Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE 

107. Thousands Are Sailing by The Pogues

CANCER AND my OU studies hit simultaneously, splitting my life into a clear before and after.

Before that, my identity was clear-cut: a far-left Roman Catholic, but thoroughly English. Case in point: choosing to watch Frank Sidebottom instead of The Pogues at Reading in 1989. While I knew I had Irish and Welsh roots, they felt entirely foreign. That changed with my studies, which have completely resurrected my distant past and rewritten my present.

My grandmother and her Irish mother and my aunt (taken into the home after her mother died) all lived with my grandfather. A Heyside native, surrounded by family. During the Depression, they all had to make the walk from Shaw to Chadderton for their state handouts. Two of her brothers died. Two of the seventy-six million who perished in those two wars. She, like me, was a cancer survivor. Yet, retaining dignity and containing sorrow, she remained a pivotal part of the church community.

Despite being highly intelligent, my grandmother was thrown into the mill at fifteen. It partly explains why her children were so keen to iron out their Irish and Welsh ancestry and progress up the social ladder. Selflessly, she propelled them forward. Remaining the beating heart of my mother's life, she missed her son dearly when he relocated. When she had a big jackpot win, she gave half back to the church and split the remaining half amongst her two children. Keeping nothing for herself. I can only imagine what a great example had been set for her. Even in death, kicking against the hospital bed posts with the pain of kidney failure, she was defying the odds.

This mighty song understands transformation through hardship. Sung with warm grit and deep kinship to Philip Chevron’s poetic lyrics, it speaks to me through this remarkable woman, the daughter of those we casually call refugees.