Around ten years ago, my deeply troubled talented artist brother Simon died, in shocking circumstances. At first, work was the thing that helped me. The routine of editing a documentary about a council in Greater Manchester, and the kindness and compassion of those around me helped keep my sanity for the first few months.
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Around ten years ago, my deeply troubled talented artist brother Simon died, in shocking circumstances. At first, work was the thing that helped me. The routine of editing a documentary about a council in Greater Manchester, and the kindness and compassion of those around me helped keep my sanity for the first few months.
After the initial waves of overwhelming solitary grief, I felt, in my sadness, compelled to tell his story, to help him leave a legacy of some kind, one that he might have intended, but hadn’t yet managed to make.
With that in mind, I decided to use my skills in production to make a film. I would talk to some of the people who knew him best, hear tell tales of the good, and bad, times they had with him, and feel kinship in how important he was to them.
The production took me all over the country, from Nottingham to the South Coast, from London to Aberdeen via Hebden Bridge.
The more people I met, the more I realised, his legacy was already there. I'd entered his world, and I found myself enjoying hearing the stories of his life, almost feeling like he was there with us.
As the process continued, I got wrapped up in it, getting some of Simon's artwork animated, writing a soundtrack to the film, and even creating a font from his handwriting. Slowly but surely, as I pieced the hours and hours of footage I had together, I began to feel a sense of recovery and acceptance.
A part of me is grateful to the drought in TV work, as it’s enabled me to finish what had become a burden, but this mysterious time in the media continues to cause worry for so many of us. I really hope things pick up soon, for us all.
I’ll be entering my film into festivals over 2025 and 2026, but, on 17th July, I’m having a screening at the college in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, in association with a group called Pushing Up Daisies, a local group enabling community-led conversations around death, dying and bereavement.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1098631706
https://www.facebook.com/pushingupdaisiestod
After the initial waves of overwhelming solitary grief, I felt, in my sadness, compelled to tell his story, to help him leave a legacy of some kind, one that he might have intended, but hadn’t yet managed to make.
With that in mind, I decided to use my skills in production to make a film. I would talk to some of the people who knew him best, hear tell tales of the good, and bad, times they had with him, and feel kinship in how important he was to them.
The production took me all over the country, from Nottingham to the South Coast, from London to Aberdeen via Hebden Bridge.
The more people I met, the more I realised, his legacy was already there. I'd entered his world, and I found myself enjoying hearing the stories of his life, almost feeling like he was there with us.
As the process continued, I got wrapped up in it, getting some of Simon's artwork animated, writing a soundtrack to the film, and even creating a font from his handwriting. Slowly but surely, as I pieced the hours and hours of footage I had together, I began to feel a sense of recovery and acceptance.
A part of me is grateful to the drought in TV work, as it’s enabled me to finish what had become a burden, but this mysterious time in the media continues to cause worry for so many of us. I really hope things pick up soon, for us all.
I’ll be entering my film into festivals over 2025 and 2026, but, on 17th July, I’m having a screening at the college in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, in association with a group called Pushing Up Daisies, a local group enabling community-led conversations around death, dying and bereavement.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1098631706
https://www.facebook.com/pushingupdaisiestod
