I had no sense of the future once but<br>today is a different matter. The real problem of pain (or more accurately with pain) is, in my view,is that it limits our<br>vision and there is more to our lives than what we can see.</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><em>Eve Williams will be presenting 'Tollers and Jack: The Myths of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis' at this year's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CSLewisFestival" target="_blank" data-imported="1">C.S. Lewis Festival</a> in Belfast on Monday 20th November at 1pm.</em></p>
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<p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BV8LPoWn2I2/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">#cslewis #jrrtolkien #truemyth #gospel #lordoftherings #narnia</a></p>
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by Eve Williams (@evewilliamsmusic) on Jun 29, 2017 at 3:28pm PDT</p>
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Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563442016-07-05T12:00:00-12:002017-12-21T16:12:16-12:00LA with RA... Creakin' All Over the World
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<p><strong> </strong><em>Airline Rep: I’m sorry, madam, but a keyboard is not a musical instrument’.</em></p>
<p><em>Me: I’m talking about the kind that you hit the keys and they play notes, not one you plug into a computer.</em></p>
<p><em>Airline Rep: I understand that, madam. It’s still not a musical instrument.</em></p>
<p><em>Me: </em></p>
<p><em>Airline Rep: It requires a power source, ergo it is a possible risk.</em></p>
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<p>I am about to embark on a <strong><a href="/calendar" data-imported="1" data-link-type="page">UK tour</a> in July and August, with dates in Glasgow, London, Alnwick, Belfast, Bangor and Bath</strong>. At the end of October I will be flying to <strong>Los Angeles to perform at <a href="http://www.youbloom.com/ybla-2016/" data-imported="1">YouBloom LA</a></strong> and to take part in an industry conference. I’m not complaining: my job is cool. People dream of making their living like this, but when you have a combination of rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes tour planning presents specific challenges, for a start I really need to play my own keyboard which is set up for my dodgy wrists and elbows. I need someone to help me carry it. I need periods of rest between activity and a tour is a flurry of hyperactivity. I need to travel with insulin and biologic drugs which must never fall below or rise above a certain temperature. There are dozens of logistics to sort out to make it run smoothly. And it’s going to be amazing.</p>
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<p>Here are the dates below:</p>
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<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/392948/8cd3776d50474a476b757d0c70727c61f4eb6289/original/summer-tour-pic-2.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDAweDM1NyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="357" width="400" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/392948/b38b2db8c82d5e05a5c786315e1e4202d31b5b64/original/ybla-home.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDAweDMyMCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="320" width="400" /></p>
<p>So, I fly to Glasgow (with my keyboard… I won that battle!) to guest on <strong><a href="http://www.celticmusicradio.net/category/blogs/danny-matheson/" data-imported="1">Danny and Ruth Matheson’s show on Celtic Music Radio</a></strong> and to play at the <strong><a href="http://starfolkclub.com/" data-imported="1">Star Folk Club</a></strong> and then I come home for an important rheumatology (joint disease) appointment where they will put me on a drug costing £10k a year which is quite likely not to work, supresses the immune system and can cause severe neurological problems and cancer, or else a drug which is similar to drugs I’ve taken in the past which didn’t work. If these fail, they will put me on steroids which block the action of insulin. My blood sugars will sky rocket and I will feel sickie bad, then when I come off them my blood sugars plummet making me confused and incoherent (no change there then, I hear you say). After this momentous decision, I fly to London to play at a festival Guardian Music loves: <strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/UrbanKeltchannel" data-imported="1">Urbankelt’s CELT festival</a> in London</strong> at the Water Rats joined by <strong><a href="http://www.axemanjim.co.uk/" data-imported="1">James Scott</a></strong>, who plays gee-tar and produced <strong><a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/evewilliams6" data-imported="1">my new album</a></strong>. Then I’m playing at the <strong><a href="http://www.alleycatbar.co.uk/" data-imported="1">Alleycat</a></strong> where the Rolling Stones recorded their first album before heading to the glorious beauty of <strong>Northumbria</strong> for the <strong><a href="http://www.alnwickmusicfestival.com/" data-imported="1">Alnwick International Music Festival</a></strong> (I’ll also be doing an interview on <strong><a href="http://www.lionheartradio.com/" data-imported="1">Lionheart Radio</a></strong>) then heading South again to my beautiful former stomping ground, Bath where I will be singing at the <strong><a href="http://www.thebathbrewhouse.com/" data-imported="1">Bath Brewhouse</a></strong> and seeing Dr. Raj Sengupta, an international authority of autoimmune arthritis. So, it’s agony and ecstasy. Can’t wait!</p>
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<p>I hope I’ll see you at one of these gigs but I’ll be posting videos on my <strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/evewilliamsmusic/" data-imported="1">Facebook page</a></strong> for those of you who can’t make it.</p>
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<p>Thanks once again for your support,</p>
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<p>Eve xx</p>
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<p>PS The tour has already kicked off in Bangor and Belfast. Here are a few pics! You can <a href="http://www.evewilliamsmusic.com/store/peregreni:_physical_cd/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">buy a CD</a> like the one in the last pic and help fund this adventure ………</p>
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<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/392948/21cfe9a8543e4090a1786db47cf3cbfa9890ac72/original/eve-goats-toe.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjIyeDM5NSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="395" width="222" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/392948/9c6ddedcbbfbf95db8b52da865263f615dccd75d/original/eve-empire.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDQ2eDI5NiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="296" width="446" /></p>
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Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563432014-07-05T12:00:00-12:002020-11-23T06:58:33-12:00Lochlann Green Spills the (Chilli) Beans..
<p>So, let's turn the tables and have the artists interview the presenter..</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/392948/0b70dcb21a70e14a48d36a124ae45e8562bee2f9/original/ka-radio.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzAweDExMSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="111" width="300" /></p>
<p><strong>1. What drew you to Celtic music?</strong></p>
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<p>From an early age, I'd been introduced to Celtic sounds through my mom's own love of Celtic music. I would say that her interest in Celtic music stems from the fact that she had been in a pipeband in highschool playing the bagpipes and her highschool had that theme and her school had a pipeband class with highland bagpipes players and dancers with the proper dress and attire.</p>
<p>When I was growing up, sometimes she'd play cds that were either Celtic-influenced soundscapes or something with bagpipes.</p>
<p>At the time I hadn’t fully developed my love for Celtic music yet, though I had been slightly interested, especially a few of the highland games that her former highschool held a few times and we'd been fortunate enough to attend a few of them.</p>
<p>I would say that my further interest in Celtic music started with Scotland's Julie Fowlis. I remember in 2007 being away from home out of townand having my laptop with me going through different artists on myspace and listening to their music. I happened upon Julie Fowlis' myspace page and had a listen to a few of her songs, it was "Spinning Song" which caught my ears. It was something very different that I'd ever really heard before and I've always loved music that's different than what most people here listen to. I was very private in the kinds of music I listened to since most of my friends didn’t share any of the same interests. I remember that before Julie Fowlis, I had been into folk music and very much into Idlewild's album "Warnings/Promises" which features more of the folky side of Roddy Woomble's band Idlewild. I had also bought his folk solo album "My Secret Is My Silence" back in 2005 or 2006 and had really been into Scottish folk artists, especially Karine Polwart. Kate Rusby was another folk artist who I had loved back then as well, though of course she's English, I had been into the folk artists around that time. Though I really would say that Julie Fowlis was probably the first actual celtic/roots artist who I feel hooked me into that kind of music.</p>
<p>I remember other Celtic artists I had liked before 2005/2006 which included Enya and Celtic Woman, though for sure it was Julie Fowlis who cemented my love for that music. Since then I'd listened to different artists in that same genre which led to other artists up to present date. Now I'd say I've probably been exposed to over 100 different celtic/roots/trad artists and bands and I continue to love that music.</p>
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<p>However, Celtic music is only one of the genres I love, I am a big fan of so many kinds of music and artists which I now feature on my radio show "From Texas And Beyond".</p>
<p>Celtic music is one of the big parts of my show, though a lot of the other music comes from other genres and artists of different levels, Celtic music is definitely a big part of my show.</p>
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<p>Throughout the past years I'd been further into that kind of music through various other ways. Transatlantic Sessions 3 was definitely one of those eye-openers for me that there is all this music out there that I hadn't discovered yet and I eventually came to love more and more.</p>
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<p>Throughout my childhood and teen years I'd been listening to oldies and a few modern day artists since it was mostly my parents music and my sisters' music, but I hadn't properly developed my own sense of musical identity till my late teen years all till now in my late 20s. In the nearly 29 years I've been alive, I've been grateful for all this music I've ever encountered. I feel sorry for all the people out there who haven't discovered all this music or only stick to one type of music rather than opening their minds and ears to other music on a regular basis rather than what's on mainstream radio.</p>
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<p><strong>2. You seem to play alot of female artists. What is it that draws you to their sound? </strong></p>
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<p>I think subconsciously and naturally I love female artists more, though I'm not sure if there is any one particular reason. Maybe it's the softer voice that naturally draws me to female artists more.</p>
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<p><strong>3. How do you decide what goes on the playlist?</strong></p>
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<p>It's a process that can be easy or difficult depending on which theme I choose to feature for each show.</p>
<p>My current 2014/2015 playlist has a total of 286 bands and artists from around the world including El Paso bands and artists.</p>
<p>These vary from genre to genre, though I concentrate mainly on Celtic, Celtic-Rock, Folk, Roots, Trad, Dance/Ceilidh, Country, Americana, Bluegrass, Indie, Alternative and a few other genres.</p>
<p>Each show is carefully planned ahead of time and each artist or song is chosen carefully to go well together with the list of artists I've chosen for each show.</p>
<p>There are some instances where new songs or artists come in on the fly and I choose to play them in a show with mixed artists rather than a themed show. The playlists for themed shows are carefully planned as would a playlist on a band's album. Usually a producer of an album or the band themselves choose each song carefully to flow with the next, for a full 12 to 14 songs on a typical album.</p>
<p>When I plan my themed shows, each artist's song is chosen in that way to flow with the next song and the next. Typically I put 26 to 30 songs into each show and focus more on getting these songs heard to anyone who may be listening and catch interest in any one of the songs. It's more about getting the artists heard. After a few weeks, I go through my whole list and choose from what hasn’t been played yet to artists who've been previously featured but still need to be played more. My intention is to keep pushing this music out there so that listeners from anywhere in the world can hear it and love it and hopefully contact the artists or buy the music from them directly. Mainstream radio stations are dominated by pop artists on a predetermined playlist given to the radio stations and pushed out there for people in their cars to listen to all day long.</p>
<p>Big companies have an agenda to push this music and have it played continuously so that people subconsciously will want to buy it and spend billions of dollars towards it. Being that listeners usually listen to the radio in their cars and at work all day, they're exposed to that kind of music and it's easy to just go along with. The unfortunate thing is that there is 10 times as much music out there that isn’t being heard on a regular basis.</p>
<p>This is the kind of music I am personally trying to push and introduce people to, while at the same time giving credit to all the radio stations and radio presenters who I've heard this music from as well. There are a lot of radio stations and radio presenters who have wonderful shows which aren’t on mainstream radio and they've exposed me to all this great music in the past few years and now that I have my own radio show, I want to continue to push that music out to listeners all over the world and do what my fellow radio presenters have been doing as well. It's about getting all these artists heard and their music. There are so many people in the world who have yet to hear this great music and many more younger generations of people who need to be exposed to it as well and know that there are many more musical opportunities out there. It's not about getting on the bandwagon with other people who audition for shows like American Idol or similar singing competitions, but knowing that life doesn’t and musical journeys don’t have to end with being rejected by a show like that. There are many more opportunities out there that anyone can follow. Shows like American Idol are carefully designed as well and aimed to push out even more mainstream artists the same way mainstream radio stations do. It's not necessarily a bad thing to like mainstream artists or listen to that music, but it's important to get more people aware of other music not heard on those stations.</p>
<p>My own radio show is basically a world musical convention which includes bands and artists from different music scenes in differenet countries along with their managers, promoters, promotion agencies, record labels and puts them all together into one show. The aim of that is to create even more friendships between each other and connect more people together from different parts of the world in hopes that they will each listen to each other's music and like it as well. It's one great big campfire and everyone is sitting around it playing songs for each other and sharing their thoughts, experiences, stories, and music. If these artists can benefit from each other whether it be mutual cd sales or trades, booking shows together, even getting signed by another band's record label....that would be great in creating a bit more peace in this world.</p>
<p>It's like creating the facebook of the music world and hoping to connect all these artists together from different parts of the world and different genres and opening their eyes, ears, and minds just a little wider to each other.</p>
<p>This isn't quite a radio show, but more of a mission to create an even bigger peace around the world through music.</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563422014-04-30T12:00:00-12:002023-12-31T21:37:52-12:00Nineteen Eighty Four<p><strong> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/Augustaville_zps39a371e0.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="225" width="300" /></strong></p>
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<p>I never heard the screech of breaks because the driver didn’t break. He simply hit my father and kept driving, the police in pursuit. It was April 1984 and I would turn 8 in May. My mother jumped out of the car with a cry of ‘Oh, my God’ and left my sister and I startled in the back seat. We were going home from the circus and Dad had just crossed the Cregagh Road to buy some headache tablets. The paramedics arrived quickly and announced that his neck was broken. In a little Baptist Church by the side of the road they were having a prayer meeting. They prayed that Dad would survive. Their prayer was answered in every way imaginable: when he arrived at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast his neck was not broken, but his brain was injured. He would remain in a coma for the next six weeks, and he would never walk again.</p>
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<p>That was the first time in my life that I lived in Augustaville, the family seat, home of my indomitable grandparents. Mum had to spend a lot of time at the hospital and it was thought by our elders that the sight of all the tubes coming out of Dad would be too frightening. Nanny used to take us for walks every day along the Bangor coastal path outside the house, and along the Eisenhower pier. We slept in the blue room, the old nursery of the Victorian house and the only room in it with a low ceiling. The windows came down to the floor and the wind rattled them. We were afraid to be left alone up there so we used to make Nanny read us stories for hours. Above the bed hung an imposing portrait of Papa and Nanny used to say there was no reason to be scared because Papa was in the house. Thirty years later the blue room is pink: I moved all the furniture away from the window at the age of 23 when the room became mine and put the same portrait of Papa in my room when the house became mine. I was 27 by then.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dad came out of his coma not remembering that he was an adult and being very confused by the concept of my sister and I. He had lost his balance, was unable to walk and needed constant care for around five years. We moved back to Belfast to our haunted house (another story) which was now unsuitable for our needs so Papa bought us a house in Knock in Belfast and he and Nanny were at that house every single day while we were at school. Papa used to wash and shave Dad. Nanny and Papa used to do the garden together. Nanny cleaned. I remember stripping paint with Papa. They were in their 70s then, and they were young in their 70s. Nanny would live to 87 and Papa to nearly 91. Anything that needed fixed was attended to by my great uncle Jim, a former Japanese prisoner of war, Lancashireman, lover of opera and along with our beloved Aunta Myrtle, Nanny’s sister, attender of school concerts, birthday parties and hospital bedsides. What amazing people they all were. They tried so hard to make life normal for us, and instead they made it exceptional.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dad started making a remarkable recovery in terms of his cognitive skills. He had been a social worker and particularly gifted counsellor, working with trans sexual people and people with personality disorders and many other groups that others did not want to work with at the time. Having both been social workers, my parents were horrified by the lack of services for people with acquired brain injuries, and although his energy levels were low and the pain constant Dad decided to rectify this by starting such services. He founded and ran an organisation called Jigsaw Northern Ireland and reached people who had been isolated for years. My family no longer supports or in any way endorses this organisation, but in my father’s day it helped people. In 2002 he received the MBE for services to disabled people. We never saw that coming in 1984. The Assistant Chief Medical Officer in the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety once described Dad to me as ‘one of Northern Ireland’s most important citizens’. Dad thought of himself as Homer Simpson. I will tell two stories that describe him well: firstly, one day Dad was having a rant to me in the kitchen because one of his clients who had lost the ability to speak because of a stroke had been declared as non disabled by the DSS and would lose his benefits. Dad had gone straight to the man’s MP and was doing his best to change the ridiculous bureaucracy which led to this situation. He was afraid of the impact on the man’s family. In the middle of this Mum came in and asked Dad, ‘How was lunch with Prince Edward?’ to which Dad replied ‘Just a lot of standing around, same as usual’ then continued talking about his client.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is the second story. I hope you will remember it so you are never part of a similar story: my sister was working with Dad so he saw her more than me and decided he needed to start taking me to lunch more often. Dad liked to talk to me about English etymology, politics and literature, especially Tom Sharpe and Orwell. We got to the top of the queue to order coffee and the waiter asked ‘will he take a small or a regular coffee?’ to me. A man who reads Orwell, speaks fluent Arabic, has an MBE and three degrees can decide what size of coffee he wants himself. And when you put that man in a wheelchair, he can still order coffee. I don’t know how he coped with it, I really don’t. When I ended up having to use a wheelchair for a while I just used to lose it with cretins. Dad didn’t hold people’s ignorance against them, he didn’t regard that as the best way to challenge it. Of the friends who disappeared after his accident, his ideological opponents who described him as ‘a bleeding heart liberal who would give every penny social services had to homeless drunks’ and to those who were jealous of his success or threatened by his intellect he had only one thought, a phrase first spoken by Marcus Aurelius (Dad was very good at Latin), ‘the greatest revenge is not to be like them’. Of the man who hit him whilst driving drunk plunging him into pain and depression, forcing my sister and I to grow up aged 6 and 7, forcing Papa to be unable to retire until the age of 75, leaving Mum to care for a disabled spouse and small children, a man who stood up in court five years later (he had been driving without insurance which is why it took so long to come to court) and said he was not sorry for hitting my Dad or for the other person he had hit, no mention was made at all. He had changed the direction of our lives one night in 1984 but now it is 2014 and why should he continue to have power by provoking bitterness? He got a 6 month suspended sentence. It must have been galling. Papa was not best pleased but didn’t rant about it. Bitterness would have taken away the Dad’s power to lead the extraordinary life he lived; he had become a committed Christian and followed this, the most difficult of the teaching of Christ. Only fools look down on such a mind set as lacking reason; it restored a future to a whole family who in 1984 thought their hopes had died.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dad died in 2005 at the age of 59. I miss him every day, and yet he is with me every day. It is an irony of life that when we are young we are embarrassed by our parents but when we know a bit more about the world we find ourselves asking what would our parents do nearly every day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am typing this in Papa’s house by the sea, which today is grey and cloudy. Where once there was a portrait of Papa in the blue room, now there is a picture of him in every room in the house and in a lot of the hallways and stairways, too. Papa was made a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International for his services to humanity. I would tell you what those were but he wouldn’t want me to. I was once at a Rotary dinner where someone made a speech about what he did for others. It put him in a bad mood for a week and we had to live with his cantankerousness. It is enough to say that many people’s lives would be much the worse off if he had not helped them, mine in particular. He was our father, really. Not that Dad wasn’t; it just so happened that the way things happened we needed two, and we had two. I miss walking across the kitchen in the morning to have my posterior slapped with a newspaper and hear the words ‘you are awful, but I like you’. I miss Papa teaching me songs and the sound of his contented singing in the garden, or the sight of my name written in cherry blossom petals across the lawn. Here is a story which describes Papa: we had had a drainage system put on our land and the neighbours were having problems with sewerage running down their garden. Papa called in an engineer and made sure it wasn’t coming from our house, but yet the neighbour continued to turn up at the door ranting. One day she arrived red faced on the doorstep, announcing that she would be putting bore holes in our garden. Papa replied that if that was our sewerage, he was glad it was time for his daily laxatives. Then he closed the door. The Council announced later that week that the sewerage was coming from an empty house three doors down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I will never forget the day Mum and I drove to Bangor from Belfast in the morning, and when I got up the first flight of stairs I heard a doctor saying ‘It would have been very peaceful’. I ran out the gate and down to the sea. The world had gone crazy: to say Papa wasn’t there anymore was like saying the sun would never shine again. But the sun does shine, on some days more than others, and Papa is never gone. That is what happens when you live your life for other people, you end up being inextricable from those lives.</p>
<p>Nanny had died in 1999 after a horrible few years of living with Alzheimer’s. The horrors of the treatment she received are a story in themselves, but now that she and Papa are together they are probably fighting away contentedly, which is what they liked to do.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mum is alive and well with grandchildren all around her. After being a carer for so many years caring is what makes her happy. She loves Made in Chelsea and travelling. She likes to overfeed people, too, and adopt people. My sister has a little boy and a little girl, the boy being named after Papa and Dad and the girl being named after Mum.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And I have my music, my disintegrating mansion and my memories. I remember 1984 but I don’t live there anymore.</p>Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563402014-01-23T12:00:00-12:002015-09-08T19:49:10-12:00Celtic Connections 2014: You'll Love Haggis, Honestly
<p>So once more I found myself in an airport waiting to fly to Glasgow, a city I had last seen in May. The flight from Belfast took a grand total of 25 minutes. As <a href="http://stevemcknightguitar.webs.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Steven McKnight</a>, my esteemed guitarist, pointed out it takes longer to get from the centre of Belfast to Finaghy. We were on our way to play at the Danny Kyle Memorial Stage at <a href="http://www.celticconnections.com/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Celtic Connections</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The night we arrived we couldn’t resist the urge to consume a battered haggis supper each. Kristina (who took all the videos on this page) is Portuguese and had never tried it before. Well, when in Rome, as they say….</p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/haggissupper_zpseac334a7.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="227" width="170" /> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/Mobile%20Uploads/20140119_125530_zpsdfabc97e.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="227" width="170" /> </p>
<p>We did however work pretty hard that night.</p>
<p>When we arrived at the venue the next day we realised that we were going to experience the best sound we could possible have. <a href="http://www.adelaides.co.uk" data-imported="1">Adelaide’s</a> is a nineteenth century church, and churches of that period were built for sound. The sound engineers, Gordon, Joe and William were also totally amazing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<div class="video responsive"><div class="video-container"><div class="video responsive"><div class="video-container"><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6CzJDIDqVkY" width="560" class="wrapped wrapped"></iframe></div></div></div></div>
<p> </p>
<p>It was really nice to run into Ruth Hamilton and later Danny Matheson of <a href="http://www.celticmusicradio.net" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Celtic Music Radio</a> in person having cyber met them quite a while ago!</p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/RuthHamilton_zps44fc4052.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="267" width="200" /> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/812836d8-d406-4dc6-b075-dcda3797b652_zpsd8492834.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="261" width="150" /></p>
<p>Liz Clark arranged and compered the event. The other musicians were totally amazing, including the brilliant Jaywalkers. Some of my socks are older than them. But they played amazingly. The whole show was broadcast live on <a href="http://www.celticmusicradio.net" data-imported="1">Celtic Music Radio</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Many thanks to everyone who came along and listened in!</p>
<p></p>
<div class="video responsive"><div class="video-container"><div class="video responsive"><div class="video-container"><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kmhwQXRsGx4" width="560" class="wrapped wrapped"></iframe></div></div></div></div>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563392013-09-28T12:00:00-12:002022-07-24T03:37:41-12:00Peregreni
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Peregreni</strong></p>
<p><strong> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/boat1_zps24c87b6b.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="113" width="150" /> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/boat2_zps23e5a240.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="113" width="150" /> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/boat3_zps8888c94c.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="113" width="150" /></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F113040806" width="100%"></iframe></p>
<p>In the town where I live there is a bottle bank. In the year 590 AD St Columbanus, a saint of the Celtic Church, stood at the spot where it stands and bid farewell to his ninety year old mentor, St Columba, before embarking on a life time trip to Europe. The Graeco Roman Empire had fallen and Christianity had moved to Byzantium: it was the golden age of the Celts whose ideas, literature and music would spread to the world via the 100 monasteries founded by St Columbanus and his followers. Amongst the books they took with them from the town where I write this was the <em>Aniphonarium Beannchor, </em>the Bangor Antiphonary, a collection of hymns and spiritual songs. I have based my forthcoming collection of songs on the idea of journey and the track posted above references the ancient text using today’s technology.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A whole century before Bangor’s famous son departed for main land Europe, another group of monks set sail from Bangor Abbey. Unlike St Columbanus they had no firm plan of action. They were called <em>peregreni</em>, or wanderers. They set sail with no oars and simply trusted that wherever the wind blew them, that was where God meant them to be. In our modern world this seems insane: surely we must have a plan to set sail, a map and a GPS and an engine never mind oars. We would go to the financial advisor before moving to a new region, and check the cost of living in our destination country. We would want to know what healthcare was like, what was the culture of the locals…. And so on and so on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I never intended to be a peregrenata. I watch the peregrine falcons at Scrabo carried on the wind, some of the most beautiful creatures living in a beautiful place but I had never planned to live on the wind myself. I studied hard at school and not so hard the first time I was at university and achieved good qualifications. I wanted to teach. I had a sensible, achievable plan. Then one day in hospital I came face to face with the news I had autoimmune arthritis and over the months and years that followed I transformed into a peregrenata: I could not always follow the plans I had made. I had flares of my condition and needed months, sometimes years, to receive treatment and to rest. I thought I had lost my dreams, but I had learned to dream in a new way. Most people do not like uncertainty, and people with chronic illnesses are encouraged to set goals. It is certainly foolish to never make plans but it is freeing to live as one of the peregreni. The wind may blow you to a safe haven or it may blow you onto the rocks, but you will learn to adapt to wherever you find yourself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jesus said ‘the wind blows where it pleases, and so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. You cannot tell where they have come from and you cannot tell where they are going to’. I have attempted to put my journey on the wind into music. The first track is Neo Classical and based on the Bangor Antiphonary, but I have also included contemporary songs about how that journey is lived today, such as <em>Ghosts Walk These Halls </em>below.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I hope you will join me for a time on the breeze.</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F100315830" width="100%"></iframe></p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563382013-08-14T12:00:00-12:002022-03-16T06:07:36-12:00To Soothe the Savage Breast...
<p><strong><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/flowersguitars005.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To Soothe the Savage Breast…</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><em>Musick hath charms to sooth a savage Breast,</em></p>
<p><em>To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>William Congreve, <em>The Mourning Bride </em>1697</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One summer when I was 22 I was sitting in a circle of singers in St Andrew’s in Scotland being taught advanced voice skills. The two course leaders were talking about having done a course in Counselling for Singing Teachers. ‘How pretentious,’ I thought in my immaturity. Little did I reflect in that moment on how music had been and would be therapy in my life, and that when I myself came to teach singing I would be pretty happy I’d studied counselling first. Singing is about telling stories, as is music, as is art and there is power in telling your own story or hearing part of it told in the art of another. I came to work for nearly a decade in the field of art and mental health, primarily with clients with acquired brain injuries, personality disorders, physical disabilities and depression and anxiety. There I saw the true power of art.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the age of 23 I was wrongly diagnosed with a form of autoimmune arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis. Actually I had Still’s Disease, childhood onset rheumatoid arthritis. Many dark days followed in terrible pain and I thought I had lost the dreams I had been in St Andrew’s to follow on that far gone sunny day. I bought CDs and never removed the shrink wrap, and dust gathered on the piano. A family friend told me that I would be happier if I sang again… I thought this would just make me miserable. I had been headed for a classical singing career when my neck fused due to my condition. So I found a different way of exercising music, by writing and by singing non-professionally at first although I did end up going further.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 2010 my health reached an all time low. I needed to use a wheelchair, I was constantly on buprenorphine and my doctors could not help me. I moved to Bath to be treated at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases and to study for a Master of Music degree in Songwriting. Both of these elements, medical care and music, working in tandem improved my health exponentially. I had difficult times while I was there, but I came to be able to agree with Anne Frank when she said ‘I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.’ Anne Frank never intended to be a famous author; sadly she never knew how her writing would change the world, only that it had changed her own.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This experience is shared by several people who I spoke to in writing this article. One lady described that her involvement with art was not just therapeutic, it had a very positive social aspect. Having developed mental health problems at the age of 12, she felt she ‘had never matured emotionally despite maturing intellectually’. Her psychiatrist recommended an art therapy group:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Throughout my teens I spent prolonged periods in hospital and engaged in several art forms to pass the time more than anything, but I guess art actually offered me an escape from the stress of my anxiety and disordered thoughts and the stifling powerlessness of the hospital environment. Making cards or gifts for people kept me to a degree connected to them, at the same time doing art with other people was a means of socialisation, an ice breaker.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Having done a science degree, this lady thought of the arts to be ‘useless’</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>However 2 years ago I had a minor breakthrough in terms of my eating disorder, breaking an addictive cycle which had been impacting on many aspects of my life for over 5 years. I’ve tried many therapies, met many therapists, talked and talked. I’ve spent so much time suspended, hanging in a colourless, joyless world, clinging on to fragments of colour and hope.</em></p>
<p><em>I said yes, when Dr M. asked me if I’d be interested in joining an art therapy group. I thought I might as well, I liked art, making things, it’d pass the time, wouldn’t do me any harm. I doubted it’d do me any good, nothing else had, I’d failed to make any other therapy work, why would this be any different, nevertheless maybe it was worth a shot!</em></p>
<p><em>All of a sudden, my two worlds collided; unexpectedly a chink of light penetrated the darkness surrounding me. I started to see, reality, the colour in the people and the world around me. I wanted to jump into that world or maybe dip a toe in at least. I felt the need to leave the bland, joyless, darkness I had inhabited for so long behind.</em></p>
<p><em>Paper, paints, glitter, pastels, pencils, shells, fabric, generating images and colour have allowed me to make a connection with my inner creative spirit and strengthened my resolve to reject my destructive status quo.</em></p>
<p><em>There’s a mountain to climb, but as a result of art therapy I can see the mountain amidst a rich and colourful landscape.”</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Visual art had a similar impact on a lady whom I’ll call J.</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>I have been using art journaling for the past 23 years and in that time it has helped me monitor my mental health. I had my first breakdown in November 1998 and when I was finally allowed out of the locked ward to go to occupational therapy they were making Christmas calendars ..... I knew I needed to paint!!! So I sat on the floor and after a few formless watercolours ended up making a kit that looked a bit like the head and tail of a rattle snake .... the warning sign that had come before and I had ignored!! I have had to learn the hard way to say 'no' but my artmaking brought me back to myself and helped me return to wholeness!! My sketchbooks help me reflect and pause for insight in a busy world.... the pages open the door to my own inner truth.. discovering the treasure within. I can find it through dance/drumming/singing different ways to do some soul searching!</em></p>
<p><em>Where would I be now If I hadn't kept this practice? Probably back in the locked ward!!</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>J. uses art to help herself quite purposefully, and is now an art therapist working with cancer patients, passing on these skills.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There can be a downside to using art to create self identity, according to some people involved in their artforms professionally. James, a producer and musician, told me</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>In my years in music I've come across too many people who</em></p>
<p><em>think that creative expression is going to solve their problems on its</em></p>
<p><em>own, which it can't. These people decide that their art is going to be</em></p>
<p><em>their career, whereas in fact the very problems that are fuelling</em></p>
<p><em>their creativity are the very same things that are preventing them</em></p>
<p><em>from becoming successful in their art or in life. Because creating is</em></p>
<p><em>cathartic for them, they get themselves into a mindset that they don't</em></p>
<p><em>think they need to do anything else and their art becomes a way to run</em></p>
<p><em>away from problems that they don't want to confront.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>As a former professional in the field, I would say that in art therapy, music therapy etc. the therapists are exactly that: they are trained in mental health as well as in their artform. But what of the Amy Winehouses of this world, the tortured geniuses whose art does not save them? Is it possible to hide behind the applause of an audience, to see it as acceptance and love when that has been lacking elsewhere? Quite possibly. I am sure as a musician I have met many songwriters whose songs said things they should have been saying to a counsellor, and maybe by putting it into song they felt it had been said so never sought out appropriate help. However, I don’t feel those people are the majority of those who use art for health.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I think back to a girl I knew when I first started working with clients with brain injuries, E. She had been a celebrated cellist before being hit by a car and becoming very disabled. She had lost most physical function, had to be peg fed and spoke with a lightwriter. She would certainly never play again… but did that make music any less part of her, now that she had lost the ability to perform, to be applauded? We talked about music a lot. I brought her a copy of Bach’s B Minor Mass one day. She said it made her herself again. Maybe it wasn’t all that she needed to do to accept her new life, but listening to Bach was certainly a huge step forward.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing, though… when songwriting became an every day activity, and one to be analysed and assessed, I experienced what Wordsworth must have felt when he said ‘we murder to dissect’ for a short time. Then I took up baking and churned out chocolate brownies by the tonne… or I used art (baking is an artform in my world) to get away from art!</p>
<p>In this current climate arts projects are losing money as the arts are not considered to be an essential service. From my personal and professional experience and from talking to people to write this article, I would claim that they are, that they are a cost effective and powerful tool in overcoming the epidemic of depression and anxiety of the recession. Arts are not only cathartic, they create social contacts as in the case of the lady interviewed here, they teach coping skills and practical skills as demonstrated by the story of J and they can reconnect the traumatised with themselves, as shown by E. They are a fundamental part of living a healthy and fulfilled life.</p>
<p> </p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563372013-05-20T12:00:00-12:002022-01-13T06:04:48-12:00Caledonian Summer
<p><strong>Caledonian Summer (nearly)</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Ah, the life of a wandering minstrel. Some years ago I was in Tuscany when I met a New Yorker in a vineyard. He told me he’d never want to go to Ireland, it was so cold. I told him that people may like to flock to sunny places, but personally I love the wind on my face. He didn’t understand this concept at all, needless to say. I have since then been in Beijing, Cyprus… all manner of hot places but my Northern blood loves Northern places, and one of the most beautiful in the world is Edinburgh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/royalmile_zpsada06417.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="225" width="300" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ah, Dunedin, home of ‘the one who got away’ of my youth. I spent a summer working in Wester Hailes once. Infact, Edinburgh and St Andrews are probably two of the places in my life where I’ve been the happiest. Maybe it’s my Ulster Scots genes: I might have some hidden genetic memory that makes me believe I’m 19 again as soon as I hit Waverly Station. So when I hot Glasgow this Saturday to appear on Ciaran Dorris’s Sunday Show it was nice to be back in the land of crannachan and haggis and I couldn’t wait to hit Edinburgh (sorry, Glaswegians). Mum came with me to make sure I didn’t misbehave (having read how I ended up in a shebeen when Andy, Jo and I went minstrelling in Donegal, where my Irish roots lie). She ended up a guest on the show and her peculiar brand of ‘call a spade an auld shovel’ wisdom earned her a fan following on the show’s Facebook page. You can hear us all on air <a href="http://www.celticmusicradio.net/eve-williams-is-castaway/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It would be fair to say we had a great time in Glasgow where we met a grouping of young gay Scottish ghost hunters who kept us up at night with tales of having pebbles thrown at them by an invisibly, childish entity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thanks again to Ciaran and all the guys on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ciaran/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Ciaran Dorris Sunday Show Facebook page</a>. Congratulations to Kristi who won my CD through being a clever clogs! And good luck to Lochlann on your research into accents!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Next day: Edinburgh. I had last been there in October where it was cold enough to cause discomfort to the most wind-loving Celt. But yesterday it was hot, hot, hot. We went to the fabulous<a href="http://www.codamusic.co.uk/" target="_blank" data-imported="1"> Coda Music</a> which is a mini heaven for people who love Celtic and folk music. They will kindly be stocking my CD. I highly recommend visiting if you are in Edinburgh…. It is on the Mound very near the Church of Scotland Assemble where they were voting to allow gay clergy as we dropped off CDs and went into a nice cake shop.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Btw, if Edinburgh is a bit far to go to buy the album you can get it here:</p>
<div style="width: 225px; height: 190px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; background-image: url(http://www.cdbaby.com/Images/Links/linkmkr_btn9.png);"><a style="display: block; padding: 10px 0px 0px 11px; margin: 0; border: 0;" href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/evewilliams5" data-imported="1"><img src="https://CDBaby.name/e/v/evewilliams5.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Eve Williams: Twenty Miles from Home" height="167" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;" width="167" /></a></div>
<p>So, music is getting me around the Celtic world at the moment and connecting me with my roots. I wonder where I’ll end up next? Watch this space!</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563362013-04-21T12:00:00-12:002020-11-24T04:58:01-12:00Mountains, Music and Moya
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-weight:bold"> Back to the Old Country</span></p>
<p><strong> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/Photo0470_zps85768bcf.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="267" width="200" /></strong></p>
<p>More than a hundred years ago, my great-grandmother left Donegal (Rosapenna, Carraig Airt direction to be precise) in search of adventure in the Big Smoke of Belfast. She ended up with eight children in the end…. This weekend I went back to the North of Donegal after a ten year absence from that land of my ancestors with Andy and Joanne Boal. Our aim? Play some music!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For the first time in months the sun was shining as we set out on our road trip. It was about a four hour drive, driven by Andy. For those of you reading this not from these parts, Donegal is Ireland’s most northern county but it is not part of the entity that is Northern Ireland; it’s in the Republic so you have to change currency from pounds sterling to Euros. We didn’t, but although the place retains a kind of ancient Celtic mystique it still has card readers in every pub so we were set. I used to keep Euros in the car for paying tolls if I went to Dublin, but my young nephew put one in my CD player which cost £60 to fix. The joys of modern Irish life!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anyway, I had a teensy bit of trepidation going back to Donegal. My mother and aunt had been there a while back and met a relative of ours (usually all the extended clan knows you’ve passed Derry and by the time you get to Letterkenny people are saying things like ‘you’re Leslie Lucas’ fourth cousin twice removed. Heard you stopped for a sandwich at Ramelton Road’ etc. etc.). This particular relative gave my aunt and mother a peacock feather, which being ignorant County Down types they failed to recognise as a curse. When they got it home, my grandmother went hysterical and said the feather would have to be cast. Mum put it in the bin. This incensed my grandmother, who was scandalised none of us knew how to cast something (to exorcise it). Later I studied at Corsham Court with Bath Spa University for a year and the grounds were full of peacocks, those servants of the banshee… they really are a curse, you know. Their cries will clash with whatever key you are recording in and even worse they come up to you and steal your sandwiches right out of your hand if you’re having lunch al fresco. But I digress.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite its otherworldly appearance and ancient superstitions, Donegal is a very earthy place. The song <em>Homes of Donegal </em>made famous by Paul Brady includes the line ‘<em>you hearts are like your mountains/ in the homes of Donegal.</em>’ The mountains look like this:</p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130419-00598_zpse594716b.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="263" width="350" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Phenomenal Gigs and Familiar Voices</strong></p>
<p><strong> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130420-00602_zps9a6add0e.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /></strong></p>
<p>Having arrived at Bunbeg and settled in at Bunbeg House, home of the best cooked breakfast ever, we headed to Leo’s Tavern in Meenaleck for dinner and for a night of fantastic music. I had just scoffed 6 rather large bits of garlic bread with goat’s cheese and sundried tomatoes when Moya Brennan walked into the bar with Tim Jarvis. Now, it’s not an unlikely place to see Maire since her father owns the place and the sign outside says ‘Leo’s Tavern: Home of Enya and Clannad’. The walls were decorated with signs of their successes. We had dined under Enya’s platinum disk for Shepherd Moons, an album which was a big part of my youth. Its famously blue album cover was on the wall along with the original photo in Technicolor… greens, browns etc. I had never seen that image in anything other than blue… anyway, extreme nerves hit until we chatted to both Maire and Tim and discovered that they are both really lovely and committed to finding new local talent and encouraging the young musicians of the ear to play and write.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I couldn’t believe the standard of some of the performers we heard, some still teenagers but writing with maturity and individuality. I met another Eve which hardly ever happens… Eve Martin. Look out for her; she’s an acoustic singer-songwriter and she is just great!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Since I had just finished my MMus in Songwriting, Maire asked me to say something about the craft before I sang. I couldn’t believe it because just over a year ago my tutor at Bath Spa had asked in class if I could write for anyone who would it be, and I had said Maire Brennan… and here I was on a stage with Maire Brennan. The atmosphere was lovely though so I felt I could talk about songwriting infront of legends and not be embarrassed. Then we performed <em>Oblivion </em>and <em>Between the Lines. </em>It was the first time I had ever sung <em>Oblivion </em>live. It’s quite difficult in that it has some octave intervals in it and the phrasing is quite atypical, but it seemed to go down well thankfully. Maire and Tim were nice about my writing which might just be the high point if my life.</p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/clubeo2_zps53996cfc.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="200" width="200" /><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/clubeo1_zps3d2d8c67.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="200" width="200" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maire had opened and Jacquie Sharkey and the Henry Sisters were also on the bill so when we got back to Bunbeg House we’d had a pretty good night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Sing for Your Lunch</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>The next day, still inspired to be musical, Jo and Andy took me to the famous Singing Pub near my ancestral home of Carraig Airt for lunch. In Irish is called sibin ceoil (pronounced shebeen key-ol). Ceoil means music. I am sure I don’t need to tell you what a shebeen is. The barman announced that if it was your first visit you could not order without singing. I hummed a few bars of ‘Suddenly’ by Angry Anderson since we’d been listening to 80s soft rock in the car (Andy’s music!!!). After that it was ok to have a prawn baguette, some crisps and 7Up Free.</p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/sibin-Copy_zps87521699.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="200" width="200" /><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130420-00608_zps69644a73.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /></p>
<p>The drive through Donegal is beautiful. These photos don’t do it justice. It is so full of open spaces. No wonder it has produced some of Ireland’s best music and musicians; it has a sense of freedom about it, although my great-grandmother obviously didn’t feel that 110 years ago when she headed for Belfast. She was a poet; she wrote one lovely poem when her beloved sister died. Perhaps I will set some of it to music one day. That’s what happens when you go to Meenaleck and meet Maire Brennan. You come home inspired.</p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130419-00597_zps79528f79.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130420-00604_zps6533536e.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /> <img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130420-00603_zpsd3b10ed8.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/IMG-20130420-00605_zps2c84d56d.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="150" width="200" /></p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563352013-04-11T12:00:00-12:002020-11-24T04:58:26-12:00Ailsa Craig: The Birth of a Song
<p><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F79550303" width="100%"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>I was walking one evening along the North Down coast</em></p>
<p><em>And as I walked I was thinking </em></p>
<p><em>Of the one I loved the most.</em></p>
<p><em>As the sun set on Bangor, far across the waves,</em></p>
<p><em>Dark against the horizon</em></p>
<p><em>I glimpsed Ailsa Craig.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>On the night of my returning</em></p>
<p><em>To the land where I was born</em></p>
<p><em>The gulls cried till morning</em></p>
<p><em>Trying to chase me from the shore.</em></p>
<p><em>I had no thought of leaving till the end of my days</em></p>
<p><em>Then across the horizon</em></p>
<p><em>I saw Ailsa Craig.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Where is my love tonight,</em></p>
<p><em>Where has he gone?</em></p>
<p><em>He moved beyond my sight</em></p>
<p><em>To the sacred stone.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>What once was a refuge is now deserted rock.</em></p>
<p><em>It stands as a milestone </em></p>
<p><em>Between the Irish and the Scots.</em></p>
<p><em>And if for a moment I felt at home to stay</em></p>
<p><em>I knew no home and no horizon </em></p>
<p><em>When I saw Ailsa Craig.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/flowersguitarsed.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="75" width="100" /></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>A friend asked me last night how I write a song… do I write the music or the words first? I don’t think I write the same way twice in a row anymore, but I’d like to share how two of my songs came about. Last year on my Master of Music course we looked at our influences and assessed where our writing came from but this isn’t meant to be an academic essay on composition or to say anything generic about songwriting itself, it’s just about the place I found myself in when I wrote <em>Ailsa Craig.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>I had lived in Bangor with my mother since my father died in 2005. During that time the rheumatoid arthritis with which I had suffered for some twenty years became very severe and by 2011 I had lost most of my mobility, using a wheelchair if I really had to go out and do the shopping. I had gizmos and gadgets to lift me out of bed, help me wash etc. and the pain was unbelievable, completely indescribable. I had had to stop working. The drugs I was on were failing and I was told there was no further treatment, so I decided I needed to be treated at the UK centre of excellence for the treatment of rheumatological conditions, the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath. I had attended the UK Songwriting Festival at Bath Spa University in 2007 and one day whilst stuck in a job where I was discriminated against on the grounds of my disability I had seen a link on the festival’s website to Bath Spa’s Master of Music in Songwriting course. I enrolled on the course for the year 2010/11 but was too unwell to attend plus another member of my family was very seriously ill and I did not want to leave at that point.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> As I crossed the Irish Sea from Rosslare in September 2011 the sun was shining and the water was like a mirror reflecting the hope of a new lease of life. And for a while it was – I started on new drugs, spent a year writing songs and grew acquainted with a beautiful part if the world. As I sailed home on the last day of September in 2012 the skies were grey and the sea irascible. I was sick three times between Fishguard and Rosslare. My dream of building a new life had disintegrated. I was on no treatment at all for my RA, had had debilitating surgery and wasted my love. I had gone seeking to ease one kind of pain and simply traded it for another. It was well after midnight when I crawled through the back door of Augustaville, my family home, in defeat. I feel into the first bedroom I reached where a portrait of my grandfather seemed to say to me ‘You’re home now. Why did you ever go away?’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next morning it was back to the old routine I had tried to escape from: as the sun rose the coast of Scotland appeared across the horizon visible from my bedroom window and the Vomit Comet (Stena High Speed Sailing) began the first trip of the morning to Ayrshire from Belfast Lough, accompanied by my malediction. I thought to myself that that was somewhere I would never return to; it would take a miracle to carry me to Scotland. Two weeks later I was passing from Cairnryan via Ayr to Glasgow to Edinburgh, with a nice detour to Argyll and Loch Lomond on the way home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The milestone at Wilson’s point near my house points out Ailsa Craig, which is visible from my home but much clearer in Ayrshire. I wanted to write something based on my feeling of not wanting to be home but not wanting to be away; Ailsa Craig had been pointed out to me from early childhood during walks along the coast with my grandmother. She had introduced me to Irish folk music and I wanted to write something in that sean nos kind of style in memory of her, and that meant a large part of the song contained a sense of belonging to a specific place. Some of the lyrics come from my day to day experiences in North Down. Gulls do genuinely cry in the morning which can be a bit of a shock to visitors. Some of the lyrics come from Wikipedia, as un-ethereal and un-mystical as that sounds! Ailsa Craig means ‘fairy rock’ in Gaelic and I wanted that other worldly feeling, but I also gathered from wiki that it was used as a refuge for Catholics during the Civil War in England, although it is now inhabited by puffins and apparently for sale for £1.5 million. Wiki also points out that the Craig is sometimes called ‘Paddy’s Milestone’ because it is halfway between Belfast and Glasgow. The recent BBC programme ‘The Shortest Twelve Miles’ points out that Northern Ireland’s links with Scotland as a motherland to the Ulster Scots and an ancient trading partner and Celtic brother make Scotland a kind of homeland away from our homeland, exactly what I was trying to convey in the song, the idea of belonging somewhere but feeling drawn to another place. When I studied sociolinguistics at Queen’s University many years ago I remember one of the lecturers analysing my accent as ‘classic Ulster Scots’ and explaining that our accents are closer to Scotland’s than to the South’s because in sociolinguistics ‘land divides and sea connects’. After all, in the days before trains and motorways boats were the primary mode of trade and travel. So there is a sense of distance and closeness, close but far away...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>To answer my friend’s question, though, in the case of this song the music was written before the lyrics. Today I wrote part of a song in Bloomfield Shopping Centre when a melody came to me and I hummed it into my phone. On this occasion I was sitting at my piano for no particular reason other than being drawn to the keys. I found a little melody that went from Em to D, then I experimented with either Am or C…. traditional music, such as ‘I Know Where I’m Going’, for example, is in AAA form. In other words you just sing the same melody about three times, it doesn’t have a chorus. I added a B section, or bridge, into my little piece because I’d recorded a cover of Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Leave a Light On’ recently and I loved the movement from D to Bb. Can’t explain why; just did. It’s funny, but if you’d asked me how I felt on the day I first played the then titleless song I would have said I was angry but the music that came out was terribly sad. I was watching an MTV documentary on bullying tonight and one of the bullying victims said ‘Like most artists I use my music as therapy’. That was what I was doing, too, but it is so instinctive I was probably not conscious of it. Afterall, I had just undergone the process of being bullied and mistreated in the most egregious manner and I had a lot of unresolved issues… they wormed their way out via music. I also had a huge sense of loss, that everything I thought I had achieved through making this huge life transition had been robbed from me, which is where the bridge comes from but it is fictionalized to some degree. I’m not a purely confessional songwriter; there is a lot of my life in my songs but sometimes it’s about telling a story, maybe another person’s story maybe a totally invented story so long as there is an element of emotional realism in it. Also, music is collaborative so other people's visions add to the finished song. I produced the first draft of this song but it was later greatly enhanced by <a href="http://www.axemanjim.co.uk/" data-imported="1">James Scott</a> whose string samples are legendary!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next song I wrote was <em>Illumination</em>. It was written to a brief: it had to be up tempo, uplifting and cheerful. I obviously tried to get myself into that headspace. I even listened to some Enrique Iglesias! I don’t think that makes it emotionally disingenuous because I purposefully wanted to create that feeling rather than writing it because I felt that way. After all, writing is therapeutic but it’s not therapy. Sometimes it’s about writing for a specific audience rather than writing for yourself. This was also produced by James.</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/122490181&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I hope that covers the question John asked me. If you have any thoughts, feel free to post them!</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563342013-03-25T12:00:00-12:002021-04-22T00:58:04-12:00The Journey of Making 'Twenty Miles from Home'
<p><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/20miles_zps7cdc99c0.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="200" width="300" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>The Journey of Making ‘Twenty Miles from Home’</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong><em>The Title</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>The title <em>Twenty Miles from Home </em>is intended to conjure a journey. The perception of the listener directs its meaning; you have been on a long journey and are in the final stretch on your way home (my perception), or you are far from home, or you have nearly made it but not quite. ‘Home’ is a very emotive word and concept.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The songs on the album were written at home in County Down, Northern Ireland and in Wiltshire. Eight of the twelve tracks were written solely by me. <em>The Rock</em> was co-written with<a href="http://www.musicbydom.com" data-imported="1"> Dominik Sky</a>, the best vocalist on the planet. <em>Oblivion </em>was co-written with <a href="http://www.archieatholl.com" data-imported="1">Craig Murray </a>and <em>Twenty Miles from Home </em>and <em>Diamond Shine </em>were co-written with my compatriot,<a href="http://www.soundcloud.com/paul-mcilwaine" data-imported="1"> Paul McIlwaine</a>. The title track of the album has a specifically Northern Irish feel to it; I was aiming at a kind of Robin Mark feel as I was writing the melody. In a musical sense it represents arriving home hence it is the last full track on the album.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some of the songs were used as part of my final project for my Master of Music in Songwriting, but this is not my major project. It is the depiction of a spiritual journey some of which was written after my degree was over.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The songs have been produced by<a href="http://www.axemanjim.co.uk/" data-imported="1"> James Scott</a>, <a href="http://www.andrewgiddingsmusic.com/" data-imported="1">Andrew Giddings</a>, <a href="http://www.musicbydom.com" data-imported="1">Domink Sky</a> and me. Domink, Andrew Boal and Andrew Giddings all played on the album... they're the songs where the piano is in time!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>The Voices</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>The album starts with the voice of my niece, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/evewilliams/broken-dolls-with-scarlett" data-imported="1">Scarlett Burnside</a> rather than my own voice. Her melody represents the role of music in childhood in forming identification within a family and within a community and the power of those songs to evoke powerful emotions once we are older. Her voice sounds haunting and distant, like a memory, whereas mine has been produced in the centre of the listener’s hearing as it represents the here and now, the one who is remembering. At the very end of the album I reprise Scarlett’s words, but her voice is the last the listener hears: the voice of memory, longing and the ones we love, the voice of home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The album also features the beautiful voice of <a href="http://www.musicbydom.com" data-imported="1">Dominik Sky </a>in <em>The Rock </em>and <em>Parallel Worlds. </em>We recorded two different versions of <em>The Rock </em>and settled on the one for solo voice, although Dominik sang vocalise and harmony on it. There is also a duet version. As the album was about a life’s journey and to a great extent about loss and overcoming grief, I felt it important that other voices as well as those of the central character were portrayed. In <em>Parallel Worlds </em>we here the story of a woman who has decided she no longer wants to be in the relationship she is in, that she has her own life to lead, but the last line of the chorus ‘we’re two strangers walking in parallel worlds’ implies there is another story, it is really the story of two people hence there had to be two voices.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The majority of the lead vocals and harmonies on the album are provided by me. It took more than six hours to record the vocal and harmonies on Oblivion (including the break we had to take when lightening hit the studio…). The beautiful chorus melody written by Craig Murray (aka <a href="http://www.archieatholl.com" data-imported="1">Archie Atholl</a>) made me glad of my classical training with its difficult intervals. I really enjoyed the vocalise elements of this song.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The most difficult to song was <em>Over the Edge </em>and the vocal you hear is one continuous take, beginning to end (not the usual method of recording a vocal part). It required a different technique to most of the other songs, including a bit of belting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>The Themes</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>The album starts with the song of a mother remembering her daughter’s childhood, with the sense of one moving away from home. This was very much based on my own childhood when my grandparents taught me to use music in overcoming the trauma which suddenly beset our family. I now live in their house, so in a very real sense this is ‘home’. The journey continues through insecure youthful relationships (<em>The Rock</em>), which are replaced by insecure adult relationships (<em>Over the Edge</em>) and a sense of loss but without acceptance. <em>Between the Lines </em>reflects on the difficulties of forming a relationship with someone who has had trauma in their life, how we start to live on our own islands due to past losses. Then the mood lifts a bit with <em>Our Flat in Chelsea </em>which is about the passing of teenage dreams, but without regretting that they did not come true, just a fond remembrance of times past rather than grieving. The central song of the album then becomes <em>Oblivion </em>in that that one song encapsulates the themes of loss and grief but also of acceptance. It was based on Tennyson’s observation in <em>In Memoriam </em>that ‘it is better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all.’ Tennyson was referring to loss through bereavement although in modern times the words are misrepresented as referring to the end of a romantic relationship. Here it makes no difference; they pertain to pain. At the start of the song the singer thinks she will never get over the void that has been created in her life, by the end she is more philosophical and decides to move on. The next song is based on the theme of moving on, but not really knowing where to go, on having ‘no home and no horizon’. I wrote it infront of the sea in Bangor about Ailsa Craig far in the distance. It so happened that I had been in Scotland a few days previously and seen it from the other side, an odd experience. For most of my life it had been the constant rock in the distance after which streets and nursing homes in my home town are named. It is called Paddy’s Milestone as it is halfway between Belfast and Glasgow, and I was halfway between one phase of life and another. <em>Parallel Worlds </em>and <em>Tall, Dark Stranger</em> have much more of a sense of direction and acceptance of loss, and even of taking the good memories of a relationship and the changes that it made to your life and outlook into the future. It is the beginning of the end of the grief. <em>Diamond Shine </em>celebrates finding something beautiful in unexpected places; it could be God or another person but a very real change is made from darkness to light suddenly and unexpectedly. J.R.R Tolkien talked about ‘eucatastrophe’, how sometimes in life, but rarely in art, things just suddenly come right. <em>Twenty Miles from Home </em>has some semiotic images of death )being home, the prodigal son) but is a song of triumph. The character is restored to ‘her own ones’ and to God. She has come through the journey of grief and loss to a place of celebration. The song makes mention of the prodigal son who came home toThe Father, as to me God is my home. There follows a reprise of <em>Broken Dolls </em>in my voice to encapsulate the journey and bring the album full circle, ending on Scarlett’s voice which represents memory and love; those we love are never really gone from us, they live on in the people we become.</p>
<p>The album art plays on my name with an image of Eden, the ultimate symbol of exile and 'home'.</p>
<p><em>Twenty Miles from Home </em>is available to stream <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/evewilliams5" data-imported="1">here</a>.</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563332013-01-04T12:00:00-12:002015-09-08T19:52:30-12:00The Road Goes Ever On and On
<p><strong>The Road Goes Ever On and On</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/Scrabo_zps2fd0c54c.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="375" width="500" /></strong></p>
<p><em>The Road goes ever on and on</em></p>
<p><em>Down from the door where it began.</em></p>
<p><em>Now far ahead the Road has gone,</em></p>
<p><em>And I must follow, if I can,</em></p>
<p><em>Pursuing it with eager feet,</em></p>
<p><em>Until it joins some larger way</em></p>
<p><em>Where many paths and errands meet.</em></p>
<p><em>And whither then? I cannot say.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>J.R.R Tolkien, <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>, Book I, Chapter I</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As 2013 begins I am quite awed and bewildered by the way in which I seem to have found myself on a road which has no junctions, and simply have to follow it. I suppose that began last year when I decided to be treated for rheumatoid arthritis at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (which changed my life) and to study for a Master of Music in Songwriting at Bath Spa University (which changed my life).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As I type this dusk is settling over Bangor Marina and the coastal path is too dark and cold to venture out. To all appearances it’s a day to stay put. Then again, in September 2011 when I had to use a wheelchair to leave the house and found myself unable to wash, dress etc unaided it may have seemed like a totally mad thing to pack the car and transplant myself to a tiny town in Wiltshire called Corsham where I knew nobody and would have no familiar eye to watch over me. Everybody was pretty unnerved by my decision, which seemed to be a well founded attitude some three weeks later when I found myself admitted by ambulance to the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath having been unable to get out of bed, literally and physically. I was upstairs and my insulin was downstairs. Not good. Who could have told that that week in hospital would lead to a new album, working with some of the best songwriters I have ever met, recording with Andrew Giddings which was phenomenal, playing piano again, to the people just getting to know me having absolutely no concept of me as a disabled person… to getting my life back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This year it looks like the path is beginning to join ‘the larger way’ sung of by Tolkien’s little Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (who had never before been on an adventure). Having released an album, <em>Twenty Miles from Home</em>, and told my story Arthritis Research UK heard me give an interview on Sue Marchant’s show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and have asked me to be part of a national campaign to raise awareness that arthritis does not just affect older people, and that it is not just ‘aches and pains’. In that way ‘many errands meet’ as I am able to perhaps help and encourage young people who are at the stage I was at when I received a diagnosis (in my case, the wrong diagnosis, but I digress). I have just written a set of lyrics for the sublimely talented Filipino singer, <a href="http://www.soundcloud.com/aeyo" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Aeyo</a> .I’m going over to Glasgow soon to be a guest on Ciaran Dorris’ Sunday Show on Celtic Music Radio. <em>Twenty Miles from Home </em>is soon to be reviewed in Celtic Music Fan and I have been adding new music to my soundcloud page, the latest of which reflects on what has been but acknowledges ‘it’s a new phase of life'.</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F72763354" width="100%"></iframe></p>
<p>I hope that all of you reading this have a great 2013, ‘pursuing it with eager feet’. Maybe our many errands will meet this year.</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563322012-11-07T12:00:00-12:002020-11-23T21:44:35-12:00Vampire Bites and Autumn Leaves
<p><strong><strong><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/ladygreeneye/jo1.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="322" style="vertical-align: top;" width="278" /></strong></strong></p>
<p><strong>Painting by Joanne Robinson.</strong></p>
<p>We are passing from autumn into winter. Today in the Queen’s University of Belfast the autumn leaves hid the double yellow lines all around Carmel Street. It’s 13 years since I graduated from my Master of Arts degree and I was there to meet my former tutor and former classmate, both long time friends. The place has changed a lot… the old stacks has been replaced with an even bigger library, ten times the size of the library in the Newton Park campus of Bath Spa University where I have just finished a second Master’s. It’s a long time since I studied research methods: I have no idea how to find my dissertation in the QUB library. But that is old learning; I have discovered so much since those days.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Victorian Gothic Lanyon building is one of Belfast’s key landmarks; visitors might mistakenly think it IS the University, but Queen’s is everything within a three mile radius of that august edifice. In the last of my days there I was writing a dissertation whilst my grandmother was dying; she had Alzheimer’s and along with my grandfather and parents I had been looking after her, staying frequently with my grandfather overnight when she eventually needed to be where she could get round the clock nursing care. As I typed the conclusion of my dissertation, she was in hospital and the doctor had said ‘he didn’t believe she would rally round this time’. She was the reason I loved literature and I loved song… I eventually studied both. As I finished the final project for my second Master’s, I was the one in (and out of) hospital after my second round of surgery to fix damage caused by rheumatoid arthritis. This most recent surgery left a scar that looked like a vampire bite on my right knee, a deep red scar against white Celtic skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The culmination of my studies in Bath is about to be released on iTunes. It is not my major project, but what I feel is the best work I did during that time in my life. The album is the story of a life journey and the cover which depicts me holding an apple makes use of my name and the whole image of Eden; the idea of exile and journeying home, Fall and Redemption, loss and grace. During my time in Bath I was twice an inpatient, on both occasions having very painful procedures in order to lessen long term pain and improve function. There was another sense in which this was the key theme of that epoch of my life and of the music that came out of it… today I met friends who have been there for me and I them for a decade and a half, because those difficult times brought out their real love and trustworthiness. The day after they cut into my knee, I received the real scar. They say vampires can only come in if you invite them, and I flung the door open wide. Now every time I saw the physical scar on my knee, it was going to represent a deeper cut.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But what I didn’t realise was this: underneath the vampire scars the actual mechanism of my knee was healing. A scar is simply on the surface; underneath all is getting better. I may have chosen the wrong support, but quite accidentally in a twist of fate another person ended up at my door who I might never have known, and he cared for me as I recovered without being asked. And his words were kind and encouraging. And when the door was opened to him he didn’t leave the house wrecked but purposefully left behind grace. Some people are like the leaves on the double yellow lines; they live on the tree for a season and then they dry up and fall. Others are the tree itself; through all seasons they are in the same place. The magnolia tree still grows in the little front garden of the School of English on University Square, Belfast. And the huge beech tree still grows in the grounds of Corsham Court in Wiltshire, and they will both be there in another decade and a half.</p>
<p> </p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563312012-05-10T12:00:00-12:002021-12-18T09:13:10-12:00What Support Means to Me...
<p><strong>What ‘Support’ Means to Me…</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>The lovely Keelie Fiorino is writing a piece about support networks for people with chronic diseases or for those caring for people with chronic diseases. She asked for contributions. This is mine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>A Chord of Three Strands</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p><em>If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! ... Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.</em></p>
<p>Ecclesiastes 4:10-11</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The ancient Celts took this teaching from the Bible and ran with it. They decorated important sites with knot work… interwoven strands representing nature, the spirit and various people. The idea is that our lives are like a tapestry and we are all woven together. Modern psychology agrees: dependence is the state of the child, independence the state of the adolescent and interdependence the state of the adult. Maturity comes in depending on others and being depended upon yourself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>A Small Thread I my Knot Work: Mrs Eaves</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>One day when I was 23 I found myself in a hospital bed. I’ve been in quite a few during my lifetime, but I particularly remember this one. I was lying in it when they told me I had ankylosing spondylitis (which it turns out I don’t have… I have seronegative rheumatoid arthritis). In that moment I saw all the expectations of life you have at 23 washed into the gutter… marriage, children, a career and instead was a future of pain, disability, continuous soul crushing medical treatment… I had had the symptoms of autoimmune arthritis for some 8 or 9 years at that point and the staff seemed to think I should be thrilled or at least relieved to find out what I had. I wasn’t. Once given a name (the wrong name) it became a concrete reality. I already had type 1 diabetes and I had accepted that but the road to acceptance of this new disease would be long and rocky, a disease I had actually already lived with for a decade and which had already done damage which the consultant that day described as ‘severe and mostly irreversible’ It so happened that help was on hand to start it as well as it could have started… this help did not come from any medical personnel (Hell, no! That didn’t come for another 12 years). It came from an elderly lady in the bed beside me, Mrs Eaves. I had never seen her before and I have never seen her since.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She told me something very simple. She said that it might seem like my illness was the whole of my life at points, especially as people my age moved onto things that I would never do, but it wasn’t. I just had to hold onto the things that made me me and there would still be joy in the future. In saying this she shone a little light into the black hole that had appeared in front of me. I wonder if she is still alive… she was an angel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>Can You Expect People to Understand?</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>The strong and gifted Onika Patterson said to me recently that ‘diabetes makes you feel alone’. Mine does. I think that is the core of having a chronic disease… you can’t say to some-one else ‘Would you mind taking my arthritis for half an hour while I do the shopping?’ And if you could, you wouldn’t. The only way to understand a chronic disease, especially a very painful one, is to experience it and you don’t want that for the people you love. So, getting the balanced right is very difficult. You don’t want to become ‘the girl with arthritis’ but you need people around you to understand the effects of the disease. I don’t mean to be unreliable but sometimes I will have to cancel arrangements and I need you to understand. Sometimes I will send emails you can’t read because my hands have seized. Sometimes I will be irritable and difficult, and you should give me sugar because I’m having a hypoglycaemic episode. Sometimes I will be irritable and difficult and I’m just being me….</p>
<p>Sometimes I’ve felt I was being babysat and mollycoddled, sometimes I felt irked that my friends don’t realise there are things I can’t do. Sometimes I like to be asked about it and sometimes I feel that I shouldn’t have to explain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Karl Rogers, my personal favourite mental health guru, postulated that there are only 2 negative emotions upon which every other negative emotion is based: alone and helpless. Chronic disease, especially disabling chronic disease, is all about these 2 perceptions. So, in order not to feel alone you must have people who understand and they are usually people who have similar conditions and in order not to feel helpless you must help somebody else (because being helped in the wrong way can actually make you feel more helpless).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are so many people I could mention here, but for the sake of time I’ll focus on 3 in particular. The first has to be my Dad. He was hit by a drunk driver while crossing the road when I was 7 and sustained an acquired brain injury. He never walked again. He didn’t recognise me for the next 5 years. He was very depressed. Then he got up, started an organisation for people with brain injuries and was awarded the MBE for Services to Disabled People. He stopped looking inwards and looked outwards.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When you have a disabled family member, it’s like watching a sawn glide on water. It looks so graceful and effortless, yet underneath the water its feet are paddling like wildfire! That was our family with Dad. Mum was probably the inspiration and the facilitator behind everything he did, but he was mature enough to be supported. I was not by the time he died. I wish I could tell him I’ve discovered he was right in the advice he used to give me. For some reason the advice of a parent becomes pure gold once they’re gone, but is there for the ignoring while you still have them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The second person would have to be Mum. She knows me better than any-one in the world but loves me anyway. On days when I literally couldn’t stand up she’s washed and dressed me and never made me feel a burden for it. The number of times she’s driven me to the out-of-hours doctor. The number of times she’s made me dinner… Mum makes everything feel like it’s going to be ok. For so many people, not just for me. The most important thing she does is to remind me that there is more to life than illness at times when I can’t work or socialise or even get out of bed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then there’s Peri, who is in constant pain and yet I what my sister describes as ‘an unstoppable force’ (with Mum being the immoveable object!). Peri was not born family but just is and always will be. When dad died she created a place for us to go and a sense of stability. She’s fed us and loved us for years. Sometimes we sit and talk about the pain and the good and bad ways I which we cope with it. Sometimes she pulls me out of the chair and sometimes I pull her out. And sometimes we just have a little drinkie.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another person to mention here is Keelie, for whose research I am writing this. I volunteered to be a, ‘expert patient’ with the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, so I could give advice to younger people with RA. I posted this on facebook and met Keelie. She is finding her path to accepting the disease so well it puts me to shame. Her outward-reaching approach is an inspiration.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>Another Hospital Bed…. </em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>I found myself in another hospital bed in October this year. Of all the hospital beds I have frequented, this was my favourite. It was in the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath. When I first found myself in it it seemed like a bit of a disaster. Basically, I woke up one morning and my leg was stuck in the shape of a boomerang. This made getting up impossible, and my insulin was downstairs. I phoned Judith, the lovely Biologics nurse, who arranged a bed for me and dispatched an ambulance to get me. I was living in Corsham and studying for a Master of Music degree. I had only been in the area for a couple for weeks and I didn’t really know anybody.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My social life skyrocketed with the hospital admission: I met the marvellous Adele and Sandra who have rheumatological diseases and great senses of humour; I felt really cared about by the staff and the treatment was excellent. I was wheeled in and walked out, and I’ve been walking ever since.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My dear friend Gavin came from London to visit me, and despite not knowing me that well a dew of my classmates came by. The lovely Craig visited twice and texted every day. In a way it was a pivotal point in that established my friendships for the year: I found out who the caring people were.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>An aside about Gavin: there’s never been anything in the last 1y years that he hasn’t seen me through.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><em>So…..</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em> </em></strong></p>
<p>This is what support means to me: being part of people’s loves and being vulnerable enough to let them be part of mine. It is the chord of three strands; it truly is unbreakable.</p>
<p> </p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563302012-01-25T12:00:00-12:002020-11-23T22:00:46-12:00Ave Verum Corpus
<p><strong>Ave Verum Corpus</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>How old was I when we first met? You know, I can’t even remember now. To me there was always something timeless about you: when I remember you now you are always ageless, just as you have passed from the confines of aging.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I was young, anyway. I was young and in need of help. Having been trained by a Bach soprano to be a Bach soprano (although I have never been a true devotee of the Baroque), I now had a spot of bother with my voice, i.e. it had stopped working after years of training and I had no idea why. It was tight and sore and restricted. You could have explained to me that I needed to learn to retract my false vocal folds, that the larynx id biologically created as a constrictor to stop foreign bodies entering the lungs and that our use of it for speech and song is a romantic addition to this basic function. You could have told me that acid reflux can cause these symptoms in the voice. You could have told me to lower my shoulders (which you did over and over and over again in the years that followed). All this information came later. On that occasion you said that some people hold their emotions like a ‘knot in the stomach’ whereas mine were a ‘lump in the throat’. You knew that not just because you were a great vocalist and a great teacher but because you were a true musician: some-one who realised where music comes from, what its power is and what it is that stems its flow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then there was the amazing day you let me see my own voice. That was years later. I remember you had organised a professional development conference for singing teachers. I had started teaching myself by then. Funny, but you taught me to sing and when I sing I sound like me and not you (quite the reverse to other teachers I had met), but when I teach I quite consciously try to teach like you. Anyway, you came to the table and told us that an ENT specialist was coming to address the conference and he needed a guinea pig to have a larynoscopy. You said he was the best looking man we were likely to see in a life time. You were right. So I acquiesced to the procedure. I remember your reassuring look when that tube went up my nose and down my larynx, and your excitement being greater than mine when my vocal fold appeared on the screen. And they made me tense my ariepoglottic sphincter muscle. And then hit C5. And then E3. But I could see my own voice.... it had been there inside my neck for years but I’d never actually seen it. I didn’t realise it was seeable. And that basically sums up what you were to me: you brought out the things that were already there and showed me how they worked. You were a great teacher.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Before I met you I was never meant to be able to sing opera again because my neck had fused and I had arthritis in my spine. You just refused to accept this: you said that music didn’t live in my neck or my spine. You made me realise I still had a voice, and you made me use it. It wasn’t all saccharine praise, though: I remember such criticism as ‘you call that a siren?’, ‘That coloratura was just lazy’, ‘Handel didn’t come from West Belfast, so why would he write for a Belfast accent?’ and ‘Are you going to sing at me with your shoulders looking like a boomerang?’. This is all completely fair, but let me assure you I shall never sing lazy coloratura again. Give me Mozart, ‘Batti, Batti’ to be precise, and should it have a hundred notes in only 2 bars I’ll hit every one of them because every one of them will be a gift to you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then your own pain came and you sang your way through it, and even in the midst of your own suffering you gave other people access to their own voices. In your last text to me you said you were praying for me, yet you were in so much pain yourself. You should have heard your young choir at your funeral singing amidst some of Ireland’s best known voices and most beautiful. Even the priest was signed to Sony. And they sang St Patrick’s Breastplate and there was a bit of Ave Verum Corpus. And Be Thou My Vision – and those kids, they were as skilful in eradicating ‘the lump in the throat’ as any of the professional singers. You did that for them. Like you, they know what music is, what it is for and what it can do now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am sorry that I am writing all this to you in words and not music, but your voice just had so many notes in it and right now I don’t know how to pick the right ones. One day I will – and I can promise you A6. I actually hit it myself last week! You wouldn’t have liked it, though. It lacked the strength and conviction of yours.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Goodbye for now, dearest teacher and even more dear friend. I hope in your true body you are as much alive through music as you were when we could still see each other. I don’t see you now but I hear you all the time. And I’m keeping my shoulders down while I sing just for you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>To MO’S from EW.</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563292012-01-24T12:00:00-12:002020-01-23T10:54:38-12:00The Rhododendron
<p><strong> The Rhododendron </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p> In the days before I wandered the world I lived in a place where there were gardens by the sea. In my garden there were sweet peas and hydrangeas and gladioli, and above all else there was a particularly beautiful rhododendron that bloomed every spring. For the rest of the year it overshadowed the flowerbed, a shelter for flora and fauna. Then one day there was a fire in the garden. It swallowed the cheery little gladioli and it reduced the sheltering shrubs to ash. That was when I left the garden behind and decided to wander the world.</p>
<p> When I am weary of wandering I occasionally visit a garden close to mine, where the gardeners always welcome me and feed me and listen to the stories of my travels. I call two of the gardeners in this garden Mad and Crazy. Mad is called Mad because she often says, ‘It’s MAAAAD’ when describing the activities of others. Crazy is called Crazy because of her repeated use of the phrase ‘People look at us and think we’re crazy.’ I don’t think they’re crazy. Or I didn’t until today..... I like Mad and Mad loves me. Crazy is warm and engaging and extroverted, but I often feel that at any moment she might stab me in the eye with her secateurs.</p>
<p> Today as I look around the mad, crazy garden I see something that roots me to the spot: a glorious, untameable rhododendron growing in a rose bed. Now, roses are to me completely insincere flowers. People send them as gifts devoid of their thorns as if they were things incapable of pricking at flesh; they can be sanitised and grown in hothouses and printed on the front of greetings cards and ultimately they mean nothing. Rhododendra are often berated as weeds but I don’t classify them as such. I see it as sublime that they can grow in any soil and that they expand to take up the full space that their natures dictate. Nobody confines their blooms into the tiny circumference of a bouquet; they live outdoors in the gardens and forests of the world. Given this rather obvious distinction between the two shrubs, I am somewhat taken aback when Mad sighs, ‘Everything is growing well in the garden, except that tall rosebush. We can’t control it at all. It’s a mad creation.’</p>
<p>‘It’s crazy.’ adds Crazy.</p>
<p>‘Incorrigible.’ Mad acquiesces.</p>
<p>‘It’s just all over the place, ‘ Crazy declares.</p>
<p>‘It’s a rhododendron.’ I state the fact and they both roll their eyes towards Heaven, as if such a ridiculous notion were unworthy of verbal response.</p>
<p>I decide to spend some time in the gardens by the sea, and I often visit Mad and Crazy with their neat little gladioli and their well regulated rose beds, but yet every time I find myself there I stop for a while alone to commune with the beautiful rhododendron. It is not as tall or as wide as it might be; it has been the victim of misplaced topiary. Nevertheless, every attempt to make it behave like a rosebush brings out its true nature; where it is pruned it grows wild in every direction. I love it more than any plant in the garden.</p>
<p>The strenuous efforts on the part of Mad and Crazy to convert my rhododendron into a more typical garden shrub have begun to fray at the edges of my nerves. Today as I sit drinking tea with those most fervent gardeners I am wearing a T-shirt bearing the likeness of a rhododendron grown over many decades to its full splendour. Above this the word ‘RHODODENDRON’ is emblazoned across my bosom. But we are not talking about their garden today, and indeed as it is not my garden their shrub management is probably not my business... Mad is asking me about my own garden. What does it look like so long after the fire? I can’t answer because I haven’t been in my own garden for years. I don’t even know how to open the gate anymore. Crazy asserts that one day I must go and look into my garden, but I know that today is not that day, neither is tomorrow and the day after that probably won’t be either. For now I am a visitor in a pretty garden. With a neat lawn and friendly little gladioli before me, why should I think of an ashen wasteland somewhere else?</p>
<p> </p>
<p> I am enjoying the spring in the gardens by the sea. The air is warm and there is a promise in the new blossoms appearing on the cherry trees that are scattered here and there. I decide to go and visit the rhododendron, to see its flame-like flowers bloom when the pitiful roses that surround it have yet to produce anything worth seeing. Maybe my own spirit is like the rhododendron, maybe pruning will actually make it grow. One day I might no longer feel that I have lost limbs.I open the gate to the mad, crazy garden and I move quickly in the direction of my most beloved shrub. I am frozen to the spot. In the place where the rhododendron grows I see a stump the size of a rosebush. Scattered in the rose bed lie a plethora of rhododendron branches. I fall to my knees and reach out towards the branches, but I know that I could as soon gather them up as I could lift the pieces of a broken heart. I will go and find Crazy’s secateurs and I will hurl them into the sea, and then I shall wander the world again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A long, long time passes before I find myself anywhere near the gardens by the sea. I am weary and tired now, and the thought of the mad, crazy garden is not so overwhelming. Afterall, I always receive a warm welcome there and I do like those cheery little gladioli... and maybe I shall be able to avert my gaze from the desecrated flowerbed. It was never my right to question or comment on what Mad and Crazy do in their own garden. The rhododendron I loved was not my rhododendron; my own rhododendron was destroyed by fire and its ashes have blown into places where I shall never find them. I shall not sit in its shade again and no other shrub, no matter how similar, will replace it. I pause for a minute and then open the gate of the mad, crazy garden which today seems peacefully quiet. Then I see it towering infront of me and above me and on every side of me; a tall rhododendron, fully in flame-like bloom. It has grown wild in every direction; it has finally taken up its own space. The roses and the lawn and the happy little gladioli are not engulfed by it, they grow in harmony.</p>
<p>I see the distant figure of Mad approaching. She sees my wonder and says, ‘Hello. Good to see you after so long.... I see you’re staring at the rose bed. Turns out that vexatious rose bush wasn’t a rosebush afterall. Would you believe it turned out to be a rhododendron?’</p>
<p>I suddenly realise where I should be. I chat for a while and then make my way to a deserted garden. The gate hasn’t been opened in years. There is very little ash left; some of the plants have grown wild, the grass is knee high and there are weeds everywhere. Weeds are a sign of life. They are green and growing where once everything was dry and blackened. I will work in my garden and I will tend the plants that have continued to grow, and I will plant smiling little gladioli. I plan and work and dig and plant, and every now and then rhododendron petals come to me on the breeze.</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563282011-12-17T12:00:00-12:002020-11-19T22:23:54-12:00A Cotswolds Odyssey
<p>Today my houseguest and friend, Dom, and I went to the village of Castle Combe. It was like going back in time 400 years. The sun was setting over the river, the English cream tea was perfect then when we get home Dom told me about how in the pub next door a woman confided to him that she is hiring a hit man to take out her former fiancé. Seriously. Welcome to the Cotswolds and welcome to Eve’s life 2011/2012 – a time and a place where anything could happen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s funny how being somewhere so beautiful and yet so barking makes you feel more connected to your own roots. When I’m walking under the bare branches in Wiltshire instead of breathing in the beauty around me in the moment I imagine that I was in Crawfordsburn, or standing on top of Scrabo Hill. That’s what has happened to my music, too. I’ve become so much more plugged into County Down. I hope that shows in ‘Between the Lines’ and ‘Parallel Worlds’. That Irish sense of exile has really hit me, although I am having the best time of my life. I hope the prodigal will be welcomed when I go home for Christmas the day after tomorrow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In this group of people I had never met before this year, I have learned that it is a really blessing in life to be Irish. I can hear how Irish music is a bit like fish and chips... sometimes you just get a mood for it and nothing else will do. I have one fellow Celt who out-Celts me so much I might as well be Australian in the songwriting stakes (I would post a link but despite being a genius musician he doesn’t like to be heard), and a friend from Derbyshire who writes as if he were a Celt in that he has songs about Celts going nuts and knifing people. I appear on the track as the aforementioned psychopath (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/JimmyBenn/326642844020016" data-imported="1">http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/JimmyBenn/326642844020016</a> ). But to be Irish is good. People buy you drinks. People expect you to be able to jig... and they never ask you about politics.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 2012 I hope to record a collection of Celtic-inspired songs. And I am definitely not going to lose my accent.</p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563272011-08-24T12:00:00-12:002021-12-15T00:47:04-12:00Ungelic Is Us.... learn a little bit of Old English here!
<p><strong>Ungelic Is Us</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><em>Leodum is minum swylce him mon lac gife; </em></p>
<p><em>willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð. </em></p>
<p><em>Ungelic is us. </em></p>
<p><em>Wulf is on iege, ic on oþerre. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>This is the first stanza of Wulf and Eadwacer. It is found in the 10<sup>th</sup> century Exeter book and is one of the oldest surviving poems in English, and perhaps my favourite. It tells the story of two lovers separated by tribal differences, warfare and hatred. If you say ‘ungelic is us’ (oonyehleek is ooss) it sounds like ‘unlike is us’ in modern English. ‘We are unlike’ is not at all the same as ‘we are different’.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I discovered this tale of sex, treachery and tragedy in a very unlikely place. It was a musty room in the School of English at the Queen’s University of Belfast. The books were piled so high that it was genuinely advisable to wear a hard hat to attend Old English tutorials. A kettle and buns sat in one corner, a university supplied computer and in the middle of the room, squashed in between the books, were about six undergraduate students. It was 1995 and of those six students, second year undergraduates, I was the only native English speaker. The rest were foreign exchange students, of whom Fiona the Austrian did the best at Old English because of its likeness to German. Basically, it is what we speak today before the Normans came and added a bit of Romance to the language. Well, maybe that’s too basic but you get the idea. Today the room isn’t much changed... there are so many books you couldn’t possibly fit in six undergrads, yet ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (the language of Rohan is basically Anglo-Saxon), the Narnia films and the BBC’s somewhat ironic decision to have the sorcerers use Old English when casting spells in Merlin (Hello! The Britons were not mates with the Saxons...) has greatly increased interest in what was in my day a quite obscure academic area.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My first tutor in all things medieval (apart from Derek Jacobi in Cadfael, but that is set in a much later period) was one Dr. Ivan Herbison. It’s funny how you can meet some-one and form a first impression and not realize at all that here is a person who will change the rest of your life. I would not say that I was perhaps his best student... I was also taught Renaissance literature by Ivan in my third year. I was supposed to have read Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince for its insights on and appropriation of Hamlet, but I had neglected to do so in favour of hanging out in Renshaw’s on University Street. When asked by Ivan about a particular episode in the text, I had to admit I hadn’t gotten quite that far. ‘How much have you read?’ I had two options, the truth or a lie and I simply wasn’t clever enough to fake knowledge of an Iris Murdoch novel. After all, Kenneth Brannagh had never made it into a film. ‘The back cover,’ I admitted. ‘So, ‘said Ivan completely calmly’, You could say you have a minimal acquaintance with this text.’ I had to concede that it would not be at all inaccurate to draw that conclusion. Over two years later when I received my Master of Arts degree in Old English I was so familiar with the texts that I would sometimes jump out of bed at 2am to write down some thought about one of them that had come to me in the night. This is testimony to the love and skill Ivan puts into his teaching, not to some Damascus Road moment of my own.</p>
<p>The year I did my MA was significant for many other reasons other than my academic advancement. My grandmother, who had been an important part of my upbringing after my father had sustained a brain injury in a road traffic accident when I was 7, had developed Alzheimer’s. My grandfather who was 86 at the time had tried as long as he could to look after her at home, but he really needed help. It was hard work but we all pitched, taking her to the toilet, making sure she took all her medications and all the little things that are needed to sustain somebody’s life. When eventually it just got too much and she had no clue where she was and who any of us were, she had to go into a nursing home although Papa went over every day for hours at a time. Mum, Dad and I took it in turns to stay with Papa at night in the rambling Victorian house which was Nanny and Papa’s home and would one day be my home. I once was a kindred spirit to my grandmother. It was hard to see her slip back into the past, but not able to be happy there. We started to become <em>ungelic, </em>living in different worlds<em>.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Also in 1998 the electorate in Northern Ireland voted to ratify the Good Friday Agreement. It was, we were told, the beginning of a new future and a new way of life. In retrospect it may have been the beginning of such things. Today’s youth don’t remember the general disruption to life and routine caused by bomb scares and actual bombs, having to have our bags searched when we went shopping, road blocks on the way to the airport, soldiers wandering around. That’s what happens when people become too <em>ungelic.</em> Actually, the laugh of it was that we have never been completely unlike; but when two cultures are actually quite similar you have real acrimony, in the same way that individuals seem to take most exception to people who remind them of themselves. I definitely voted yes in the referendum. We all had to make concessions, there were parts of the Agreement which were <em>ungelic</em> for everybody. Personally, my concern was that people who were murderers would be freed from prison, labelled ‘political prisoners’. If you’ve killed some-one, no matter how worthy is your cause or how deeply you feel about it, you are <em>ungelic</em> to most of the human race. It’s strange...at that time I was reading Wulf and Eadwacer and imagining that lovers separated by tribal hatred, violence and culture was the stuff of early medieval poetry. It was happening all around me every day. But it didn’t impinge on my life, I didn’t understand what some of my compatriots went through. <em>Ungelic </em><em>wæron us. </em>Until the day some teenager being initiated into a paramilitary gang threw a petrol bomb at my Protestant schoolfriend’s front window in North Belfast because her fiancé was Catholic. She had felt safe and happy in that area. It was a shock for her to discover she was <em>ungelic. </em>This greatly affected my own thinking with regard to life here when I met a nice young man, but when I went to visit him there was a warning painted on the end terrace of a house in his street, a clear territorial marking which read ‘Kill all Huns’.</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>This was the society into which I had been born, but thank God it was changing and has kept changing. After Omagh we just couldn’t take it anymore and the gangsters who used to be gods in their own communities no longer have support. At the age of 23 as I was coming to the end of my Master’s and my academic career (or so I thought) I started to have thoughts about what I would do with my life. I wanted to make some kind of difference and I couldn’t see how knowing quite a lot about Anglo-Saxon hagiography would help me towards that end. I’m old enough now to realise that the difference you make, for the better or the worse, has more to do with who you are, who you think other people are and how you live rather than your employment. As it happened I was misdiagnosed with a chronic illness (I was ill, they just gave me the wrong label for my disease) just as my degree finished and I didn’t work at all for a year afterwards. Following that in worked for a decade in the field of disability. As removed as this seems from my academic pursuits, I had learned a lot about the power of language and of research and I like to believe I was able to aim a few words like arrows or like torches in the right places and so academia and real life proved not to be at all <em>ungelic.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>If you are not an Old English scholar, you may be wondering what the words at the start of this little memoir mean. I will translate now:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Leodum is minum swylce him mon lac gife; </em></p>
<p>To my people it is like they have been given my gift;</p>
<p><em>willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð</em></p>
<p>They want to kill him if he comes armed.</p>
<p><em>Ungelic is us. </em></p>
<p>We are unlike.</p>
<p><em>Wulf is on iege, ic on oþerre.</em></p>
<p>Wulf is on an island, I on the other.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>I handed in my dissertation (‘<em>Hleomaegas: Kinship in Old English Biblical and Hagiographical Texts’)</em> at the beginning of September 1999. Nanny died on 16<sup>th</sup> September 1999. Within the Communion of Saints no-one is <em>ungelic. </em>Now in 2011 I am about to study for another Master’s, this time in Music. I don’t know where my path ends or who else I am about to meet, but I am clear on the end of Wolf and Eadwacer:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>þæt mon eaþe tosliteð þætte næfre gesomnad wæs,</em></p>
<p><em>uncer giedd geador.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>One easily sunders what was never united,</p>
<p>Our song together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulf_and_Eadwacer" data-imported="1">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulf_and_Eadwacer</a></p>
<p> </p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563262011-07-18T12:00:00-12:002020-01-23T10:54:37-12:00Too Much Carrot and Not Enough Potato
<p><strong>Too Much Carrot and Not Enough Potato</strong></p>
<p><em>An Experience of Auto Immune Diseases in Youth</em></p>
<p><em> </em>I lifted the lid on the hospital dinner. The smell was nauseating and yet familiar. It was the same smell as I smelled nearly 31 years ago at the age of four when I came out of a diabetic coma. Today I am in the same hospital but my IV is not filled with insulin. It has a drug called RoActemra in it (tocilizumab is the generic name, but too hard to pronounce when you’re asked what medication you’re taking). This drug is for rheumatoid arthritis, if that’s what I have. They don’t really know. All I know is at the age of about 15 I started falling asleep in class. Some of my teachers did amusing impressions, but my grades were good so they assumed I was just working too hard, or that it had something to do with my diabetes. Then one morning I woke up with an agonising pain in my neck. I had to lift my head with my hands in order to get out of bed. I had just got a new bed, which was blamed. But the pain never went away. Sometimes I used to faint because of the severity of it. My GP said I was too young to have a rheumatological condition. The physiotherapist said ‘it’s bad posture has done this’. Bad posture doesn’t cause vertebrae in your neck to fuse together. Bad posture doesn’t cause the cartilage in your knee to wear away so that bone sits on bone. Bad posture doesn’t cause anaemia or high platelet counts. Bad posture just means, ‘You brought this on yourself. Why should we help you?’.</p>
<p> My acquaintance with autoimmune disease (and medical insouciance) had begun long, long before the pain set in. At the age of three I had whooping cough, and after that I had repeated kidney infections, or at least my mother kept being told I had repeated kidney infections and I was certainly prescribed endless courses of antibiotics. My Auntie Adeline, dad’s sister, had type 1 diabetes as did Mum’s cousin so my other insisted I be tested. She was told not to be over-anxious and it was written in my notes that she was over protective. I know this is so because I have just read it in my voluminous notes left on the desk by the registrar with the words ‘not to be handled by patient’ in large, bold type on the cover. Sod that, quite frankly. So they didn’t work out I was diabetic until I fell into a diabetic coma. I had a near death experience and everything. Changed my whole life in that the NDE put me on a spiritual path I might not otherwise have found. Then I opened my eyes and Mum was on a big leather chair in a hospital room beside me. ‘Oh, Eve, you’re awake’ she said. I didn’t know she’d been sleeping on that chair for days. I knew I was in hospital but I wasn’t at all frightened because Mum didn’t seem to be, and God was looking after me. I couldn’t move but it didn’t worry me. I felt terribly peaceful. A doctor came and shone a light in my eyes. A few days later another doctor explained to me that I would need injections every day for the rest of my life. She seemed worried about telling me this, but my repose was ‘Ok’. After all, I was four years old. The whole of the world was pretty new to me. This was just another new thing. Everybody has something that makes them special or different. This was just going to be my ‘special’ thing. Unfortunately but totally understandably, this wasn’t exactly how my parents felt about it. The thing I hated most, the only thing I was at all concerned about, was if I would have to eat the same horrible food at home as I got in hospital, like stew that was all carrot and no potato with chewy chunks of unidentifiable meat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Diabetes care was very different back then. Insulin came from pigs and was injected in glass syringes. If patients had high blood sugars, the common practice was to shout at them. I was late in starting school because of the repeated infections that came as my diabetes was not yet under control (when diagnosed my blood sugar was 46 mmol/L. A normal reading would be about 4 mmol/L. Pretty lucky I didn’t die... but that was because of lack of insulin, not because of eating too much sugar. People don’t understand this). It would be fair to say the school were clueless about the whole thing. They contacted social services because of my frequent absences. My parents were both social workers themselves and they were pretty chagrined about it. The social worker when she saw me said ‘this is ridiculous. Anybody can see this child is very sick’.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But I don’t remember feeling very sick. Well, I do remember being covered in itchy spots of various descriptions. And I remember having a hypo (low blood sugar) which on the old pig insulin meant having a terrible headache, and my grandmother telling me that children don’t get headaches. Then my Papa put me in the car and drove me home, and I opened my eyes hours later to find him sitting beside me in the car. He’d just sat there and let me sleep. He was very frightened by my illness – he gave what might be 20 years’ salary to most people to diabetes research - but I wasn’t frightened because he didn’t seem frightened. ‘Are you awake, Eve? Sleep always makes things feel better.’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I spent a lot of my childhood in hospital, and I loved it. In hospital you could go to the playroom and play with other children if you weren’t covered in any rashes and your temperature wasn’t high. In hospital school you didn’t have to do sums; you played with musical instruments. Everybody wanted the triangle. I usually got a glockenspiel. There was a Scottish nurse who used to call me her ‘bonny wee lassie’ and let me sit on her knee. One night Sister Lights, the most important nurse, was trying to find a way to keep me entertained because I was a very talkative child. ‘Can you believe this child was in a coma a week ago?’, she remarked to another nurse before taking me on the most exciting little trip of my at that point short life, a trip to the neonatal ward where she showed me newborn twins. I was four years old, but in my 30s I went to a counsellor called Alice and she had twins who were 4 years younger than me, born in that same hospital. They were in hospital for a long time after a difficult entrance to the world. I firmly believe those were the little babies I saw that night. It would never happen now; I’d be understandably considered as a big old infection risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My love of being in hospital all changed when I got a paediatrician who regrettably thought of herself as a bit of a social worker. I have talked about her to various psychologists over the years. I’ve also bumped into her occasionally, and now that I am an adult I hope I can bump into her again because there’s something I want to tell her, and that is that I think she is a total bitch. This is why I came to this conclusion; my mother used to take me to all my hospital appointments because she didn’t work after I got sick but one day my Dad took me. Dr. Nastyface informed my father that my mother was refusing to accept that I had diabetes. This was, and still is, the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. My mother was fixated with the fact I had diabetes; she was anxious about it all the time. She was afraid when I started having hypos but any time she asked for help she was harshly criticised for allowing my blood sugars to be low (or high) in the first place. The woman never did anything but carp and criticise, even when everything was fine. She also made me feel that I was constantly being assessed, like she once sent me a letter after my GCSE results had come out and said ‘Another A for diabetes control’, as if it were an exam I had to pass.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The worst thing she did was this. A month or so before my eighth birthday my father was hit by a drunk driver whilst crossing the road on the way home from a family trip to the circus. He sustained a brain injury and was in a coma for six weeks. My sister and I moved in with our grandparents and Mum came home from the hospital at nights. We all slept in the one bed in my grandparents’ sprawling Victorian pile by the sea. The wind used to rattle the low windows at night; it was pathetic fallacy. Life was suddenly very scary. Blood glucose levels are affected by strong emotion. Mine rose and Dr Nastyface decided to admit me, for no real reason at all except because she wanted to exert power over us. This created a complete nightmare for my family as my father was in another hospital about 15 miles away and my mother couldn’t be in two places at once. When other patients’ parents asked what I was in hospital for, I could only say ‘I don’t know’. Maybe the doctor thought she was being helpful by taking the stress of caring for me away from my family, but that would just prove how totally clueless she was. My grandparents were dispatched to try and make me eat because I simply refused food while I was in hospital. This was as much because of its unappetising aroma as any emotional reason. After that particular admission I hated being in hospital.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Time went on. I became a teenager and diabetes care advanced incredibly. Human insulin was invented and it came in nifty devices which looked like pens. No more sterilising glass syringes and now you could test your actual blood sugar instead of doing home urine tests which were not very accurate. Having given myself my first injection at the fairly late age of 11, I could now carry my pens and blood testing machine about in my schoolbag and handbag as the aforementioned machines were no longer the size of a brick. My blood sugars were not generally a problem although they were usually high when tested in the paediatric clinic because I hated my doctor and the mere thought of her made me have an adrenaline rush. She usually talked to my mother and ignored me, and in return I ignored absolutely everything she told me. She had me on twice the dose of insulin I needed to be on which gave me frequent, horrible hypos and made me overweight and ergo treated the way other teenagers and adults treat overweight teenagers. Once I got to the adult clinic this was rectified and I’ve never passed out with a hypo or had a significant weight problem since. Plus, my care team in the adult clinic are all stars, each and every one of them. I shall refer to the chemical pathologist who looks after me as Dr. Excellent.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When I started falling asleep in class, as I said before, it was generally assumed that I was working too hard or it was something to do with my diabetes. Chronic fatigue is what I would call that tiredness now. It’s really quite horrible. If you work really hard and get ti4ed it’s like burning down a candle. With chronic fatigue it’s like some-one just comes along and suddenly turns off the light. My school friends thought my narcoleptic tendencies were an endearing idiosyncrasy. Even fifteen years later when I tried to explain to an old school friend that it’s actually a symptom of a quite debilitating rheumatological disease her response was ‘It’s just you. It’s your little quirk’. I felt quirkily like slapping her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After the fatigue came the pain, and I don’t have the works to describe the pain. It was overwhelming. It was also obvious to everybody. My school friends remarked on the way I had started to hold my neck. My grandmother complained that my neck was making me look like I had a double chin. My mother kept telling me to put my shoulders down, and I kept crying, ‘I can’t!’. Old ladies helped me across the street. Then my right ankle swelled up like a water balloon. That didn’t seem good to me... it was clear something was wrong to everybody except my doctor. ‘You’re too young to have a rheumatological disease’ she said repeatedly over the eight years I tried to get help. I was referred to physio a couple of times. They said it was bad posture and put my neck in traction. When you’re neck is very inflamed, putting it in traction is not good. Mum commented that my neck felt burning hot to the touch. I was scared knowing that there was something wrong and nobody was helping. I used to manipulate my diabetes to have health crises, thinking that if I was seen by a doctor urgently some-one would realise there was something wrong with me. I indulged in attention seeking behaviour and was a real pain to my friends and to my teachers. At last I convinced myself that if the doctors took x rays and said there was nothing wrong, there must actually be nothing wrong with me and I would grow out of these symptoms, as severe as they were.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I finished school and got the whole way through a first degree and a Master’s degree by the time I was referred to a rheumatologist and finally got a diagnosis. Unfortunately it was the wrong diagnosis, a quite slovenly diagnosis. But I’ll talk about that later. As an adult, I decided to take charge of my health and changed my GP. My new GP took a test called ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), one of the quickest and cheapest tests on the NHS it measures the level of inflammation in the body. Although she felt my neck and my ankles (now they were both constantly swollen) couldn’t possibly be related and if it was rheumatoid arthritis it would have shown up on the x ray I’d had of my ankles, she acquiesced to do this blood test. The results were through the roof. I was finally referred to a rheumatologist. At that point in my life I had never heard the word ‘rheumatologist’. People now ask why I didn’t see a consultant privately before then, but as I say I didn’t have the knowledge to get myself help. I didn’t even know what a doctor who dealt with joint diseases was called, or if I even had something anyone could treat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Months wore on and the pain in my ankles started to affect the way I walked quite significantly. At last I had my first appointment with the rheumatologist, who with the benefit of hindsight I will refer to as Dr. Useless. He was the first person who used the word ‘arthritis’. I was shocked by this word. It means inflammation of the joint, which I knew I had but I never thought of it as arthritis. He asked why I hadn’t asked to be seen in rheumatology clinic sooner as ‘you clearly have significant difficulty with your joints’. He ordered some x rays and one of them showed that the top 3 (although now I am told it’s only 2) vertebrae of my neck had fused together. ‘There is a form of arthritis which can do that. We’ll have to take more test’. I had some more blood test and was told that I would be seen within a few weeks in the rheumatology day ward. I thought I had found some-one I could trust, who believed me and would help me. I was wrong.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Big Day came, the day I was admitted to the rheumatology day ward. I was told that I had a form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis (actually, I have seronegative rheumatoid arthritis). I could hardly say it yet alone understand it. ‘The damage to your neck is severe and mostly irreversible,’ Dr Useless proclaimed, ‘We can’t restore the movement but we can help with the pain and discomfort.’ This turned out to be pretty inaccurate... not the damage bit, the pain and discomfort bit. Then a nurse told me I would be given mediation ‘to stop your arthritis getting any worse’. I was told I would need monthly blood tests whilst on this drug, so naturally I asked what for. ‘Well, it can have some effects on your blood so we just check and make sure you’re ok every month. ‘I was shocked for being told I had an unpronounceable disease, in a fair bit of pain and in no mood to be patronised, so when the Dr Useless turned up again I asked, ‘What exactly are the side effects of this drug?’ His totally unacceptable reply was, ‘The worst it can do is kill you, but then aspirin can kill you.’ The medical students and registrar who followed Dr Useless like a shadow chortled sycophantically. I was appalled. In diabetes care efforts are made to make sure patients are well informed about their condition and medications. I had entered an alien territory in which I was going to have to fight for information, and positively struggle for the smallest degree of respect. I was also going to have to pay to be seen, but I didn’t know that at that moment in time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was an old lady in the bed beside mine. When the merry band of completely insouciant healthcare professionals moved on, she did what she could to lessen the horrible shock she knew I must have been feeling. I am grateful to her. So many people would not have engaged a stranger in conversation at what was obviously a defining moment in their life. I had a second auto immune disease, a second disease which would affect my whole body and every aspect of life. But this none was worse than the first one. This one hurt, and it hurt continuously, every day and every night. It is very hard to describe to people who have never experienced it what it is to be in pain all the time, with no break whatsoever, for decades. How it wears you down, and enters into your working life, your relationships, your thoughts, your plans, your outlook and even your personality, twisting and distorting physical joints and hopes and dreams. And I had just learned there was no cure; the disease which caused it would be mine for life. But Mrs Eaves (I can’t forget her name, even all these years later), was quite sure there would be some very nice things in the future, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then came the next shock of the day. It had been decided that I should have steroid joint injections into my ankle. Let me describe it, although it is what it sounds like: they take a great big needle, and inject your ankles. Needles in your ankles. Once my cousin accidentally closed the boot of his car on my arm. Steroid joint injections are approximately ten time more painful than that. ‘I haven’t screamed like that since I jumped off the top diving board at Bangor swimming pool,’ laughed the junior doctor administering the torture. I appreciated her attempt to lift the mood, but it didn’t really help at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And to top it all off, I wasn’t allowed a sandwich for lunch like everybody else because of my diabetes. I eat sandwiches every day for lunch! Their knowledge of diabetes was in the dark ages. This had serious consequences years later, but on this particular day, on top of everything else, I had to endure horrible stew which was all carrots and no potato.</p>
<p> In the years that followed my arthritis, despite the drug that was supposed to ‘stop your arthritis getting any worse’, spread from my neck and my ankles to me jaw, shoulders, elbows, right wrist, fingers, left hip, ribs and knees. Nobody expected this because they had given me a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis based on the fusion in my neck. I read the literature on it and could not recognise myself in any of the leaflets. Dr Useless basically dropped the bombshell of this diagnosis on me and didn’t see me again. I was supposed to be seen every 3 months, but I had to go to my GP and get him to fight for an appointment for me. I was basically told I had an obscure disease, handed a leaflet and then dumped. There was no support available whatsoever. On my next appointment, Dr Useless said ‘you’ll do well’ and refused to answer questions such as how did my DMARDs (Disease Modifying Anti Rheumatic Drugs) work. What were they really doing to my body? The answer was they work by suppressing the immune system, something I really needed to know in that diabetes can do the same thing. Actually, Dr Excellent in the diabetic clinic was and is the only person who explains anything about my arthritis to me or even understands that I have a need and a right to know what is happening in my body and also what the treatment is doing to it. After that, two years went by without my being seen by a rheumatologist. In the end I made a private appointment with another rheumatologist who the transferred me to his NHS list. Not that that helped any. My diagnosis was wrong but no rheumatologist will challenge the diagnosis of another, so I got no help. There was some mention of the new wonder that was o then horizon, biologic drugs. But my diagnosis was AS and these drugs were not yet licensed for AS, so I just did the rounds of DMARDs, none of which worked and in the case of one of them, methotrexate, caused vomiting and hair loss and abject misery. I was given stronger and stronger painkillers. The disease continued to deteriorate.</p>
<p>It was more than a year after my diagnosis that I got my first ‘proper’ job as Campaigns Officer for a major disability charity. During the first year of my working life I had 20 weeks of sick leave, although I had been told that people with AS rarely needed time off work. This was because my right knee had now swollen up and descending stairs was very difficult. The building where I worked had no lift, many stairs and no offices on the ground floor. I was given an office quite low down in the building and an occupational therapist came out and gave me a new chair and desk, a raised toilet seat and extra stair rails but even with this help life was pretty difficult. When I got back to work after blocks of sick leave, I would often have to work for 2 months before I was paid again because as a new employee my rights to sick pay were limited. After only two years in post I had to resign on health grounds. ‘Retired at your age!’, my Latin teacher from school scoffed. People think arthritis is ‘aches and pains’. They don’t think of it as the kind of disease that can leave you unable to work at the age of 26.</p>
<p>Again I was unemployed for over a year before being employed by my father in the charity he had started for people with acquired brain injuries and other disabilities. Although he was disabled by his accident, my father had regained the compus of his mentis and set about providing support after our experience of having no support whatsoever after his accident. He realised the importance of social contact and activity for people who were often very isolated and devoted his life to it. He took me on to extend the project into North Down. I found myself managing contract staff and volunteers, writing policies, liaising with statutory agencies and writing press releases. All great experience and I got to know the families I was working with well and formed an affection for many of them. My father and colleagues understood my disability and I was able to timetable hospital appointments etc without too much trouble. I worked there for 6 years and I loved it and when I left I sued them, which involved suing my own mother. More about that later.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One day during this time I went along to my routine rheumatology appointment. I hadn’t had one in about a year and a half, and I was hoping that they would do something. Anything at all. My treatment plan was not working. I was in my mid to late twenties at the time and the girl I saw was younger than me. She offered to put me on a course of oral steroids. ‘Isn’t hat dangerous for diabetics?’ I asked nervously (I was well informed by that stage).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>‘Oh, do you have diabetes?’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>‘Isn’t that in my notes?’ (Actually on the cover of my notes the letters IDDM were written in huge black letters: Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>‘This writing is terrible! Can you read these notes?’ sliding them towards me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>‘Yes. It says IDDM on the cover.’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After this appointment I realised I had to do something as I was getting no help. My parents asked around for help, and my mother’s cousin’s husband who worked for a major drug company found out about a doctor in Bath at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases who was a world expert in ankylosing spondylitis. I got an appointment within the week and my mother and I flew to Bath. Dr International Expert was great. She was the only doctor who ever asked about how my disease developed, what the early days were like. After examining me she told me decisively that I did not have AS. She felt it was most likely to be juvenile idiopathic arthritis, basically rheumatoid arthritis which develops in childhood. She found a lot of swollen joints and offered to inject them (no, thanks!). Then she wrote to my rheumatologist. I was now on my 4<sup>th</sup> rheumatologist in Northern Ireland. Dr Useless hadn’t seen me, so I’d gone to a second rheumatologist via making a private appointment but he didn’t give a damn and was no help. Then I saw a wonderful rheumatologist but she decided to specialise in paediatric rheumatology, so I went private to number 4. Phew! Anyway, now I was eligible for biologic drugs. They were the only hope, but the waiting list was two years and at the time they were linked to certain forms of cancer and aplastic anaemia, which can be fatal. Three people had died through taking these drugs when they first became available in Northern Ireland. It was a big decision. I dithered about it for about two years out of pure fear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I had to have a detailed assessment to see if I was eligible for biologic drugs. There was no doubt that I was. I waited for two years between the assessment and beginning the drug. My mobility was growing worse and worse and it wasn’t unusual for me to spend whole summers in bed, listening to the voices of the people outside in the sunshine on the coastal path outside my house. Thirty joints in my body were affected, and they were all pretty painful. Eating, walking, getting dressed and other daily tasks were very difficult. The worst of all was getting up in the morning. I would wake and lie in agony, afraid to move at all until I really had to get up. Then I would have to grab hold of the bed head and the sink (our house was once a guesthouse so all the bedrooms have sinks) and haul myself up. Often my legs would not hold me up and I would fall back to the bed several times before being able to stand. Then instead of walking I had to walk from one leg to another to be able to leave the room. Once up I would take my injections, blood sugar test and medications. Arthritis medications interfere with diabetes so I test my blood sugars very frequently. When I am on oral steroids my blood sugars are very high, and when they steroids start to pass out of my system I have low blood sugars because my insulin has been increased.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>During this waiting period my father died. He was 59 and had been in hospital for 10 days where he had a battery of tests. He was declared fit and healthy, sent home and died. Just like that. I actually had a period where the shock blocked out the physical pain, but that summer I was really very ill. Rheumatologist No. 4 admitted me and gave me intravenous methylprednisolone, steroids in a drip. Unfortunately in the rheumatology ward their knowledge of diabetes was not up to date. In fact, it was positively archaic. I called Dr Excellent’s registrar, which cost me £5 on the hospital pay phone because mobiles had to be switched off on the ward. I relayed to her the advice I had been given on how to manage my diabetes whilst on the steroids. She replied ‘Whatever you do, don’t do that.’ I was positively terrified. Dr Excellent, proving his excellence, came out to visit me as a visitor. I was very impressed but also even more nervous. Sadly, it turned out I was right to be anxious. When I had my next routine ophthalmology appointment it turned out that the swings in blood sugar caused by the steroids had triggered proliferative diabetic retinopathy, when the eye can’t get enough oxygen due to being overloaded or underloaded with sugar, and so it grows new blood vessels to try and rectify this. These new vessels are brittle and can break, leaking blood into the eye and causing permanent sight loss. It was possible that I could wake up one morning totally blind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My eyes are a bit of a miracle, as it happens. Most people with my condition have laser treatment to destroy the new vessels. Unfortunately this also destroys parts of the retina. My body kills off the vessels itself. My ophthalmologist, Dr Fabulous, says that in her career she has seen thousands of patients who develop new vessels which proliferate and burst and only about 6 patients like me. My retinas are photographed and used to lecture medical students. Recently I’ve had a lot of steroid treatment and been quite worried about my eyes but they are still doing well after more than five years.</p>
<p>In 2008 I finally started taking biologic drugs. The first drug I took in this family was called Humira and it was miraculous. I went from not being able to get off a chair to flying to Beijing via Dubai and climbing the Great Wall of China at Mu Tian Yu, which is one of the harder places to climb the Wall in Beijing. Some things that had been impossible now seemed possible, for example I had decided not to become involved in serious romantic relationships because I had seen my mother care for my father. She had not been unhappy doing this, but in my head I would be a millstone around somebody’s neck, especially at such a young age. Besides, having arthritis in nearly every joint in your body makes a sexual relationship a terrifying prospect painwise. I had initially wanted to train as an opera singer when I left school but the fusion in my neck made this impossible. Now I started teaching singing and loved it, as well as writing and recording my own songs and releasing CDs which I sold to benefit my father’s charity for which I still worked. I was on top of the world for 9 months and then the drug failed. It just simply stopped working and I was in agony again and very depressed. They put me on a second TNF blocker but it didn’t work at all so I went back on the Humira.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Part of the reason the drug failed was due to my traumatic experiences in work. When my father died a real gentleman took over his job. I had my first orthopaedic surgery due to arthritis at this time, a synovectomy in my left elbow. My elbow was and is stuck in the shape of a boomerang and will not rotate. The surgery was to try and free this movement but it didn’t work. My manager was brilliant in allowing me time off and helping me when I got back to work. Very sadly he died suddenly and was replaced by a clueless cow. She asked if I was claiming Disability Living Allowance and in my shock I said no. She then told me I was not really disabled and reversed all my reasonable adjustments. She phoned me at home at 10pm asking me to do menial tasks on the spot. She took my car and bought chips in it. She asked me to do things I physically couldn’t do and tried to discipline me when I couldn’t do them. So I quit and took them to industrial tribunal. My mother was on them management committee so I was in essence suing my own mother. She didn‘t mind. They settled out of court on my terms. My next employers were no better, complaining about me taking time off for hospital appointments and treatment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am now self employed teaching singing. I don’t make a lot of money but at least I can go and have my RoActemra every month. My rheumatologist, no. 5, tells me that my disease is very severe and if this drug doesn’t work there is nowhere else to go. Thankfully it is working, although after they took me off Humira to have a ‘wash out’ before starting RoActemra my arthritis went nuts and now I have no cartilage in my ri9ght knee. The bone is sitting on bone, so I need to have my knee replaced at the age of 35. This is not ideal as I will need a second replacement in 10-15 years’ time and the second replacement is usually not as successful as the first. Technology is advancing all the time, though, so I’m not worried about that. I have started using a wheelchair recently. People often talk to my mother about me as if I wasn’t there or speak slowly and loudly as if I were deaf or had a cognitive disability. Legs a bit gammy, but brain still in operation, thankyou very much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What about the future? Once I have my surgery and if the RoActemra keeps working I shall be mobile again. Next year I am going to study for a MMus in Songwriting at Bath Spa University where I can advance a new career in music publishing whilst being seen at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, a centre of excellence for the treatment of diseases like mine. Research is ongoing into rheumatoid arthritis and similar diseases and new biologics are coming on the market, although the National Institute for Clinical Excellence does not always see fit to permit them to be used on the NHS. Hopefully this will change and there will be a greater realisation of what arthritis does to people and that TNF inhibitors do not work for every-one. There needs to be a wider variety of drugs. I am glad to have been born at this time when these new treatments are available. The future is much brighter than it seemed when I was eating malodorous stew with too much carrot and not enough potato.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Addendum:</strong></p>
<p><em>28th March 2013</em></p>
<p><em>I went to Bath. After a week as an inpatient at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases I started a biologic called abatacept and have been a wheelchair user again since.I had a right knee arthroscopy in May 2012, a scraping out of the joint. The pain is much, much less and I am able to play piano again. In fact I passed my MMus and released an album. The dreams I thought I had lost came back to me.</em></p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563252011-07-11T12:00:00-12:002020-06-16T14:52:01-12:00Another summer and it's going to be a good one...
<p>Salutations! At last the weather has caught on to the fact it's summer, and I just have a feeling that Summer 2011 is going to be memorable. I've been holed up for a lot of this year with a horrible bout of rheumatoid arthritis, but I'm up and about now and it's been a real joy being outside today.</p>
<p>Musically I've been exploring the theme of 'eucatastrophe' for years. This was an idea put forward by J.R.R. Tolkien that sometimes in life, but not usually in art, things just sudddenly go right all over the place. I've tried to right about ther positive that came from the negative; from the darkness of the last few years.</p>
<p>My first offering in this vein is my summer nostalgia song, Sunset on the Bay. I hope to follow it up with an EP.</p>
<p>Keep smiling, people. You never know what's round the corner.</p>
<p> </p>
Eve Williamstag:evewilliamsmusic.com,2005:Post/61563412010-04-12T23:34:12-12:002014-06-26T02:25:39-12:00Tech specs
<p>One keyboard </p>
<p>2 vocal mics, one lead one backing</p>
<p>Guitar amplification required</p>
Eve Williams