E84: Finding Stillness After Suicide — Martyn Watson On Grief, Poetry, And Healing

What happens when grief becomes too heavy to carry alone?

In this episode, we sit down with a guest who turned unimaginable loss into something quietly powerful. After losing his sister Nancy to suicide, he found himself searching for a way to process what couldn’t be explained. What followed wasn’t a clear path forward, but a gradual return to stillness—through poetry, nature, and the act of putting thoughts into words. 

We talk about the reality of grief that doesn’t follow a straight line, the weight of questions that never fully resolve, and how writing became a way to sit with emotion rather than escape it. From long walks in nature to late-night reflections, this is a story about learning to live alongside loss, not outrun it. 

This conversation is gentle, honest, and deeply human. It’s about finding space in the noise, meaning in the pain, and connection through shared experience. If you’ve ever struggled to process something that felt too big to name, this episode might help you feel a little less alone.

Subscribe for more grounded mental health conversations, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with one simple practice that helps you get through hard days.

Martyn Watson - Instagram / Facebook

Suicide Prevention UK

Just Giving

Transcript

Welcome And Introductions

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Mark Charlie Valentine, and here is Seth. Hi Charlie. How are you? Good, thank you. Good man, good man. I will apologise. I'm struggling with a little bit of a cold. How dare you. Sitting next to me. I know. I know London germs. Unfortunately, it's something that I've been given by, I think it was podcast number 15 or so. Yeah. Our uh adaptive snow sports interview with Scott Moorn. Yeah, he's been very kind to pass his cough on. Yeah. I think it's one of those things where people, you know, they're working in these environments up mountains and cold dry air and then go coughing over everyone. And then continental germs as well. Continental germs. Well, we don't we don't we shouldn't we shouldn't talk about barriers and borders, should we, Centre? You know what I mean? We have got a few, we've crossed a few boundaries and barriers with our what's our our uh family trees anyway. You know what I mean? We have a fair collection between us. True. True. Who's in the studio with us today? I am delighted to welcome Martin Watson into the studio. Hello, Martin. The White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact. Hello, Charlie. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. How are you? I'm I'm struggling with a bit of a cold. Yeah. But it's okay for you. You're that for your start at the fire, say we should probably say hello to Craig. Good evening, Craig. Yeah, oh yeah, and thank you to Craig for setting this up because he he put us. Oh Craig Christopher, yeah. Of course. Good evening, Craig Christan. Yeah, yeah. So thank you Tim for setting this up and bringing it to our attention. It's always good when you know you've got that personal connection rather than just someone reaching out to someone. So yeah, thank you to Craig. Could you give us a short introduction about yourself and then we'll get into about the book and how you why it's come to existence, yeah.

Martin’s Loss And The Aftershock

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, my name is Martin, as we just said, on the 26th of April 2019, my sister and a partner committed suicide. Sorry, died by suicide. You aren't supposed to say committed suicide anymore, died by suicide. And my parents and myself unfortunately found both bodies two days later. It was the uh agony and pain and shock and horror was unimaginable. And I went into a really deep state of shock, horror, anxiety, which lasted at least a year. Obviously, my mum and dad both had the same problems as I did. Unfortunately, because we were so close, me and my mum and dad, we weren't able to comfort each other because we were all going through the same horror. What did help me was a year after the tragedy, COVID happened. I had a little business, so I'm um I could take three months off work with a small grant from the government, and I I went running every single day, sat in the garden, read, and it really helped the um anguish lift. Not long after that, I started going town to the some horse riding stables where my sister's horse was still living, called Rosie, and I started looking after the horse and looking after other horses down at the stables, just basically grooming, cleaning the fields, you know, uh scraping up all the horse book, all this hay, being outside in the open air with like 20 horses, and it that also helped. And not long after that, I started writing ideas down, which helped me recover. What a a friend of mine called David Harlan, he said, write everything down. It helps relieve the pain incrementally. You know, you don't realise it's helping at the time, but whatever you feel, write it down. So I was writing things down initially in a in an A4 book, and then after a while I started writing notes on my phone, my mobile, my iPhone, and these notes eventually, over a long gestation period, turned into something looking a tiny bit like poems. So I started working on these poems with the encouragement of a lot of friends, and over a couple of years I ended up with about 60, 60 odd shortish poems, which I decided to self-publish. I got somebody to help me do the typing. I got a great printer in Garth called Empire Books Plug. I've published a couple of months ago 300 copies in Hardback, and all the profits of the book go to Suicide Prevention UK, SP UK, who uh if anybody's struggling out there, they're um somebody you really need to ring because they'll help. And since the book got published in um I think it's probably September, I've sold about half the books, just over half the books, but I've managed to raise£5,000 so far, so it's a start. That's um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

I mean Is that too much? No, that's not too much. It's well I mean it's your story, isn't it? And it's but I mean straight away it's like wow. I mean I could go into detail over certain things if Well, I mean, it's it's how much you want to tell us, and I suppose we should say to anyone else out there, anyone listening out there, then obviously it's quite it knocks sort of not I mean you've we've spoken about this, and then it still knocks you back, doesn't it, to to hear that you discovered Well, what what actually happened on that morning?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

I can remember going around to the house because we had a phone call saying Nancy hadn't been seen for two days and she lived in little cops behind Methley Park hospitals. Copse is a place with about six or seven small houses, so all the everybody knew each other. She hadn't been seen for two days, so my mother said, Can we go around? We were worried. So we went round. A partner, I knew we had financial problems because I had a fish and chip shop and he had a couple of fish and chip shops. So in that industry, you knew he was having problems. So I was a bit worried about what might have happened. I thought they might have done a runner because I knew he had financial problems. So we went round. I can remember it like it was yesterday, like a beautiful spring morning. I was the first one out of the car, went to the house, tried the door, the door was open, and I knew then, I knew then something dreadful had happened. I just felt it. So I walked around that down the hall. I've written a poem actually literally about this. I walked down the hall, and on the floor in the kitchen there were six bowls of cat food which were all empty. And then I went into the main hall because it was like a like a hall. He had a large roof with a mezzanine level at the side, which had uh rails. And I walked in and my sister was lying on the floor dead, and he was hanging from a blue tour rope right next to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned around, walked back, sort of started running back down the hall. My mum and dad were coming in, and I was it was like a bad film. You can't go in there, you can't go in there. But my dad brushed past me and went in. I managed to shepherd my mum out of the house. I can remember it being brilliant, shunnshine. It was like everything, it was unbelievable. And I managed to ring the police, and it sounded like managed, I couldn't use my phone. And then I went back inside and sort of got my dad out, and then we stood outside and the police came and then they corned it off the the building. And then initially they thought it might be murder suicide. Two days later they came back saying the ligature marks on my sister's neck were conductive to hanging knots. Okay. Unfortunately, this sounds dreadful, and I don't know if I should be saying this. While we were there with the policeman, we went back in with the policeman. We were in in the hall, the policeman found the suicide note, and the bodies were in the next room, and we're all weeping. It was uncon it was dreadful. And we're reading the suicide note, and a partner had written it. What he did, he helped her hang herself. She had she died. He then went into the other room, wrote a letter, a suicide letter. I saw it, all the money's gone, we're finished. Nancy looks as beautiful in death as she did in life. It was unbelievable. I mean, I felt like going back in the room and pulling off the wall and stamping on his face. The anger was so dreadful. But what we should have done in retrospect, we should have approached the police and said this is an assisted suicide, which would have changed everything regarding the will, which caused up more much more lit problems later on. But the police didn't do anything about it. Once they'd re once they'd found out he hadn't physically strangled her, they dropped the case. So and we've had to live with that ever since. It sounds ridiculous because what happened was when we got the will about three weeks, four weeks later, we found out that everything that Nancy had. At the time we thought she had nothing because they'd died by suicide, because he had huge financial problems. He'd gone from having two fish and chip shops, a deli, supposed to be sorted centre, all sorts of places to virtually nothing. We don't know how we'd lost it. But we looked at the will and we weren't mentioned in it. At the time, like I said, we we weren't particularly bothered about money because we didn't think there was anything. But my mum was upset because we weren't mentioned at all. His daughter, and I'm gonna name her Emma Storer, she was she became the executor of the will. All done by him because he coerced my sister into changing a will. And if when we read the will, we could basically see him behind us saying, You've got to change this, you've got to change that. Everything in the will went to his daughter from a previous marriage. And I spoke to his daughter because she was the executor, and she says, Oh Martin, I don't want anything to do with this. My dad killed your sister.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Anyway, a year later, at the inquest, we found out that there was a at least some there was definitely 35 grand in a pension. There might have been another 70 in St. James's Close. Is it St. James's Close? Yeah, they're uh they're uh some kind of broker, I think, you know, investment company. And to cut a long story short, she got all the money, which still sticks in my throat because she at the inquest, I said to me, You're gonna have to ask Emma what's going on with all this money. So my mum asked her, she says, Oh, it's it's not been sorted yet. So I actually rang the what they call a legal and general a couple of days later, and they said, Oh, she got the money four months ago. Right. Now, this is like a side issue of the main thing, but it just it just added to the to the to the horror and the nastiness of it all. Because I didn't really know any of Nancy's friends at this time, but afterwards I heard all sorts of stories about control. Yeah. Control. It controlled her. They've been together 20 odd years, and it just doesn't happen overnight. It's an incremental thing that goes happens over a long period of time. But and by the time this had happened, uh, she dared go out when he didn't tell her, and you know, and she had to be home when he was home. And we didn't know any of this. And it all came out after she died.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

I mean, we recently spoke to Carol, didn't it? Carol Whitley, and her story was her told was shocking as well of being controlled by a partner. Yeah. Decisions. I mean, she managed to turn it into her bravery and a mindset and turn it into a learning experience. But obviously, Nancy didn't get that chance, did she?

Finding The Bodies And The Note

SPEAKER_00 10:19

So Well, it's a funny thing because he was always fairly withdrawn. He didn't really have many friends. Nancy was outgoing, she had lots of friends, and his first action of control was when he'd bought he he got a bit a redundancy payment from a Kaleon in Batley paint company, and he invested the money in in a in a fishing chip shop and he started making decent money. First thing he said to Nancy was, You don't you can pack your job in now, you don't have to work, which is can be a form of control. So because he looks after the purse strings from then on. It doesn't have to be, but it appears over time, you know, it hams in like such small ways, it hams to lots of people. I mean, we I was told by one of her friends that she'd she'd told her that they'd lost everything about a week before they died. And you know, this is another thing. If if I'd have known these friends at the time and they'd have told me, it could have all been different. But anyway, I don't know what else to say about that. I would suspect there's quite a lot of anger. Well, it's funny as you say that. There's anger still towards him and his daughter. I'll never forgive them. I think forgiving is overrated sometimes. I don't want to forgive them. And and I'm fine with that. There was huge anger at the time, but over the last few years, after I started uh writing things down, after after the uh COVID thing, like I say, the grief slowly lifted off me. I've I haven't got in front of me, there's a but there's a famous Buddhist quote saying, I think you think that you have to go through something absolutely dreadful in life. Reach rock bottom to uh to find out who you really are. And I'll quote somebody else, Nick Cave, he wrote a fantastic book, co-wrote a fantastic book called Faith, Open Carnage, which uh because his son jumped off a cliff when he was high on LSD, and the book's about his grief and getting over his grief. And I could relate directly to the book, but what Cave says in the book is that you can come out of it happier in the most bizarre circumstances. I think you just there's something changes inside you. The joy of living really comes out, and and having like pleasure in simple things, and it's I know it's a dreadful cliche, but but in my case, it's true. It's it's the absolutely worst thing that has happened to me by a country mile, but it's it's been it's been the making of me as a as a man.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Yeah, I suppose that um appreciation of, like you say, the simple things. Yeah. I mean, I probably wouldn't have got back into the outdoors as much as I did, and there's nothing I love better than going out walking. Yeah. And we mentioned that before that so and you mentioned it just then that you know, this just getting out. Yeah. And which it would be one of the simple things that we forget because we get bogged down trying to win money to pay his taxes.

Control Anger And The Will

SPEAKER_00 12:59

You just I mean, just get you don't need anything, you can just get some walking boots and and walk. And like I said, uh, when you go out for a walk, after about five or ten minutes, you can feel all the stresses and strains sort of lifting. You know, you don't need a gym fee, you can just do it. Like I say, I still go down to the stables and uh I still um clean all the muck up and clean all the hair and uh I mentioned it in uh in quite a few other poems, being down there with the horses, the birds. There's a pair of buzzards that nest in the wood. And seeing them in springtime and summertime, it's it's just wonderful. And it's like I say, it costs nothing. It's completely changed me as a person. Don't want to take you back too much, but you said you struggled with anxiety. Yeah. Oh. At least for a year. Yeah. Um well what I mean the anxiety what happened initially, the day after we found them, we were told by the police that we'd have to sort out an undertaker. So the day after we found the bodies, we had the undertaker round. And I was around at my mum and dad's, we all sat there like three zombies, and I arranged, you know, the the arrangements for the we didn't have a funeral. We decided not to, under the circumstances, but we put uh our ashes in a in a beautiful place to put the stables and all the friends went, which was lovely. And I was in shock. And the shock, I went to I went to work the day after that, and God knows what the customers thought when they were coming into the shop because I were telling them what had happened. It was just unbelievable. After a couple of weeks, the shock sort of wore off. I sank into like this extreme grief, which like involved incredible anxiety. I'll give you one example. It sounds pathetic, but in the fish and chip shop, uh I used to when I shut the shop, I'd turn all the machines off, make sure the shutters were shut, do it systematically so I wouldn't forget. Anyway, this Saturday night I went home. I live about 15 miles from the chip shop, and I was having my tea about nine o'clock because I used to be home till eight. And I thought, did I turn that extractor fan off? So I rang the guy who lives upstairs who could have heard it, and he says, Yeah, yeah, I can't hear it, Martin. It's definitely turned off. So I said, Great. And then I rang him again. I said, Phil, can you just nip outside to see if you can hear anything coming out of the extractor phone? So he said, came back, said Martin, it's definitely turned off. And then I drove all the way back into Leeds to see for myself. And I can remember driving, I drove up Scotall Road on the way home. I drove down Meanwood Road and all where all the bars are, and it was nice and sunny. I was thinking, all those people out there enjoying myself and I'm going mad. And it lasted for it lasted for months. I'd wake up every night about three in the morning, shaking violently. Almost the same every single night. And then I'd get in the shower and I'd be retching in the shower, wretching on the way to work. And throughout the day, it seemed to get slightly better. So by the time I got home in an evening, I almost felt normal. And then I'd wake up the next morning in the middle of the night, and it was back to that, and it went on for months. Now I was very lucky that I had a friend, I've mentioned him before, David Harlan, is involved with uh is the national director of uh mental help. I used to go out with his sister a long time ago, and he reached out to me and I'd ring him whenever I needed to talk to him on an evening just to bring me down, just to so I could ask him questions because I was having this reoccurring fantasy which I've turned into a poem where I was hovering in the room where the bodies were, and they were both alive in my fantasy, and I watched them hang themselves, and I had that fantasy a thousand times, and I've said to David, what on earth I'm what's going on in my mind? Am I going insane? And he says it's your mind trying to see if you can handle the uh the uh you know the grief. But it went on for it feeled to it seemed to go on forever, and you know yourself when you've when something like that's happened, you can't it's like when you've had an injury, all you can focus on is the injury, but when the injury goes away, you forget about it. So there's great moments what the day it happened, I can remember it like it was this morning, but lots of other things I can't remember at all.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Yeah, it becomes a blur.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah, I think that I don't know, that that they've just said about injuries. I think I've broken a fair few things. I'd had a few injuries, but the PTSD, that just goes goes on and on and on and on, and and that's because the brain, for my understanding, a shock like you've had there, and I mean if there's any professionals listening to this that want to send us a message and let us know, then my understanding that the shock there is it it rewires your brain. It's it's it rewires your brain, mind and everything.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah, well, it was I can't quite believe that it happened to me now.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

It feels like it happened to a different person. Well, you are a different person now, if you don't mind me saying so from what you were before because you've gone through that.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, yeah, and uh and a better person. I can remember speaking to David about it, and uh I said, uh Will I be suffering from am I suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? He says, No, you you're in shock. And like your problems, mine haven't been the same. I don't know why. It's just that it's just the way it's worked for me. I was very lucky to get to get the time off for the COVID thing. I know it was dreadful for lots of people, but it worked great for me. I can vividly remember what running around Ardsley, running down this um old uh bridal path with all the blossom things and it was just great. Then I'd sit in the garden and I'd read, and it went, I did the same thing for three months, and then I went back to work, and luckily for me, because people couldn't go to the football, they couldn't go to the uh cinema, couldn't go for a restaurant, they came to the chipping.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

So business was great. At that time. Yeah. So business was great, and it's like I say, I uh I've been very, very, very lucky, and I don't I don't know how I've got over it.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Do you know what? I mean, and and I'm again no professional, but it sounds like you've sort of done uh back through my thing, it was like you just got that man up and all this sort of shit. And because mine was quite public, there wasn't really It's one of them things where you just go out to the pub and we spoke about you'd giving up alcohol some years ago anyway. You don't mind my saying. No, I don't mind at all. So alcohol became my my crutch without a doubt, and staying out late because I was scared of going to sleep, because you know, similar to you having them sort of images while you're sleeping, I were having flashbacks when I was in bed and I won't sleep in. And it's just this perpetual cycle of flashbacks, nightmares, night terrors, which I had for years and years, which you can't control because you're asleep, you know what I mean? And then being tired, which then makes it worse to do anything else, then diet drops off, and then going out to drink to get rid of it, to try and break away from the memories, but which then enhances the mental health illness. Yeah, it's like a vicious circle, isn't it? Yeah. This thing of you, you you going out walking, and then obviously this going to see uh Rosie.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

My sister's ashes are in a little makeshift grave in the orchard at the stables, which the owner, Anne, said you you can put her actually ashes here. It's lovely, it's a beautiful place. And she w it's a horrible thing, sad thing to say, but she'd have loved being there. Right. And me and my mum used to go down, I used to take my mum down to to I'd talk to Anne while my mum went up to you know sit with Nancy. And Anne one day said there were short staffed or something, you know. It's it's a livery stable, so people keep their horses there, and there's a few old horses where the orders aren't there anymore. So I just offered to um initially one day a week to go down and help out. And then I loved it. And I would go down a couple of times a week and I'd uh look after Rosie. I'd I'd clean her stables out, I'd groom her, take her for a walk, then I'd put her in a field, then I'd groom a couple of other horses, and it was fantastic and it cathartic. And and like I say, one of my poems, Plug Plug, it uh it brought seemed to bring me closer to my sister. It really did, you know, and it it it was wonderful, and it was all pure luck.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Yeah, well we've had um Grace Olsen on a couple of times, haven't we? I'm talking about animal therapy. I mean, she's took took animals in, rescue animals, and then found out that basically, you know, people bond with these animals, and animals bond with them, you know, because I mean the animals aren't judgmental unless you're an arse to them, you know what I mean. So you think that sort of thing worked for you or having that bond and it bringing you closer to Nancy?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, well, yes, it brought me closer to Nancy because uh she loved the horse. One of the shocks of her death was that she I mean, she loved the horse more than she loved me. And I've said this before, but I didn't mind that. You know, she was incredibly close to the horse, and I I thought, how could she leave a horse behind? You know, it was so and the horse, and if if any of the girls from the stables ever heard this, Rosie was a difficult horse. I said in one of my poems, I I grew to love the horse, and the horse sort of tolerated me. But we we bonded and we we did get close. And there's other horses down there, and unfortunately, Rosie had to get put down about two and a half, could three years, could three years ago, because she was 30 years old, and that was devastating. Uh it was really, really, really sad. And I thought I wouldn't get over that, but you do. But uh I like I say I'm down there regularly, and it's just it's just nice. I mean, not just the horse bonding. I mean I I mean basically I'm shoveling shit for a couple of hours. It's good for you, it's good for the soul, you know. You get outside doing some physical work. I'd recommend it to anybody. Is another thing if you were if you thought he's lucky that he could go to a livery stable. I'm sure anybody could find a livery stable local to them, and I'm sure if they rang their owners up, you fancy somebody working for free, we'll we'll we'll do we'll do some labouring for free. I'm sure they'd let you volunteering is always appreciated, isn't it? Yeah. So it's not that like I say, walking and doing these things at the stables, it hasn't cost me anything. But it's given you sort of Oh, it's given me everything. It's given me everything, and I'll I'll c I'll keep doing it.

Running Horses And Outdoor Healing

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah. I think that's the theme that runs through that a lot of what we do with the mental health side and people recovering or learning to cope with things is to find these simple things that have helped them cope. Yeah. Rather than this idea, which is a Western idea that we have to go out and spend fortunes to to get something to work, you know what I mean? And also this the idea of simple fix of going to the doctors and getting a tablet. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's often, well, do you need to have that tablet? Because there's going to be an effect. And I'm not knocking anyone that has been prescribed anything, but maybe there is something that you can do in addition, such as exercise, look after your diet, get outside, go hug hug a tree like I do.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Well, I I read somewhere last year actually hugging a tree physically does do something because there's something in the tree.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

It actually Well it connects you connects you when it connects you to the nature. And it's that appreciation of nature. Yeah, yeah. Didn't didn't you say there's some chemical exchange going on? Well, fully enough, you can tell that I'm full of code and I I should bring in a tree. I've got not the tree. I've I've bought I bought bottles of phyton sides, which are tri tree chemicals. It's the natural ozones that come off chemicals, but it they trigger your natural killer cells anyway. But obviously they the trees signal to each other and signal, they put these chemicals out to either protect themselves from insects and and trigger responses in other trees. But when we're out there, we're breathing them in, and it's a stress regulator, it down regulates our own stress. So there's tons of stuff in it. That's I ended up doing the nature therapy practitioner, of course, just to see, you know, I'd be interested in doing stuff like that myself. Yeah, it wasn't just me going out into the mountains, and that was a focus. That was a distraction from my original distraction, which was a disruptive influence of getting pissed every night. So what I started doing was going out in the mountains, but you think, well, how does that work? You know, then when I started reading the insurance, it's just being in these green spaces and just more time in these less stressful situations. Because I'll be honest, standing in a nightclub full of PTSD is not a deregulator, you know what I mean? It's heightening it, but because you've because you're half cut or whatever, then that's why you don't think about it. But it's still going on. So much going on with the with the brick.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Well, i in the summertime down at the stables, I get the uh job of rag warting with poisonous to horses, isn't it? Yeah, it is, and it's even more poisonous when it's been cut and it's dried. So I get the ragwarting shovel uh spade out, and I'll do it like an hour every every time I go down with a wheelbarrow. So I find myself out in these big fields, and there's a wood to the bottom of the fields, and like I say, there's the buzzers flying over. In springtime, the uh all thorn bushes are in bloom, and I'm by myself, and there's nobody for a mile around, and it's absolutely lovely, and I'm looking forward to doing it. And the girls that they think, hey, what's what's up with them enjoying? Who never bought me a ragwalk t-shirt? So do you know what?

SPEAKER_02 25:16

I think in a situation like that, I I won't get anything done. I'd just be stood watching buzzards.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah, you do you feel yeah, yeah. I do. Well, I do. I mean, there's I've got no nowhere to be. Uh so I I'll I mean, the the there's a couple of them and they tend to perch on a particular it's like an old um double wooden what they call it, where wires go across. And they use it as a perch. They fly out of the woods and they fly and they sit on this huge perch. And when they come across, it's just just marvellous to watch them. Shall we shall we move on to the poetry?

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Ooh. Can I can I just jump in here before we move on? Yeah, no. I really have to ask, how are your parents?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

My dad died two hours two and a half years ago. Unfortunately, he had a he had a nasty fall, got dislocated shoulder, went into hospital, didn't come out. And my mother, I mean they're both elderly. My mum's 92 now. She suffers from short-term memory loss. And I I'm not an official carer, but I sort of look after her. I'm down there every day. It's a funny thing. My father always thought that Nigel, that's his name, killed my sister. And he wouldn't have anything, he wouldn't hear anything else. And but I think my dad thought he physically killed her, but he he mentally killed her, he really did. If I think over time he talked her into doing it. I know he talked her into doing it. And it sounds preposterous because I mean, I was going down every day to see them just after it happened, and we I I lived really close to them. And like I said earlier, we couldn't really console each other because we were all going through this kind of horror. And I, if I'm gonna be truthful, I don't really know how they coped. I can remember we were being when on the day it happened, coming back from the I was I was interviewed by a policeman. There were about ten policemen there, an ambulance there. This was at the house, and I was taken into the back of like a meat wagon and uh interviewed. And um I've been there anyway. And he was asking me all these questions, then he stopped the interview and it says, Can we do it at your house? I think they must have been doing something with the bodies then. But at the time he says, Yeah. So we drove home, me and my mum and dad. I drove home, drove us home. And my mum was sitting in the back car back of the car going, I can't believe it, I can't believe it, I can't believe it, I can't believe it. And it went on forever. I thought, oh, she's completely lost her mind. Understandably. You can't there's nothing, you can't imagine anything worse. I mean, I don't want to when you take up talk about people losing other pe losing m family members or or whatever, it's always dreadful and suicide's dreadful. But actually, finding the bodies was added I'm not saying it was worse, but it added to the burden sort of thing. I mean, it just talking to you, lads, now, I'm back there and I'm talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Yeah, we're gonna say that. I mean, that's for me, that's you know, it's it takes you back there. For me, that were that PTSD thing. You know what I mean? Even though I mean you've said you've said shock, your brain goes back there and it's them memories are fresh. I was chatted before this as situations that I couldn't handle. Then I've had to go back into that, I mean, 20, what were that, 23, 24 years later, then it's like go back into EMDR, eye movement desensitisation remedy, so that I could actually cope with them because them them memories were triggering emotions, and them emotions were basically anger and violence.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

It's it's strange how I I didn't go down that that road. I've got to tell you, I mean, I had suicidal thoughts 20 times a day, and I'm not exaggerating yet, and and I thought about every way to kill myself. I knew I wouldn't because I just I knew subconsciously that I wouldn't because I didn't want to put my pants through what they'd just gone through. But I live in a little semi, and the number of times I just thought I could open that window and just jump out. But it sounds pathetic, but the front gardens concrete, and I thought, wouldn't it be great if I jumped out and broke my neck and I'm still alive? Do you know? Worst case, in it. Yeah, well that's how you feel, innit? That'd be worst case in it. Honestly, I I I've sort of put that thought away because I don't think about it anymore, but I did, I was suicidal. And speaking to David about it again, he said it's natural to feel this way. Yeah. It's normal. Which helped.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Yeah, so I suppose for anyone out there that has experienced a loved one or known of anyone that have taken their own lives, then you're you're far more at risk of taking your own lives yourself. I know I know I've gone through that anyway, because of friends that I've lost, and you just think But then because of my own situation. Yeah, I mean. So dare me.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

But on a but on a positive thing, you've got to, you know, it will get better. It will get better.

Anxiety PTSD And Suicidal Thoughts

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Yeah, it seemed do you know what at the time or I mean, sat here now, 25 years on from mine. Oh, now the 26. You're thinking, yeah, well, time is a great healer and all this. It's a cliche, but it's true. It is. But sometimes you're thinking, well, it's taking a bloody long time, is this? You know, how much time have I got? And you're like, well, I can't let it overshadow my life so much, which is which is why I went back for the E MDR thing. Yeah. Seba, let's move on to the book. I've lost my camera. So oh no. But it's alright, my voice is still here. Does that just mean it's me? On camera. The face the face off the podcast. But we're still you've still got your uh you've still got your voice there. My voice is here. Everyone needs to see me. Uh so you st I've got a face for radio. Face for radio. Well, everyone says that about us anyway, don't they? You know what I mean? Even my wife said that. So the book Nancy. Yes. Which I've got a copy of. Thank you, but well. Yes, thank you. And thank you for bringing it out, because thank you. I think it shows that grief grief can be is it handled? Is it coped with? It's that how do you how do you term it? Because people would it's a is it a tool for you to handle your grief, but also express your love for your sister that you've lost.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

It's all those things. I mean, initially, like I say, I wrote things down on an A4. What David said to me was every day, if you you know, because I suffered uh one thing about going to work, and it I forgot I mentioned this early, I used I always got to work early, 7 30. The shop didn't hold until 11 30. I was I saw prepped in the kitchen, always took my time b because I like to do it, but I'd spent a long time by myself, and there were times in that kitchen where I felt like the walls were closing in on me, and and it was just I couldn't, it was just insane. And I actually I rang Samaritans a couple of times myself just just to talk to people.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

It's what's the word, is it rumination? That's when when you're by yourself, yeah. That's when these thoughts seem to me that your mind your mind starts talking.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Oh, I was thinking I was thinking the same ridiculous things all the time, but the thing is, Charlie, I can't remember what I was thinking now. I mean, honestly, you you literally do go insane in a way. I mean, I'd cry just like that. You know, you know when you're gonna normally cry, you feel it welling up inside, it just dropped drop onto me. It was it was unbelievable. But uh back the book, initially David said, write down number one, grief, trauma, number two, money work, number three, relationships. So you'd think, like, right, is there any have I got any thoughts about what's going on today? You might have something, or or you might not. Money work, how's business today? Do I was this, you know, how am I gonna cope with this, blah blah blah. Then relationships, like I might write something down about my mum and dad, and just write it down. And if you had a like a problem, like I think one of the problems I used to call worry about whether my tenant, because I had a tenant with the shop, whether he'd pay his rent on time, so I'd write down money work, will Phil tip up for his rent this month? And then and the answer would be Phil has never not tipped up for his rent this month. And then you look at it on paper and you're thinking, why am I worrying about that? Um because when you see physically see it down on paper, it it does make a difference. It makes you think. And over time, when it started the pain started to s subdite subside a bit, I uh I just started writing notes on my phone. And a friend at work, Nick, he um he encouraged me. Quite a few people encouraged me, do something with this. But it initially it was just notes, which come on, do something with this, so that like I'd work on it. Then I'd have and David Elt said, come on, do something with it. And I'd show a few friends, and they said that it's got a bit of merit.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Can I just ask, at the time when the people you said friends said it's got merit, do you believe them or do you think they're trying to just pacify?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

I don't know, I don't know, and I still don't know.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Well, you've sold a lot, aren't you, waves?

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Well, it's done it's doing okay. I've raised quite a few quid for I've raised£5,000 for SP UK.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

So there's yeah, anyway, sorry to put you off.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

No, but it took a good two years for the for the poems to uh sort of develop. And initially there were poems that were about what happened on at the time, but because it tr it triggered a lot of childhood memories, thinking about my sister, thinking about my parents. So there's quite a few poems in the book about things that happened to me earlier in my life. There's a like there's a poem called Chin Pai, which is about uh I read that yesterday. Yeah, yeah, that brought back memories of me. Yeah, exactly. Like me with my own kid. Yeah, exactly. I mean, my dad used to do that to me and my sister, and that's just that's just one example. And there's the there's a poem called Harvey Stevens where it used to go bailing with my dad when I was a little lad at the local farm. Now they're all personal memories to me. So there's a bit of a there's a collection of all sorts of things in there, but basically they're all just my memories and thoughts. And I I did it for I don't want to sound arrogant, I did it for myself. And I have since I don't know if it's alright me mentioning this, I've uh just just quite recently, Bradford Literary Festival love the book. Right. And uh they want me to be on a poetry reading this dual line. There's only three points on it, and what the lady was running the the uh thing said, they're honest. So for nothing else, they're honest. Great. I mean, getting a bit of a I mean it's great that my friends, I mean I truly be the friends who have passed comment on a I respect their opinion. And th I think most of them would be honest with me if I didn't reckon much to them. But even even then I wouldn't really care. You know, I honestly I've done it for myself and people say, Are you gonna write any more poems? I don't think I am because it was cathartic doing what I did and it got something out, and the subject matter's that strong that I can't think of anything else to write about. I mean, it sounds horrible, but my dad died while I was writing the poems. So I ended writing about four poems about my dad. Right. And this I can't think of anything worth writing about. But I'd not be bothered.

Turning Notes Into A Poetry Book

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Well, you yeah, you can. I mean, I suppose you can't now, but and if and if it's worked for you. But I was just gonna bring you on because you said about the Bradford literary. Yeah. That Stephen Fry wrote one read one for you as well. That must have brought some satisfaction.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

It was unbelievable. What happened when I at first, it's quite a funny story. I was struggling with the poems because they're nearly all free verse. And I bought a book called The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry, which is about writing poems. And it was a bit too. I'm not I'm a bit like like you, you said so reading a- I thought, I can't, I don't understand what you're talking about, Miami Piomet, you know, blah blah blah. And I thought, oh, sonnet. And uh I thought I'll go my own way. And then I wrote a poem about writing a poem, and the poem's called Poets, and I dedicated it to Stephen Fry because he was the sort of the inspiration behind the poem. And before the book was done, I thought, I'll send him the poem. So I got it typed up, and Stephen Fry's not got any online, he's not on in he's not on Facebook, it's it's come it's come off it all. Yeah. So I I had to write, I had to physically write a letter to his office.

unknown 36:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So I wrote a letter, got it typed up, sent it, and I got a letter back from Joe at his office saying Stephen will record this. And unbelievably, the next day I got this thing sent through my phone, which I couldn't get, I couldn't download, so I had to get a neighbour to download it for me. The screen came on, but the actual it was white noise, so you couldn't hear him talking. So anyway, I thought, right, this is unbelievable. And he does a really good job, and I have I've since used it to try and help promote the book, you know, and his office said, Yeah, we're happy to let you use that. I mean, it's it was massive. It was my I wrote him a I wrote him a long uh thank you letter and I sent them a book. I've never actually spoken to him personally, and I don't expect him, but since then I've written to quite a few celebrities, you know, people in the public eye. I won't go into detail, but not one of them has responded. And some people who you think would. But all these people are very they're all busy. They've all got massive, they'll all get they're probably all getting picked people wanting to do what I'm doing with them all the time. So I don't begrudge them not responding. But the further it's gets away from Stephen Fryer, like I say, was the first one, it's just it's it's unbelievable unbelievable. It was beginner's luck. Yeah, it was and it's not happened since. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

So yeah, well, be honest, we can't I mean I I send off emails to people all the time. Yeah, you know, because that I've spoken about it. I just think, well, if they ain't they ain't got time, they ain't got time. It's like big it's difficult because we're a mental health podcast. Well I can't get stressed about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

No, well, no, you can't. I wrote to a bloke called Lewis Appleby, who's a really high up, he's an academic in Manchester, and he's involved with suicide, and he kindly wrote back to me, emailed back, but he's not got any really online any online presence. But he had the decency to write back to me. There's other people who I've emailed about three times. I'll mention one name of Stephen Graham. Now, his I emailed him, uh obviously his office. I don't even know if I got the right office, but I wrote to him because he attempted suicide in his twenties. Now, he's so incredibly busy, he's that guy, that there's this chance of getting it through to him is a million to one. Because you can tell what he's like, you can tell he's a good lad. And you can tell and I know that if he did get the the email on the you know, I'm sure he'd get bad, but I don't blame him. He's he's he's so busy. Would you would you like to read a poem? I'll I'll I'll read a couple.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

I'll read that Stephen Fry poem. Okay. I hope it's going to be delivered in the way that Stephen Fry read.

Stephen Fry’s Recording And Recognition

SPEAKER_00 39:12

It w it won't be a patch on him, but we you know Stephen Fry with the Yorkshire Twang. I'll try it. It's the first poem in the book, and the poem is called Poet for Stephen Fry. To be a poet, one must in time obliged to make your stanzas a rhyme. A learned scholar lectured me, and like a fool, I did agree. When you choose a subject matter or wealthy patron one must flatter, it's much more satisfying if you have flowing couplets, like I do. Each verse should feel quite effortless. People of taste will be impressed. There are strict rules one has to follow. Your work not be coarse nor shallow. Thank you for those wise words, dear friend. How gracefully one condescends. I'll try with heart and soul next time to make my fucking poetry rhyme. Can I do another short one? That's another cheerful one. This is for everybody who used to go to the warehouse back in the 80s. It's called Black and White. Now, I'll have to give it an introduction. Blook called Marcel Prouss wrote The Remembrance of Things Past. And that what the pretext is, he he ate a ch a biscuit called a Madelaid. And the the taste and the smell brought loads of childhood memories back. That's the premise. So this is the poem. It goes uh called Black and White. With Proust it was a Madelaine. For me, Pluco, black and white pomade. I keep a tub in my bedroom drawer, though it's not needed anymore. My luxuriant thatch, a memory. But remembering how it used to be, teasing my hair into a perfect quiff, I recall it all with just one whiff.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Yeah, that's another great one. And what just what what struck me then is that's two poems you've given us then that are not related. No, well so there must be more in you. Well it be putting you on the spot.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Well, uh, we sort of came out started coming out of me at one point, you know, but I'll be perfectly honest, the main backbone of the book was that was all sort of like dark. Yeah. And I thought so I need something a bit light. But it got to the stage where as I was on sort of rolling with the book where I thought, you know, I need more pounds. You read about it all the time, it sounds like a dreadful cliche, and it sounds as really arrogant, but it does start to come out of you. The more you do it, the more it comes out. I mean, I can remember riding home from Leeds after work one night, going over that big uh elevator dual cageway that goes up towards the M1 via uh Umslet. And I was looking at the city, and it was a lovely summer evening, and I wrote a poem. I pulled up over and wrote a few notes down on my phone, and I wrote a poem called The City, and it was about when we were about 19, I used to cycle all over Leeds, and I look nobody none of my friends have mentioned that particular poem, but I love it because it's just a happy memory. And so it went through a phase where uh I was like anything that happened, I'd think, oh, that might turn into a poem. But I mean, if you want, I'll I'll read um a sadder poem.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

It's up to you, you read whatever you want. Just thinking then when you said that about the city, it just popped up on my memories recently that I took a walk, you know, during COVID. Yeah. Round Leeds City Centre on a night with absolutely no one there, and it were it was so good. It would be great, wasn't it? Well, some of it was because I didn't want to get any support at all, so it left me in massive debts. But but that just walking round and seeing the city like that.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Well when when we used I used to live up Clarendon Road and when we were about 20, and me and my mate, we didn't have any money. We're in a band. I played bass in a band, and uh we'd cycle all over town and I knew the s the city like the back of my hand. But just like saying to you earlier, coming here this evening, I don't know anywhere anymore. It's completely changed, but we're talking 40 years ago. So you know I don't I don't feel bad about it, but it's just anyway, I I mentioned uh the horror and the the fantasy, the horrible fantasy I had, which I turned into a this. I don't know if it I don't even know if it's a poem, but it it was just an expression of my grief, and it's called the Charnel House. Hovering high in that room 10,000 times or more, staring down at Carnage, trying not to see the devastation, hell that happened here not long ago. Listen to conversations you were having all the time in my broken mind, watching as you both hang yourselves, powerless to stop your deaths. Time and time again, I am there, it never ends, then it happens again.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Do you go back to these poems?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

I read them all the time. I read them because to see if they're any good. Con still. But I read them to see if you know to see if they are any, you know, like whether to give me the confidence to to to just to to do something like this, to try and sell the book. I'm going to go to uh a spoken word at the chemic in Lazy Friday because there's some poets on, and I'm gonna go watch them, see how, see how it works. And if I enjoy it and think I can do it, I'm going to uh I'm gonna do it myself. I mean there's two there's been I've I've realized there's two branches with this this book. One is uh just a commodity to try and sell to raise money for SP UK, Suicide Prevention UK, and the other one is for myself to try and promote it as a as a book of poetry.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah. I was just thinking then, as you said that. That because it's like you you read them again and sometimes it's like, is it good enough? But the original purpose was just writing that poetry down, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yeah, it was right. It was writing it was to try and I mean that Shanel House, which was one of the earliest ones, and I'd I mean a friend of mine thinks it's great. I d don't don't I don't know about that one. Is that because yeah, but is that because it strikes a memory up for you which somebody else is gonna get that, are they? I can I'm s I'm I'm back there when I'm reading it. I mean uh it was like such a the fantasy the the fantasy's not the right word, but honestly I must have had it ten I th I must have had it ten thousand times. It's just unbelievable. And like I'll ru there's an I'll read another one if you don't mind. This one's called six bowls, which is what I happened on the day. Six bowls. Knocking on your door, no answer. Turning its handle, the door creaked slowly open. Walking down a dark hallway, calling your name, still no answer. Looking in the kitchen, I noticed you had put down six bowls of cat food, all of them were empty, then entering the lounge, hell. There you were, splayed out, on your back, fully clothed, dead. Your partner hanging from a blue tow rope, staggering, screaming, searing, shock and horror, running from the house into beautiful spring sunshine, where I found your little black cat sitting in the front garden with a half-eaten mouse.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

I mean, I'll be honest. Now don't take this as badly, but that's quite graphic and picture conjuring, image conjuring to uh to myself. You know what I mean? So for you to be writing that down and then recalling that situation.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

I can still see it when I'm when I'm reading it. Yeah, oh yeah. I I mean it it doesn't bother me though now. And and I think possibly writing it down turned it into something creative and positive. As as as a lot of these poems, which are dreadful, horrific memories, they're now positive poems. I don't want to sound pretentious here, but I once read Philip Larkin said that people say a lot of his poetry is negative, but the act of writing a poem is positive, and that's that's how I feel about these, to be quite honest. But at the end of the day, they're for me. I mean, if you can just do one more that's like a slightly slightly more positive one, I'll try and I forgot what it is.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Well, I think they're all positive, to be fair. I mean, the subject matter might not be positive, but it's it's that expression, isn't it? And obviously the poetry has brought something to you in a cathartic way. This is what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

We like I know it sounds silly, but the fact that I've I read something recently about when you get to middle age or you get a bit older and you're regretting not doing things and you could become bitter. I wish I'd have done that, I wish I'd have written that book, I wish I'd have done that, I've got that in me. And I was I was just reading, thinking about it, and I thought, this book's sort of tick to box that I didn't they wasn't expecting. I'm thinking, Mike, I mean, like I say, I can't believe what happened with my sister without Nancy. I can't believe it, but I still I can't believe I've written a book of poetry. It just seems bizarre. Anyway, I'll finish on the more positive. It's called stillness. Stillness has become my close companion, a comfortable chair, a warm, quiet house. Stillness, whose presence I thought would never find me, through turbulent years of alcohol, drugs, broken love, violence, and crushing despair. Stillness bringing serene moments of hard-won wisdom, occasional intuition, a sense of peace to comfort me now, as a horror show of loss and sickening memories fade, stillness in the morning when dawn arrives, listening as Starlins Nest Under Eaves, car engines turning, looking forward to the day ahead with gratitude, appreciation, a day of cats, horses, family, friends, and love.

Poems Read Aloud And What Changed

SPEAKER_02 47:36

Thank you. Obviously these proceeds are going towards Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

SP UK Suicide Preventional UK, the number is 0800 587 0800. They're a similar group as Samaritans. I mean, Samaritans have just had the funding cut by 50%. It's a it's dreadful. And and depression and anxiety uh is going through the roof. It's it's it's a it's a national disease, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 48:05

So uh it's an absolute tidal wave. It is, yeah. And it's brought on by lots of things and it's getting increased because of the anxiety, mainly actions at government, if you don't mind me having a.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Well, the in the internet don't help. A friend of mine, when the sort of book was coming together, I thought, this sounds horrible, but I'm gonna say I I couldn't get any uh I couldn't get any help from the NHS, I couldn't get any help. So I went on to I contacted Mind and I was on a waiting list. And I was on the waiting list for a year, and then I came off it because I thought I don't need them now. And when I was putting this thing together, miles before it was anything like a book, David again said, Well, there's a company called SP UK that, you know, that you know, contact them. So I contacted them and I felt beholden unto them when they showed a bit of interest. And over time, when the book was ready, you know, I says it's here now. And over the last three months of through selling the book, nearly to friends so far, nearly all to friends and acquaintances, I've raised 5,000 quid. Hopefully soon SPUK will be putting the book on their on their shop site, and they've got they have hundred thousand Facebook friends. Now, if anybody wants to buy this book at the moment, the best thing is to go onto my Facebook page. It's Martin Watson. There's a link directly underneath my photograph. In fact, we'll put the link on. Yeah. And you can buy, and if you just all you have to do is uh leave your address, you can direct you know, you can contact me directly through Messenger and I'll I'll post your book out. Now I'm selling the books for 15 quid, which is quite a lot of money, but 100% of the profit, everything, goes to SP UK. If you want to give me more, do what you want. But it's it's for a great cause.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Yep, absolutely. Well, thank you for coming in. Well, thanks for having me. Thanks. You're welcome, you're welcome. Thanks to Craig for m bringing it up in the first place and putting us in contact. Yeah, I think it's been a great podcast on the uh a lot of subjects, and it's you know it shows that that you know, like we sort of alluded to, there can be light from the darkness, I suppose. And you know, losing somebody you love in such a incredible way, then forget where you are. Well come here and talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

It's funny because without sounding patronizing, quite a few people have said that, but it doesn't feel like that way to me at all. It's strange, it's like it almost doesn't seem real. Surreal, yeah. Like, like I said, what happened on that particular day, and here I am six years later, promoting a book. It's fantastic, you know. It's I just feel s I feel blessed with my life and grateful. And I think I mean, you'll know this, the best thing you can have in life is gratitude.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So on that note, thank you, Marty.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Thank you, lads.

Support Links And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Cheers. And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to buy us a coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalking.com, and look for the little cup. Thank you.