A Year to the Day

It's a year to the day since my bright, brilliant, beautiful but troubled and difficult daughter, Madeleine Francesca took her own life by taking an overdose of prescription drugs. She was 21 and studying at St Andrews University in Scotland.

She suffered from Asperger's syndrome as she had done all her life and every single day was a struggle for her although outwardly, to her friends and tutors, she was always kind, helpful, happy and brilliant. The life and soul of any group she was involved with - from fellow students to the drama society; strangers she met in bookshops and on long train journeys.

She was my little girl.

And while we disagreed about many (probably most) things in life and when she was old enough to have a view, politically as well and we had some humdingers over the years, she latterly relished the 'discussions' we had, almost all of which descended into rows, so much so that we were banned from holding discussions at all when she was home from Uni. God but I miss that so much.

They say time is a great healer and I know this to be true because it has enabled me to 'get over' the deaths of several family members and school-friends over the years.

But as far as Maddy is concerned, Time hasn't made so much as a dent on the grief and pain that I feel.

I ache for her every day. Almost anything - the sight of an awkward gawky young girl wearing 'outrageous' clothes or big DM boots, trying to find her identity - can have me in bits. I feel an almost unstoppable urge to go to the girl and say 'You look fantastic, well done'. I don't of course, I'd probably be arrested if I did. I just quietly cry instead.

Last week I was in Waitrose and found myself looking at the vegetarian section (Maddy was vegetarian and sometime vegan) and I just lost it. Funny how tofu can make you cry not just when it appears on your plate.

Generally I'm not a weak person, I'm quite robust, optimistic, I try to see the funny side of every situation. I don't take myself too seriously. And these traits have thankfully not changed. My default setting is still a a smile and a positive outlook.

But sometimes, when Maddy comes into my mind, it gets quite hard to be positive about anything. And she's on my mind a lot of the time.

Today I went to the green burial place at Ketton in Rutland where Maddy is buried and had my first ever PBJB sandwich (Peanut Butter Jam and Banana) which were Maddy's favourite. It was truly disgusting.  The grave, which is in a beautiful, peaceful, rural setting has changed over the past year of course...

There were hundreds of people, from all over the world at her funeral and many came back to our little country-village hall where she - and we - had spent so many happy hours on stage or attending various groups during her childhood and where we remembered and celebrated her life with many many friends of hers and ours.

St Salvator's Hall St Andrews, taken the day after Maddy's memorial service, with the Northern Lights.

We also attended a wonderful, beautiful and moving memorial service for her in St Andrews in Saint Salvator's Chapel which is one of the most beautiful and atmospheric religious buildings I've ever been in, surrounded by tutors, her fellow students, Donald the University Chaplain who has been fantastic and the VP of the University, such was the respect and esteem in which she was held there.

In recent months the mound of earth that was raised when she was buried has sunk back to its original level. So it's now a flat and level part of the field with just a plaque to identify the place where she lies. So she has returned to nature, which is what she wanted to happen if her body couldn't be donated to scientific research (which was not possible in the circumstances); but to me it also feels like she's gone.

I would have given anything, on the day she died, to bring her back. To hold her. To make her warm, to keep her warm and have her home safe.  To tell her everything was going to be OK. To tell her that I love her. I had to identify the body at the Nine Wells hospital in Dundee where they couldn't save her. I wanted to swap her life for mine. I still do.

I ache for her. All the bloody time. Time cannot heal this one. In fact it's actually getting worse.

It's not anger. It's not feeling sorry for myself (although there is certainly some of that involved of course). It's just sadness and loss. Missing her so much. I know she had a terrible time, was in mental agony on a daily basis and, in the end she couldn't carry on with that. And I know she's at peace now. I know that it was only a matter of time before we would get the telephone call. We had years of her pain, her self harm, eating disorders, gender issues and mental illness.

But I miss her so much. And I feel her loss to the world very acutely. She had a flawed but brilliant mind, a photographic memory, a towering intellect - she turned down Oxford to go to St Andrews. She would have been great at whatever she did, had she been able to cope with herself. She would have made a contribution to the world that dullards like me can only dream about and watch others with admiration.

She helped so many people - was an ambassador for the BEAT eating disorder charity for whom she presented and addressed halls with hundreds of people in them, around the UK. She helped her shy fellow students to fit in at St Andrews and come out of their shells (I had several notes of grief and sympathy from parents of such students after her death) and yet she couldn't help herself.

She had so many 'looks' or 're-inventions' and she loved playing characters in am-drams or manga events, because, it seems she preferred to be anyone other than herself - and it breaks my heart to know that.

She left a note which explained lots of things and banned me from speaking at the funeral. Not that I'd have been able to get more than two words out before breaking down. Many people would have been upset by this - and many were on my behalf - but it made me smile. It was just like her. She had to have the last word where I was concerned. And sadly, she did

Anne found another set of instructions later among Maddy's effects, with instructions about who was not to be invited to the funeral and more details etc. I learnt of this with some trepidation, expecting the worst - Maddy could be quite cruel to me at times if she was in a dark mood.

She said, in her instruction note: 'Dad, you are so invited'.

We did most things together as  family when Maddy was growing up - annual family holidays usually to the med but sometimes elsewhere. And she and I did some stuff just the two of us - we went to Rome for a weekend where we saw John-Paul II (when he was deformed and clearly very ill towards the end of his life). Although Maddy was an atheist, she respected him and was glad to have seen him and experienced all the bloody elbowing nuns that got on the buses afterwards.

I also took her, every year for, what was it? Six years, to our local Waterstones in Market Harborough to buy the next Harry Potter book when it was released at Midnight - and she always dressed up, another of her characters!

She also went to Ecuador with the school when she was a teenager - an unfit, skinny-but-flabby, not-eating-properly teenager. Three months out from the trip she said, 'I'm going to get to the top of Cotopaxi'. And three months later after her fitness regime, she was one of only a handful of students to make it, and the only girl. She also helped to build a school for local kids in Ecuador on that trip.

Anyway Maddy, these are just becoming incoherent ramblings. When I say that time hasn't made a dent on my grief, the opposite is true. I wrote about your death when it happened and was relatively clear and erudite. Now this has gotten (one of your mid-Atlantic words that feels right somehow) much bigger, to the point where I'm finding it difficult to express myself clearly any more.

You know I love you and I always will. And you know by now whether you were wrong about God and all that. I hope you were. Because if you were you'll have some bloody big explaining to do when I get there. Which won't be long - and anyway, it's unlikely I'll be coming to the same place!

Sleep well my darling child. I read on a war grave in France, when I was a kid the following quotation: 'To live on in the hearts of those you love, is not to die.' I've never forgotten it nor ever written it down.

If it is true, Maddy, and I think it is, then you are in the rudest of health.

I love you.

Dad xxx

Madeleine Francesca Conway. 01.12.1993 - 09.11.2015



Previous blogs here:

My daughter died yesterday morning

We'd like you to identify the body

Patch poem

Some random stuff. I hadn't seen some of these tweets until today.

Free the world

It's Brexit time,
There's no need to be afraid,
at Brexit time,
we take control and we're free to trade
And in our world of plenty
we can spread a smile of joy
sell our goods around the world
at Brexit time.

But say a prayer
to pray for Remianions
At Brexit time it's hard
for them and they're having none
of a world outside of Europe;
they want a world of dread and fear
where the only business growing
is folks with migrant camps to clear
And the Christmas bells don't ring there
just in case they cause offense
and the youth can find no work there
Because of EU governance.

And there'll be UK deals with Africa next Christmas time
Instead of EU tariffs & bullshit they'll get trade
For a continent resource-rich
It's time for us to make our pitch
So they know it's Brexit time for all

Fuck EU, raise a glass for everyone
Trade with them underneath that burning sun
Yes they'll know it's Brexit time for all.

Free the world
(let them know it's Brexit time)
Free the world
(let them know it's Brexit time)..

It's Brexit time
There's no need to be afraid
At Brexit time
We take control and we're free to trade
And while Bob's raising cash for charity
to keep them forever under yolk
and in thrall to western nations
in the sickest of sick jokes

We'll be trading with our partners
with the Union Jack unfurled
instead of exploiting, we'll be helping
Africa into the first world.

Free the world
(let them know it's Brexit time)
Free the world
(let them know it's Brexit time)..

ends. :)

And here, a matter of hours later, is how the BBC covers (creates really) a negative Brexit story

So, having buried the 'Global Leader in Free Trade' vision from Theresa May yesterday, (here) at the lowest possible place on its website, this is how the BBC is covering ('promoting' would be a more accurate term) a slightly less positive angle on Brexit this morning- a manufactured negative angle based on her saying - 'It might not all be plain sailing'.

In an interview with Marr she said: 'We have had some good figures and better figures than some had predicted would be the case. I'm not going to pretend that it's all going to be plain sailing.

"I think we must be prepared for the fact that there may be some difficult times ahead. But what I am is optimistic." 

So the BBC goes big on the possible - not certain by any means - negative angle.

Not hidden away at the very bottom of the 'News page' this time, but featured prominently, not once but twice on the top of the BBC's Homepage - the landing page for all visitors to the site. Top story and then repeated immediately below just in case you missed it.

Then of course absolute top of the 'News' page. And notice the headline says 'will bring difficult times', when what she actually said was: 'there may be some difficult times ahead'.

But the BBC is so determined to pick up on any possible negative of Brexit that it cannot help itself shouting - and falsifying - this piece from the rooftops.

It needs to be reformed. By force of public feeling. And soon. This crap is now getting so blatant that it's beyond a joke.

One thing is for absolute certain. It will be a glorious day when this out-of-control, biased, anti British corporation is either disbanded and closed or forced back to operating on the basis that it did when it obeyed the terms of its charter for impartiality; when it had credibility and was, therefore, one of the best things that Britain had ever given to the world. It is so far from that scenario now it's laughable.

It needs serious and urgent reform: And while 'Whippingdale' was just the latest in a long line of inept, spineless 'Media, Culture & Sport' Ministers to be too scared to address this urgent issue of the BBC, which directly affects the UK's very credibility & standing in the world, I think it's only a matter of time before the real, decent people of this country wake up and take action themselves. Probably via mass non-payment of the licence fee. We'll see - I'm not advocating that people break the law, but I think it's coming because reform is desperately needed and not being delivered. Tony Hall and his cronies are smugly laughing at and ignoring the people to whom he should be listening and reporting - the licence-fee-paying BBC audience.

Neither he nor very many (if any) of the current 'Guardianista' managers, executives or producers at the BBC will be coming along for the ride when this process gets under way.

Thanks for reading.

Update (7.55 am) - maybe someone reads this stuff after all? The BBC has now 'updated' its story to read 'May bring difficult times' as opposed to 'Will'. Doesn't change the 'job' they've done on promoting the negative whilst burying the positive.

UK to be global leader in free trade - May

Quite big news I think you'll agree. Our new Prime Minister has stated that her vision for the UK is that we will be a global leader in free trade.

Not a woman who is prone to hyperbole, this is a major statement and one which, one would have thought, would be pretty big on the news agenda - especially the BBC's News page.

This is big, it'll be prominent.

Aa you can no doubt see: Scroll down - this is exactly as the BBC news page now looks, at 21.07 on September 3rd 2016.

So the UK aspiring to become a global leader in free trade is slightly below the main story (which has held its place since before 6am today); that China has signed the Paris Climate pact - even though China has been starting to build two new coal-fired power stations every week for the whole of this year and will not hit peak CO2 output until 2030 - a fact conveniently forgotten by the BBC's Roger Harrabin - who must know this. But hey, our new PM's vision ought to be second up on the news page surely - such a major announcement?

Actually no. It's also below a story from yesterday about a gay bishop. And a futile Pro EU march. And news about a bridge on the M20. And the sale of Boycie's Jag. And some filler stuff called 'features. A selection of pieces including: 'why do lithium batteries explode?'. And below a round-up of news from England, Norn Iron, Scotland & Wales. A section on Sport. And the penultimate section on the page; local news and weather.

It's in the 'more from BBC News' section. The 'we don't really give a toss about this stuff' bit - except the climate stuff is usually buried here too so that the ridiculous, unscientific bullshit will not get too much of a backlash from people with a brain.

It could only be further from the top of the BBC News page if it was in the actual footer of the page.

God but the BBC makes my piss boil. As soon as Brexit is under way and secure, I think it'll be time for the people of the UK to turn their attention to the monstrous bias, and anti UK bullshit that the BBC pours out all the damn time and to take back control over what should be our national broadcaster. The BBC needs to be on our side and representing the majority of British people who pay for the bloody thing. It certainly is not at the moment.

It had the chance to reform and blew it. It's coming up to time for us to make happen what our spineless politicians have so wantonly failed to do.

Thanks for reading

There's no rush to invoke Article 50

After 40-odd years of EU membership we have voted to leave the failing, undemocratic and outdated organisation and despite all the rhetoric from the denialist former Remainers to the contrary, leave is exactly what we will now do.

It may take some time to unpick all the tentacles of the EU that have found their way into the fabric of UK society but essentially, now that the decision has been made - and accepted by our government, and in particular our new Prime Minister - we are now firmly on our way towards a new level of freedom, democracy and a global outlook that has been denied us for decades.

I won't go back over the ridiculous crap spouted by the Remain camp, other than to say that the 'we're too small to have any influence in the world' was the absolute worst load of old bollocks I've ever heard and was, I think, one of the key defining voting influences on the June 23rd Referendum. We have always punched above our weight as a nation - we are resourceful, honest, practical and we think big. We are also loyal partners and we look after our friends and allies. In short we are exactly what most inward investors - be they nations or individuals - are looking for in a partner. We don't renege on agreements and nor do we see the only way of securing a beneficial deal as being that the 'other side' must lose out as part of the process. It's always a mutually beneficial thing.

These qualities cannot be attributed to many other nations and certainly not to the EU.

So now what?

Well it seems to me that now we have a grown up in number 10, things are looking better than ever. I trust Theresa May - yes I know she was on the side of Remain during the referendum but not in a high profile way and she seems to me to be pragmatic and making all the right noises about Brexit so far.

Can you imagine Dave leading our negotiations?

I liked him as a bloke but he was a child promoted way above his capabilities. A terrible negotiator, a figurehead not a leader, a PR man not a visionary,  a crowd pleaser rather than a tough negotiator with the interests of the UK as his main priority.

His approach to these upcoming negotiations would have been to tell the world what he was trying to achieve in advance - so that our 'opponents could decide on their stance and stitch up well in advance - and then, having failed in his quest, he would have tried to tell us that he'd succeeded.

Theresa, on the other hand is keeping her cards close to her chest. She is not pre-judging the outcome of negotiations. She has stated that Brexit must mean Brexit and that negotiations will not officially start before the end of the year, when Article 50 will be invoked. She has also stated that it will be about what's best for the UK going forward and not a half-arsed (my words not hers) compromise approach which frankly would be no good either for the UK or the EU.

So whilst many people who I would consider to be on the same side as me - i.e. Brexiteers - are jumping about calling for Article 50 to be invoked quickly so that the initiative is not lost and so that the Remain camp cannot fudge and curtail what will happen; so that the whole thing cannot be watered down, the fact is that it won't be.

She has made her position clear and not contradicted herself and she is sticking to her guns.And it's more important (than anything in our recent history), to get this right and to make sure we get the best possible outcome from Brexit, than it is to rush the whole thing.

The EU will want to see us suffer, will want us to feel the pain, because it would be a disaster for the EU if Britain prospers and thrives outside, as it will encourage many others in Europe to want to leave. But they don't have the machinery to cause us this pain without causing themselves even greater pain. Which is what they're now slowly starting to realise.

So while Theresa states that 'Brexit will mean Brexit' and then keeps quiet about it, so our former partners in the EU are being allowed the time to wake up and smell the coffee; to slowly realise that we are serious and that they really ought to stop with the threats and other bollocks that they had been spouting during and immediately after the referendum and that actually they need us more than we need them.

Their language has become much more conciliatory, they are now talking about 'special deals' and a good ongoing relationship and while a few are still saying 'we can't let the UK keep the nice things' post Brexit, these people are now very much in the minority and, other than in the denialist media including, in particular the frankly traitorous BBC, they are not gaining any traction.

I'm sure Theresa knows that we can, if needed just walk away. We don't need the EU to grant us any favours. Our economy is strong. We buy more from the EU (to the tune of £106.4 billion in 2015) than they do from us. We have other countries around the world queueing up to do business with us.

On the other hand the EU is in decline, almost in recession. Italy is bankrupt, as is Greece and France is teetering. It has just fucked up (technical economic term) it's trade deal with the US (which was - TTIP - a crap deal but that's not the point I'm making) and is on the brink of failure without us to prop up the whole sorry edifice.

In many ways we might well be better off just walking away from the EU, like a watertight and relatively comfortable lifeboat leaving the Titanic. Of course we'd like to remain friends with our trading partners in Europe - but this will almost certainly be better if it is on the basis of trading with nation states rather than via the clunking machinery of the EU.

I think if the EU doesn't play ball, we should offer deals to Germany, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia (but not France initially) and see what happens. I think they'd be falling over themselves to trade with us.

We should also establish special relationships with Iceland, Norway and Switzerland as well as re-establishing and building on the great relationships we used to have with the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the Commonwealth.

The fact is we have better relationships on a global scale than any country within the EU and than the EU itself as an organisation. Better relationships with India, China, Russia. Because we have always punched above our weight and, post Brexit, we will not only continue to do so, but we will enhance this position and reputation as a welcome new driving force for trade in the world.

And the EU will continue to bicker and (technical economic term) 'fuck about' while we get on with it.

And as we leave - the only member that has ever actually and consistently played by the rules - the EU will realise that every time it bends and breaks the rules to accommodate economic failures by the likes of Italy, Spain & Portugal earlier this year and for Greece (which should never have been allowed to join the single currency) it stores up massive problems for the future for everyone in the EU and reduces everywhere except Germany to economic and employment chaos. Big problems. Problems that we are no longer responsible for and can simply, now, walk away from.

Go Theresa, we're all firmly behind you. Or at least those of us who understood what was at stake in the referendum are. Those of us who understood the nature of trade and sovereignty and those of us who voted with the interests of the whole nation rather than selfish, short-term interests at heart.

Thank God for us old, thick, racist bigots eh?

Thanks for reading.

'The Brexit side won because of lies' - what utter bullshit

Like a giant game of 'Wack-a-Mole' they just keep popping up with another threat or lie to scare people

No real point in going back over what happened on June 23rd: The fact is we won the referendum and the UK will now leave the EU. Thank God for all of us old, thick bigots and racists eh? Or to put it another way, thank God for sensible, clued-up people who have, once again, saved the terminally stupid, hope not soap, rent a march idiots from themselves, for the good of everyone in this great country.

Having gone to bed on June 23rd, depressed, at 11pm with a Remain victory quoted by the bookies at 10 to 1 on, I woke at 4am to find the odds exactly reversed and described this event as feeling like all my Christmases as a kid rolled into one.

After 30 years' of anti EU campaigning I am, I think, allowed to savour the moment although, had Remain won the vote, I would have been extremely pissed off but I would have accepted the verdict and moved on. Unlike these fucking idiot deniers who think we'll have another referendum or that Theresa will stall the invocation of Article 50 and Brexit won't happen. Of course it will.

However one issue does still keep coming up on twitter and, rather than having to go through the entire argument, 140 character message by 140 character message, I thought I'd put down my thoughts in a single short blog.

The issue being the lies that were peddled by both sides during the campaign. The Remain side spokespeople took great offence at the lies that were told by the Brexit campaigners, saying what a monstrous liberty it was.

Why are they doing this? Because they know, full-well, that the reality is that if the Brexit side did tell any lies, they were as nothing - mere fibs - compared to the utter - and continuous - falsehoods and blatant, monstrous and massive lies being told every day by the remain camp. You think I exaggerate? Read on.

Just as Mr Bliar made it a tactic to shout loudest about the issues he was weakest on - so as to nullify the impact of his failure - that is exactly what the Remain camp did by suggesting that Brexit lies were much worse than the Remain ones - which, of course is utter bullshit.

Not sure about this? OK, here's an exercise for you. I'll give you, let's say, ten of the big lies told by the Remain side. All you have to do is provide me with the ten equally massive lies that the Brexit side told and we'll then know the answer to the question as to which side was telling not only the most lies, but the most ridiculous and outrageous lies. Here goes:

1. Brexit will cause a new war to erupt in Europe.

2. Brexit will cause economic meltdown in the UK - a DIY recession with mass unemployment.

3. Brexit will lead to massive trade sanctions against UK industry by the EU.

4. Brexit will mean that major international businesses and countries will not want to trade with or invest in the UK.

5. Turkey will not be joining the EU for at least 900 years.

6. The EU will not seek to create a Europe-wide army

7. We will be able to control immigration into the UK without leaving the EU.

8. We will be much more vulnerable to terrorism if we leave the EU.

9. There will have to be an emergency budget with a further £30bn of austerity cuts in the UK and each family will be £4,300 a year worse off.

The Treasury told Remain campaigners not to use this spurious research - they turned it into a campaign poster

10. We're campaigning to stay in a 'reformed' EU - i.e. the EU has been substantially reformed by Dave's renegotiations.

OK your turn. Good luck.

Just as a starting point you should be aware that the £350 million a week claim by Brexit was confirmed as being the budget figure for the UK but that the net figure (according to the BBC's own fact check website) was £271 million a week. So this was a bit of a moot point - whether it was a lie is debatable, but obviously £271m/wk remains a significant amount of money and this level of lie (even if I concede that you are allowed to label it as such), is clearly not of anything like the same magnitude as any of the nine falsehoods already outlined.

And the second point you should bear in mind is that the official Vote Leave campaign said that the £350m/wk could be invested in UK infrastructure like the NHS. It did not say, ever during that campaign, that £350m/wk would be spent on the NHS every week if we were to leave. So that obviously cannot be construed as a lie.

The third one - (these are the main issues outlined as 'lies' by Remain as far as I am aware - but of course you are going to convince me otherwise with your ten examples) is that taking back control (voting to Leave) would mean cutting immigration, pretty much to zero. Er, no. Controlling our borders would allow us to cut immigration if we want to - there is no way to do so if we remained in the EU because of its free movement of people stance - but taking control means just that. We can now control the numbers who come in and, critically, where they come from - so we're no longer discriminating against the potential immigration of people from outside the EU (the Commonwealth for example) but instead operating a much fairer system on a world-wide scale and not just on a protectionist EU level.

We may well want to reduce the numbers of migrants coming into the UK from the 300k that is the current annual figure, but we may not: We may decide that high levels of immigration are needed and a good thing for the UK economy - but the deal is that now we have control we can control the numbers and know what numbers we're dealing with so that we can plan to provide the levels of infrastructure - healthcare, education, housing etc - that will be needed to meet the needs of all UK citizens not just immigrants but everyone. That's the key point.

And whilst it may be true that significant numbers of people voted Leave because they want to see reduced numbers of migrants coming into the UK - and this may well happen - the main issue was regaining control of our borders so that we the people of the UK can decide on this in a democratic way.

OK just taking those obvious ones out of the mix - they're either not lies at all, or a deliberate misconstruing of what was claimed or said by the Leave side - off you go and good luck. I look forward to reading the ten other major issues that were the subject of Brexit lies that were of the same magnitude as war or recession or loss of global trade or mass unemployment. Take your time.

Thanks for reading.