Some of you may know that one of my best pals is the wonderful woman that is Linda Thompson. We are such good friends that it’s hard to belive we haven’t been friends all our lives and, contrary to the way facebook normally works, it actually had a part in building this relationship.
I knew who she was. In fact if you want the honest truth she was one of my idols as a vocalist. One of the first albums in our house, after The Beatles and The Seekers that my mum already had, was Richard and Linda Thompson, ‘Bright Lights Tonight’. From that came many other albums which we could all sing end to end and I fell in love with her voice. From that point she was in my top 5 favourite female singers of all time. Some voices connect and hers did with me. She touches me emotionally. So that’s the history of me knowing who she was innitially. Years later I was at an Albion Band gig at The Half Moon in Putney as a guest of anoher good friend of mine Cathy Lesurf. Unbeknown to me Linda was in the audience and came back stage. Other than being awe struck I don’t remember much other than her saying I had a nice voice, although why I was singing back stage I have no idea.! Other than following her career, buying her first solo album etc that was the extent of our connection despite the fact that in hind sight we had many people we knew in common with each other stretching over many years.
Six and a half years ago I was diagnosed with two types of cancer. (That’s in a different blog). Once through the chemo therapy for the High Grade Diffuse B Cell Lypmphoma I decided to start talking about things via blogs on facebook. One of the things the Maggie Centre offered, in Nottingham, was a stress management course and keen to try anything that might help my general well being and longjevity I signed up. I mentioned it on facebook and said that I had found some of it useful. Some how via the tendrils that spread out through the facebook networks I had made a freind request to Linda and she had accepted me. To my surprise when I mentioned about the stress management she asked me to tell her more and I offered to email her various bits and pieces. It all began from that point.
The thing was that I had two types of cancer, the second one causing the first and probably having been there before the first. That’s the one I still have which is Follicular Lypmphoma. Now obviously while in treatment of the first type of cancer and without hair it could have been noticable that there was something wrong with me but once my hair grew back and today, for instance, you can’t tell if you look at me, that there is anything wrong with me at all. I have an invisible, probably again at some point, life threatening desease.
Linda has dysphonia. Dysphonia is, sypmlistically defined, difficulty in speaking due to a physical disorder of the mouth, tongue, throat, or vocal cords. Researchers think it may be caused by a problem in the basal ganglia of the brain. This is the area that helps coordinate muscle movement. Spasmodic dysphonia may be inherited. It may start after a cold or the flu, injury to the voice box, a long period of voice use, or stress. In other words it’s a nuerological disorder. The fact that this happens to anyone is distressing but the fact it happened to this wonderful singer is all the more tragic in my view. Her disease is to all itents and purposes invisible as well although on bad days you can hear it if she speaks. Because her voice is unreliable she cannot sing live but has managed some recordings post diagnosis. Being robbed of this form of communication facebook has been a life line to her where she can interact in her own beautiful, witty and intelligent way bringing alot of joy to others, interacting with her fans and friends and indeed…making new friends.
It was the invisible nature of, in my case a life threatening illness and, in her case a life limiting illness that drew us together and helped forge a friendship that in my case has been an absolute god send.
Linda and I communicate by email almost everyday. Sometimes those communications are little more than a ‘hi’ and checking in with each other but at other times Linda has the joy of getting to hear all the minutiae of my life, my angers, fears and frustrations and reflects things back to me or just supports me unconditionally which has been fantastic. She shares her feelings and thoughts in return and we know that the other one is there. If I needed her I know she would be there for me and I hope she feels the same. That is the sign of a good freind and she knows me ‘warts and all’.
I was due to sing in a Michael Morpurgo show in London, near Christmas time and decided to ask her if she’d like to come. She said she would. I told her what time I would be at the venue and she came in while we were back stage. I heard her first saying, “is Jo here?” and then she came over gave me a hug and a kiss and a present and pretty much rushed off again. I wasn’t sure if she was coming back or not because I knew that at times it is difficult for her to hear other singers as that is a constant reminder of her own situation. But she did come back later and she hung around afterwards. After that, a few months later, I fancied popping up to London as I’d been invited to an exhibition and asked her if she fancied meeting up and she said yes. I even managed to get into my email, ‘Meet me at the station don’t be late” which made us both laugh. That time, as we essentially just spent the afternoon together, I suppose you’d say we bonded. We share a similar sense of humour and I find her incredibly easy to be around. We talk….yes even with the dysponia..which comes and goes in it’s severity..if she struggles I chat away a bit more…and the time flys by in a matter of minutes even when it’s hours. She’ll answer her mobile of we’re planning to meet but generally speaking, for obvious reasons, does not like talking on the phone. We meet up once or twice a year just to be together or occasionally to do something together eg we went to the Shirley Collins 80th birthday celebration in Cecil Sharpe house. Gues tickets were forthcoming which was lovely and we heard Shirley sing for the first time in years as she had suffered from similar difficulties to Linda. But mostly we sit, we natter, we eat…oh yes we are both huge foodies…I can hear her saying and laughing …’with an emphasis on the huge’ whereas I will point out it’s the enthusiasm for food rather than the size of the foodies. I buy her little eadible things for presents unless I’m told not to and I introduced her to bamboo socks…that is actual bamboo soncks, not the name of a current indie band.
The reason this blog came about is because last week I went up to London, on my way to Brussels, and we spent the evening together, I stopped over and then we had the morning together too. Great fun and once again the time passed in seconds. I love her and enjoy every minute with her. We are like twins separated at birth (something Linda often says when we happen to hold the same opinion or feeling about something). A late friendship and a glorious blessing.
There’s no moral here except to say that I don’t assume everything is as it seems when it comes to how others appear becasue of what has happened to me. I remember a woman talking on the radio about being chellenged when coming out of a dissabled loo in her csse she had a colostomy bag whihc was invisible beneath her clothes. The person who challenged her did not have a dissability, not that that is relevant, but felt evangelical enough to make an assumption….and who can’t see that situation from both sides of the coin as it were. So, some things are invisible and that’s what i bear in mind. The same as mental illness is not immediately apparent.
Jo Freya’s Musings 