You made a sensation -

You found a way through

Brian May,  'No-one but you (Only The Good Die Young)'.  

I listened on Monday 14 February 05, when Jeremy Vincent’s programme on BBC Radio 2 contained a section on Vicki Moore. Her mother and sister were in the studio talking about Vicki, who had phoned into the programme about a year before. As I only knew her from her website, this is the first time I’d heard Vicki’s voice as they played a recording of that call.  For reasons that I shall be writing about, I feel that a page on this site should be devoted to Vicki. In the meantime, please find the poem I wrote to her here.

It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to writing about Vicki. But today I’ll start with some thoughts that came before the broadcast, although there are a couple of things from the broadcast I wish to mention in the course of recording those thoughts. Also, before I say anything at all, I wish to make a comment on the ‘canvas’ theme of this page. I had thought of using a theme depicting autumn leaves, as Vicki left us in autumn, and the world is as in autumn without her. But her personality is like springtime, so I didn’t think it right. Then I recalled something that Brian wrote once about Vicki being an artist. I never heard her music, but she painted her life on a canvas with her words. This is how I first ‘met’ her – through her web site. I’ve no doubt that the outlet she had here was vitally important to her.

Last September, I wrote this (in relation to losing my own mother to cancer when I was 15):

The thing that most strikes me about this article is the way Vicki talks about ‘a safe place’. This is a place that I held as a teenager in Queen’s music – a place away from the reality of what was happening. Vicki’s meaning, I believe, is also along these lines. The ‘safe place’ she talks about is one that I’ve recently re-discovered – a place where I find peace. But of course, for many years it was not like that for me at all. The ‘safe place’ as I saw it was in a ‘stand-off’. There is a point in Vicki’s ‘World’ where she writes about playing the music and the sound becoming distorted. Of course, this distortion only existed in the mind of her, the listener, but was a reflection of her reality at the time.

One thing that has struck me about what Vicki’s story is the way she was facing up to reality, something her mother talked about in the broadcast. The fact that she was a child coping with a terminal illness is something I shall return to. When I was a teenager, I did not have to endure personal physical suffering. What I did have to deal with was the fact that reality was concealed from me.  

I think that it would have been easier to face up to mum’s illness if I’d known what I was facing up to from the beginning. It was routine back then, it seems, not to inform the patient that they had cancer, and neither my mother nor I really knew what we were dealing with until it was already terminal. I’m grateful that things have changed. In fact, when I mentioned to colleagues the other week that this is what happened to me, their reaction was as if a  crime against humanity had been committed against me. Well, people do have a right to know, but that wasn't the thinking back then. With technology not as advanced, making a prognosis was also tougher.

Especially as a child, I hoped that the world would be be up-front and honest with me. It was a massive let-down, and this is where I can bring in the missing piece of my September quote from the top of this page. The story that Vicki told about Tumi, a fellow child cancer patient whose passing she was not informed of until some time afterwards, had its resonances in my own feelings about the concealment of the true nature of mum’s condition. People somehow think they know better, think they are sparing your feelings. But they don’t think about how much worse it is to find out later on. When I read about Tumi, I was furious for Vicki. My heart reached out to her and I sensed and felt her total frustration and disgust.

Next time, I hope to move on to more details about the radio broadcast itself.01 Mar 05.

I’ve just listened to the recording – which I made a point of making – of the broadcast again. What struck me immediately is how Vicki was talked about in the present tense – not that she was someone who lived, but still lives. So I’ve been back to correct any past tenses from the previous two sections which described her in the past, because she does live on.

 The other most striking thing is how the recording played of her ‘phone call to the show about a year before conveyed her maturity and ability to be articulate. Whether I could have expressed myself that well at her age I really don’t know – I can only say that I never felt encouraged to do so. As I continue to write about this, I find myself wondering if I might be considered presumptuous in comparing myself to Vicki. It’s certainly true that at her age I didn’t have to face the fact that I’d never return to a hockey field, or have to be carried to a stair lift and sit in a wheelchair to be taken outside, or think about the end of my own life. I’ve been able to enjoy my life all these years up to this point and hopefully have many years more. Where I think I can most usefully add my voice to Vicki’s, however, is to highlight the importance that realities are faced and talked about, and that people arrange their priorities in life in a realistic way.

 Nobody should have to lose a child or younger sister, but nobody should have to lose a mother who was two months short of her fiftieth birthday either.  I saw my mother age considerably at one point – apart from the fact that her distinct auburn hair did not turn grey, she looked shockingly like a seventy-year-old at one stage of the illness; weak, thin and frail and having to use a walking frame.

 On the other hand (and it is here that I find in Vicki’s sister Jo a lot of similar ideas), I became closer than ever to my mother over those past few months – I regarded her as my best friend – hence the use of the lyrics of the song ‘You’re my Best Friend’ early on in my story. We certainly shared a lot of joy and, as Vicki put it, talking about the times she shared with her mother and sister, laughter too. What my mother and I came to share, in fact, was greater than anything else around us and certainly greater than either of us. I’m definitely not the only person who has had to attend their own parent’s funeral at the age of fifteen, but it’s obviously not the norm. I can see myself, like Vicki, being catapulted prematurely into this unnatural situation at a similar age – a situation where we both had to think hard about death – but for different reasons.

 I found it most difficult of all, after mum’s passing, when adults used to eye me sympathetically and say they were sorry. I know they meant well but it didn’t help. It’s in the practical things where you need assistance. I can only say that I remember with great gratitude the way my closest schoolfriends rallied round at that time. I’m sure that they, their parents and our teachers stopped to think that their own problems were trivial compared to mine. 

 Certainly, what amazed many people about Vicki was the way she came across as having something of a ‘reverse autism’, so to speak - that she turned her concerns away from herself to try to find ways of helping her mother and sister to cope after her passing. (I also remember her writing something about the suffering of many others from cancer – that people could lose any loved one from it). It may stun many adults to witness this recognition in such a young person that it would ultimately be harder for those left behind than it would be for her. But at the root of it was the necessity to establish what could be done to reach a practical and real solution to a problem.

 In a strange way, this reminds me of the story told by the parents of murdered Soham schoolgirl Holly Wells at the time of Ian Huntley’s trial. Huntley said in his defence that Holly died accidentally in the bath, giving a description of these ‘events’. At home, her elder brother, who had heard the testimony, later spent a lot of time upstairs, until his parents started to wonder what he was doing. He then came down to inform them that he had run through a number of scenarios in the bathroom, and there was no way that it could have happened the way that Huntley had stated. His parents were amazed. But then again, here was a young person working out to his own satisfaction that an adult who should have been trusted was, indeed, lying – in other words, reaching out to the reality of the situation in a practical way in order to reach the right conclusion. 

 This may very well indicate a resource that we lose as we get older. If we are struck by a tragedy, most of us, whatever our age, find an inner strength to manage, as Rabbi Julia Neuberger correctly states. But I wonder more these days about the particular effects of such a situation on a young mind – at an impressionable age, many resources can be built up and drawn upon. I often wonder about the problems in my life over the years, and how they’ve always paled into significance compared to that first one; how I’ve had the ability to move on, how I’ve always been very in touch with my feelings and able to express myself somehow. Was the source of all that established at that time? Do I resort to that forthright teenager in me? I think I certainly have a tendency to do so, and am now realising it more than ever – now that I’m back in contact with the music of my teens and that my daughter is a similar age herself. Something definitely became frozen – and therefore preserved – at that time – so that I’ve been able to return to that memory quite easily.

Right, that’s enough for today. There is, of course more, which I’ll deal with next time.                         10 March 05.

If Vicki would object to the words ‘brave’, ‘gutsy’ or even ‘tough’, I hope she would settle for the word ‘bold’. Reading her website is not for the faint-hearted. She used the opportunity to use her voice – both there and on the radio. I think of the ‘show-stopping’ quality of contribution to that particular broadcast, - it was mentioned on the radio that when Vicki came on she ‘really talked’. She ‘really talked’ on her web site too. The impact on the radio came through the fact that, up to that point, it had been parents who had been talking about the pain of losing a child. Here was Vicki talking from the other side. as Jeremy Vincent stated, was the fact that parents had been talking about their situation involving losing a child and here was a child putting the situation from her perspective.

The idea that children can develop serious illnesses and die is a particularly difficult one to face. An important way to deal with it is in the manner that Brian did when he told Vicki that the cancer wasn’t her. There is a tendency to define someone through their illness – Vicki mentions that people did the same to Freddie, the first thing they mention being his death from AIDS. There’s a quote by Brian about Freddie in the Q special, March 2005. It could also be applied to the situation with both my mother and Vicki:

 ‘I never saw him lay down, put his head in his hands, and let it all get on top of him, never ever. He would always just get on with things. And we had some very funny times, were very focused and very together as a group. And I think we all realised how precious those moments were going to be’.

 Vicki’s mother Karen explained on the programme that Vicki had made it easier by leading the way and this would be the only way possible to ensure that she stayed well mentally. I think it must have been essential for Vicki to take charge – she did not have control over the illness which would make the exercise of GCSE choices meaningless, but there were things that she could control. This is a shining example – bad things happen, but your reaction to them is what counts. This is why I can never see Vicki as a tragic figure – her situation was tragic – but she was so determined.

 I also think that this kind openness and awareness would have served well in my situation all those years ago – but the era was different and less was known about the illness. I wish I had had the chance to discuss things properly with mum, though. I knew what terminal meant but the end could have been many weeks or months on. I clung on to some kind of hope, so that I wasn’t really prepared for what happened in the end.

 ‘And I think that there was maybe a part of him that though the miracle would come. I think we all did. I suppose you do, don’t you? You never give up hope, and Freddie was certainly like that’.

 Brian May, Q Special, March 2005

 I tried to be strong for my mother though, and it’s clear that Vicki, her mother and sister all supported each other. It’s heart-rending to see someone so ill, but you know you need to care for them. Rabbi Julia Neuberger commented how positive it was that Vicki’s mother and sister were preserving Vicki’s memory. It appears they are doing it so actively and joyfully. People are, of necessity, often busy, but the broadcast unquestionably made them stop and think for a while. One hopes, of course, that it’s for longer than just a while, and that people would keep thinking about Vicki – to have her at the very least at the back of their minds.

 ‘I don’t want pity, just a safe place to hide’ - she once quoted these lyrics from ‘Mother Love’ on her site. The operations she underwent must surely have been a major factor in identifying with those words. It is mentioned in the broadcast that Vicki took a hockey ball into one of them, representing her desire to be able to go out and play the game again. It was one of the items of the ‘box’ which Rabbi Julia Neuberger suggested, in the course of that call, that Vicki should create for her mother and sister to remember her by. In the end, Vicki passed the task on to her mother and sister as something for them to do after her passing, having become frustrated by the idea of fitting her life into a box. Also in the box, of course, were some Queen CDs and some photos of Vicki.

 Nobody suggested that I should do this all those years ago. I might have been able to create something positive, rather than my grief being such that so much was turned upside down for me. It’s helped a bit though, even though we’re now 28 years after the event, to create an imaginary box to remember my mum:

 1. Some books:

The Bible

‘Science and Health’ by Mary Baker Eddy

‘Seven Years in Tibet’ by Heinrich Harrer

'The Small Woman' (Biography of Missionary to China Gladys Aylward) by Alan Burgess

'The Moon's a Balloon' by David Niven

'Summoned by Bells' by John Betjemen

 2. Something from Gwenda, her Australian penfriend with whom she corresponded from the age of ten until the end, but never met.

3. A Picture of Great Wall of China, which fascinated her, but, again, that she never got the chance to visit (I went there 5 years later during my time as a student in China).

 4. Music from Glenn Miller, Marlene Dietrich, Paul Robeson, The Seekers, the soundtrack of the musical ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’, the songs 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' by Simon and Garfunkel, ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ by Art Garfunkel,' Amazing Grace' by Judy Collins, 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones, Ravel's 'Bolero', The Philosophers' Song by Monty Python (she loved it) – and – more for me, but it should be there:  ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen.

5. Knitting needles and wool – she would knit incessantly whilst watching the TV.

6. A slice of her lemon meringue pie – yummy!

7. Some Tupperware – she used to attend those sales parties run by friends, and her purchase resistance when it came to this item was, for some reason, very low.

8. Some photos of mum.

 Written between 12 and 18 March 2005

I read Vicki’s website entry after her visit to Montreux – it was mid-August. Just like the times when she was determined not to be held back – when she plugged in and played her guitar, for example, she described her mother’s struggle to get insurance for the trip. Displaying some photos, she made a comment about not looking very ill. I actually thought she did look very ill, and when the end of September came and no entry was made, I became convinced that the end was in sight. However, the radio broadcast stated that it was in October that she started to get very ill. It had, in any case, become too much to contemplate being attached to medical apparatus any more, as her mother Karen stated. Her sister Jo then described how Vicki found a new strength, after two weeks to be wheeled for a walk outside:

It's a beautiful day
The sun is shining
I feel good
And no-one's gonna to stop me now, oh yeah

It's a beautiful day
I feel good, I feel right
And no-one, no-one's gonna stop me now, mama

Sometimes I feel so sad, so sad, so bad
But no-one's gonna stop me now, no-one
It's hopeless, so hopeless to even try

Queen, It’s a Beautiful Day

Vicki asked those with her to be quiet and appeared full of joy. That was the last time she went outside.

Brian May, 'No One But You'

 Now it just remains for me to read though Vicki’s World again some time – and I’ll then write any further thoughts I have.

26 Mar 05

‘A lot of it, was really, strangely enough, quite joyous. It sounds odd to say that, and people are going to hate me for saying it, but I know Freddie had some very good times in those last periods, and he was able to put it to one side and get on’.

Brian May, Q Special  

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/A/art_show/george_shaw/page3.html

Looking again at Vicki's World – when she saw the Golden Jubilee performance, she saw that Queen’s music would be her release from her trials – just as I had spotted that world of possibilities when I was her age..But for me, where it had all finished – with the last track of that fourth album that I had at home, A Night at the Opera, was where it all started again that day five years ago – with the rooftop performance of the National Anthem - or rather with the TV recording of it that Christmas. In so many ways, Vicki is the teenager who trod on the toes of my past. 

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