Results tagged “CALLOW END” from Birmingham Mail - I Will Survive

September and October have proved to be the busiest and most fulfilling months of 2009.
I returned home after my talk for Macmillan at Warwick to find John entertaining his 3 year old grandson Harry with his electric guitar. So with Harry on maracas and me on tambourine we had a "musical" evening together. Although it was probably not everyone's idea of "music" we had great fun.

The next day I had a real musical treat at Martin St. James School in Malvern. I love driving to Malvern, the hills always look so majestic and the school is a wonderful victorian building - once a hotel I believe. The girls were practising the songs for the play I have been involved with, which was being performed the following week.

"Survivorship to Cancer and Beyond" tells the story of 5 women with different cancers. Each story has a musical theme and for my story of ovarian cancer it was Elgar's "The Rapid Stream" which I had never heard before.The main theme tune which has been specially written by the playwright Monica Price is called "Survive." When the choir sang it we were all so moved there wasn't a dry eye in the room. I always call my talks "I Will Survive" so I could really relate to the words. What a privilege to be a pupil at this special school with such an obvious love of music and what a privilege for me to be part of this play.

I drove home through the sunshine with my heart lifted. I stopped at the little church in Callow End near Malvern, to put flowers on the grave of my friend Toni who died at 36 from cancer. We worked at the BBC together and were great friends. She supported me when I was diagnosed, so to lose her to this disease so young was tragic. Her last wish was to be able to attend my 5 year celebration party and amazingly by sheer willpower, she did, only to die 3 days later. I was asked to give her Eulogy - a first for me and what an honour. It was nerve wracking in front of all my BBC colleagues, but as with all my speeches because it comes from the heart, my nervousness disappeared and the applause told me that I had done Toni proud. Here I was a few years later paying my tribute to her again in a beautiful English churchyard. She loved ballet, so I am going to take her young daughter, Freya to see "The Nutcracker" for the first time. I think she will love it.

The week of the play was completely manic, our friends Ann and Robert from America came to stay with us and celebrate her birthday, I went to London for a Macmillan Trainees' Conference and I have my script to learn - all three lines of it!!

Ann,Robert and Friend!

On the day of the first performance there were photo shoots,interviews and I finally met Hannah Waterman and the othere actresses. Her first words to me were "How's John?" I was puzzled, how did she know John was my husband. When I listened to the rehearsal, I realised that he features largely through the script and as she was playing "me" John was her husband too!

I had a dressing room with my star on the door - what a thrill. I had always wanted to act from a young girl. At 17, my drama teacher had arranged an audition for me at a drama college in London. My parents were horrified and refused to let me go, so 48 years later here I was about to "tread the boards." Everything come to she who waits, I thought. I shared the dressing room with a lovely lady called Pam who also had ovarian cancer but looked amazing and we enjoyed 2 special days together.

The first night was a great success and I was on a high, but the next day found me at 9am sitting outside Professor Poole's office in Coventry Hospital waiting nervously for the results of my scan. Please let it be good news I thought, I have 2 more perfomances to give today." What a Diva I am!" The bad news is that my cancerous lymph nodes are growing, the good news is he still doesn't feel that I need to have chemo just yet. We drove home just in time for "my matinee performance." I might have a very small part, but I am going to give it my all. The actresses were amazing and gave such moving performances which were touched with humour. They got better each performance and Hannah was magnificent on the last night. I had left a note in her dressing room saying that I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to play "me" which she said really touched her.


The cast with playwright Monica Price

John had proudly sat through the perfomances, with my friends and son Justin. On the last night when Hannah says "I was given a year to live, but 8 wonderful life giving years on I am still here surviving this thing they call the "silent killer" - but it won't silence me," a man in the audience shouted "WOW!" I wanted to jump up and say "It's me and despite being given little hope you can survive cancer." Of course I didn't, but the play gave such a powerful message of hope and the audience gave everyone a standing ovation. We had a great party afterwards and when I went home I thought "How do you follow that?"

Hannah, Finn Atkins and me(The make-up artist seems to have overdone my blusher!)