Look What I found. This on the middle of the grass yesterday, all of a sudden a perfect magic fairy ring. How lucky are we.
Last week was special because all the planning for an evening at Crumlin Road Gaol came together in an unique night to celebrate the talents of Lyra McKee the young journalist shot dead in Derry just before midnight on Thursday 18th April 2019. The guests were invited by the Belfast and District of the National Union of Journalists to join documentary maker Alison Miller who made the film ‘Lyra’ that has gone round the world, Seamus Dooley the NUJ secretary, Natasha Hirst president of the NUJ, Father Martin Magill whose address at Lyra’s funeral service in St. Anne’s Cathedral resonated internationally, and Nichola McKee Corner who spoke movingly about her younger sister. We were honoured to be joined by zoom from Strasbourg by the commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic who held the audience enthralled.
The message that came through was to consider the danger in which journalists, photographers and crews find themselves during their working day whether in one of the war zones in the world or here at home. We remembered Lyra, Martin O’Hagan short dead in Lurgan and Veronica Gudrun murdered in Dublin. We asked people to consider what they would do without journalists bringing honest news to the public. Just think of no newspapers, no online papers, news bulletins or television coverage. At the moment the news is very brutal especially from both Ukraine and the Middle East and I know many people have stopped watching the news, it’s too much to take in but isn’t it important we know the facts? At the other end of news is the local farming programme which looks like it’s being dropped by BBC – seems to me, and to a lot of farmers, someone making decisions don’t know their hay from their heifers and the importance of knowing what’s going on in the world of farming. Again the journalists bringing the news to the people, are under threat.
BEING AWARE
Last month we were asked to consider the surge that is cancer. Undoubtedly a month of publicity is important but it’s always with us in some shape or form, in your family, amongst your friends or in yourself. Despite advances in both detection and treatment, the numbers are still frightening.
Of course it’s wise to check any concerns, keep on at your doctor until you get an appointment and a referral if necessary, keep ringing to ask where you are in the appointment queue, these days everyone is under pressure and it’s important not to be ignored, people make promises with the best intensions and time goes by and their list of phone calls gets longer so it’s quite acceptable to give them a little nudge.
I Faced This In 2000
My ‘Millennium Experience’! Yet even after 23 years I still worry, just as Jean the breast care nurse at the City Hospital predicted: “If you get a pain in your ear lug you’ll think it’s cancer – it won’t be.”
The wait for results is awful, sometimes it’s not good news and the journey begins. My story was a regular mammogram at Linenhall Street in Belfast. I stopped on the way out to speak to a friend when I was caught up with, ushered behind the scenes for a more detailed examination and so began an experience I will never forget but one which for me was successful and one I’ve been able to talk through with other women and their families experiencing the same shock of diagnosis.
I was fortunate, not everyone is as I know only too well and some keep the news private, I didn’t. The world and his wife knew and I found that helpful, my friends were so considerate and kind after my mastectomy. The house was filled with flowers, some had to go into the bath to keep fresh.
It must be difficult to face such a diagnosis on your own and that’s why I like people to ask me about my experience.
23 and a half years later I can give what assurance I can and I give three hearty cheers to Pamela Ballantine for her positive and joyous approach.
As with any severe illness it’s the family I feel for most. You are the patient in the centre of the action, not the most important actor in what’s playing out, essentially you’re there because you have to be but it’s the surgeon and the oncologist and their staff who are centre stage. Friends and relations are the audience sitting waiting for the story to unfold, no right to interrupt with questions, just praying the ending is a happy one.
So you loose your hair, a wig isn’t the end of the world. First time I wore my funky hair piece my husband told me I looked like Rod Stewart and we laughed. I feared it would get hooked on someone passing behind me when I was out where possible I sat with my back to the wall but the day a bus wizzed past me and my top knot swung into action was ghastly until a lovely young man chased it up the street and with a delightful smile replaced on my head.
Breast cancer seems to get all the publicity, however, there are so many types of this pesky disease that is no respecter of age or gender and this month and every other month my thoughts go out to those in the middle of their cancer experience.
MEMORIES
Ulster Television opened its door to the public 64 years ago on Hallowee’n afternoon, last Wednesday, and the fun and games began. A small studio typically hosting lambs in one corner, ballet dancers in another and an actor doing a commercial for sherry in the third, the rest of the space taken up by three cameras, a mic on a long pole, a news desk, two presenters and a floor manager conducting the show. And everything was live.
No one was prepared for the memorable evening when Ivor Mills was interviewing a highly respected businessman about the introduction of dictaphones, he’d brought his attractive secretary with him to give her opinion on this recording device. “Seems like a revolutionary time saving device” says Ivor. “But,” he turns to the secretary, “not good news for you – makes you almost redundant.” All eyes on the secretary for her reaction.
She stands up, walks regally across to Ivor. Everyone holds their breath, is she going to attack him in front of the audience at home. No, with a sweet smile she sits on his knee, takes his handsome face in her hands and kisses him long and hard on his lips. No one moves, mesmerised at the scene. She brakes away and turns to the camera, winks, announcing: ”A dictaphone can’t do that.”
If you’re watching Strictly come Dancing I’m sure like me you’ll have noticed that the professional dancers invariably perform with their mouths wide open. Ugg.
