The Long Road Home…

I have been walking a long road through depression since 2016. My job became too much for me and I didn’t receive the support that I should have had. I tried to keep up with the demands of the role of teacher whilst carrying too much pain, and eventually I just broke. I have not been the same since.

My wife has been an absolute rock throughout the past nine years (and before), and I am more than grateful for her carrying me a lot of the time. She has been and remains my truest friend, even in the worst of times.

When I am in my right mind I seem very far from the helpless individual I can become when there is too much stress, too much pressure, or just too much life. Unfortunately people see me in public and that’s the only persona they can gauge my personality by. It isn’t that I put on a face when I’m out and about, but that when I am not capable of leaving the house – or sometimes leaving one room – people don’t see me; they only see the days when I seem ‘strong’ and able to cope.

Music has been my solace throughout this whole period. Even when I could not play (something that I felt in earlier times was impossible) I listened to music. It is inextricably part of me; you remove the music and I become nothing.

..so I survive.. with help, with hope, and with an idea of possibilities that I have not yet seen, but which I believe in. The main thrust of these hopes is that I shall complete the solo album that has been being shaped since the demise of the band Northern Shore. This website is, in fact, a part of the jigsaw of rebuilding my life after the relapse over the prior twenty two months. Most of the posts will be nothing like this; I intend them to be positive, forward-looking and to do with music, writing and creativity – the things that are at the core of who I am.

I do hope you will join me on this journey – and that we shall see the fruits of the trip together.

Much love – M