Encore: In Memory of Jane - and the Musical Miracle that Reconnected Us

A Miraculous Reunion and the Essence of Friendship

Hours before her dear friend Jane’s passing, Jill experienced a miracle that reunited them. In this encore episode, she reflects on love, timing, and the creative threads that bind friendship across time and memory. 

In this episode of The Download, host Jill Marshall commemorates her dear friend from childhood and adolescence, Jane, who tragically passed away two years ago. Jill shares the miraculous story of reconnecting with Jane just hours before her untimely death. Jill's heartfelt narrative delves into teenage memories, lifelong friendships, and the intertwining of past and present. The episode also explores the origins of creative ideas and the deeper themes behind them, using Jill's young adult book 'Fan Mail' as an example - which is hugely founded on Jill and Jane's friendship as teenagers. The encore episode highlights the power of love and timing, the significance of deep connections, and how art can resonate profoundly with its audience and especially its creator.

00:00 Introduction and Tribute to Jane
00:43 Welcome to The Download Podcast
01:22 The Origin of Stories and Ideas
02:51 The Miracle Meeting with Jane
03:15 Fan Mail: The Story Behind the Story
06:13 Reconnecting with Jane
08:06 Jane's Tragic Accident
09:12 The True Meaning of Fan Mail
10:10 A Final Miracle and Tribute
11:39 Conclusion and Reflections

If you'd like to read Fanmail (YA fiction, fun for all!) it's available free on Amazon Kindle from 5th to 10th November 2025, to commemorate Jane's larger than life spirit and presence. Fanmail eBook : Marshall, Jill: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Fanmail is also available in paperback from Amazon and your local bookstore, and as an Audible Audiobook, narrated by the brilliant Leo Haig. 

Like to work with Jill?

Try Jill's unique six-month mentorships: Fiction Editor and The Her-ro’s Journey.

The Fiction Editor Mentorship Programme isn’t about proofreading or copy editing — it’s a full developmental editing immersion and an entry point to a business choice, built on Jill's careers as both author and editor.

The Her-ro’s Journey Mentorship Programme is a contemporary take on the Hero’s and Heroine’s journeys, exploring many of the themes we cover here on The Download.

Find out more about Jill’s best-selling fiction and storyworlds on girlpowerpublishing.com.

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Transcript

0:00

Hello, friends and Downloaders. Today's episode is a little different. Two years ago today, my dear friend Jane, was killed in a tragic accident just hours before, after years apart, something miraculous happened that brought us together again, as if life itself conspired to make sure that we saw each other one last time. This episode tells that story. I wanted to share it again today in honor of Jane's joyful, unstoppable spirit, and to remind us all that love and timing can be miraculous in ways we can't explain. Jane, this one's for you. Hello and welcome to The Download from Wise Woman and Wordsmith, where insight meets inspiration. A space for visionaries, ready to spark new ideas, ignite purpose, and reimagine possibilities. Here we share downloads of wisdom, stories, and strategies to help you thrive in your creative journey. I'm your host, Jill Marshall. Tune in, connect, and let the magic unfold. Show you tomorrow Hello, and welcome to the download podcast. In this episode, we're going to talk about where stories really come from. And also with this true tale of a miracle meeting to honor my dear, dear friend, Jane, who inspired and was much loved by hundreds and hundreds of people on what would have been her birthday. So I've talked in other episodes about where ideas come from in general, where the download itself comes from. And now I'd like to dig deeper into where the stories behind those ideas actually come from. If you like what happens when we slot those ideas into the AI like system of memories, feelings, observations, and creations that we've absorbed throughout our lives. In some kind of alchemy, it swirls these into a story or a piece of art that somehow only we could have created. And then, behind what the story is notionally about, i. e. what's in the blurb or the synopsis or the write up, really about. The theme, you might call it. The Jungian shadow like delve into our deepest selves that brings depth and emotion and resonance into our stories, and that really makes those creations connect with the reader or the listener. It's the same with all our art. The creator really wants to reach someone with what has been downloaded to them. It might just be one person, but if it can have an effect on that person's life, then it feels like there's purpose behind that download, those ideas, that particular creation. And this was brought home to me so fundamentally in a meeting that could only really be called a miracle in light of what happened, When I reconnected with my very best friend from my teenage years after far too long of our lives taking us in different directions. It showed me in no uncertain terms what my young adult boy band book, Fan Mail, is really, really about. You see, Fan Mail was inspired by an actual event that happened when my friends and I were in our mid teens, and we went to see our favourite band. It was a boy band, although they didn't call them that in those days, it was just a band with guys in it. It was Hacker 100 for those who were also fans, maybe even there at that particular gig. Held in a packed Manchester venue, very far from home. We'd got several buses and so on to get there, and then waited in line for a very long time. And after a really, really crazy evening, where the band played their hearts out, packed in with thousands of other raving fans, the lead singer, Nick Hayward, threw his scrappy towel. With which he'd mopped his brow throughout the whole evening out into the audience. Now to our astonishment it was caught by one of the members of our group, the tallest, the one guy who'd braved the concert with five girls. We were all slightly annoyed that he'd managed to get it and we hadn't and didn't think we'd ever see it again. However, what Richard did, was when he took it home, he cut it into six different pieces, and he gave one of those pieces to each of us. Now, I don't know about the rest of the gang, but for myself, I know that I carried that little square of sweaty cotton around for far longer than was really very grown up. I took it to university with me, it went onto my London life in a box somewhere, and I was probably well into my twenties before I actually got rid of it. Now, was it just the fact that it carried the DNA from the fevered, sweaty brow of quite a famous guy? No, it also contained the memories of an adventurous and memorable night. Because after the towel throwing incident, caught up in the fervor and the wild excitement, we'd all waited far too long to meet the band backstage. And of course, we didn't manage to meet the band backstage at all. Instead, they shot out to their tour bus and disappeared in the distance with only a quick wave to the seething throng of hormonal teenagers to remember them by. I wonder why. Anyway, as a result of our overstaying, We missed our own bus. We missed several buses. We roamed around the seedy outskirts of the city center trying to get home and eventually had to beg someone's dad to come and pick us up. So when I got home very late at night, or actually in the early hours of the next morning, and we finally confessed to our parents, I was literally in the most trouble I had ever gotten into as a teenager. It sounds incredibly tame now, but we were honestly the most innocent of teenagers. And we could hardly believe what we'd allowed ourselves to do. And so years later, the idea for Fan Mail came from that mutual love of boy bands that I had with those friends, and particularly with my best friend Jane. The actual blurby plotline of the story stemmed from a what if. This is well known in creative terms. What if something sciency could be done with that scrap of sweaty forehead towel? But that's not all. So fast forward many years in which our paths diverged and separated and didn't merge again often enough. Those bands that we loved, especially Jane and I, Are touring again. Several of us see the towel throwing haircut 100 once more, and they've not lost any of their magic. Jane herself can't make it. So she and I arranged to see actually our favorite boy band, China Crisis. Again, not a boy band, just a band with two guys in it. And that was in their hometown of Liverpool, close to Jane's home. So a really special evening. That whole day, decades after that first fan mail event, was just magical, having barely seen each other in 20 years. Four very old dear friends had lunch together and reminisced about our childhoods and our teenage years and everything since. And then for the next 10 hours or so, Jane and I caught up separately on all the other lost parts. Our lives and loves, our disappointments and hopes, our children and the families we each loved as if they were our own. We were each part of the others when we were growing up, more sister than friend. Jane set me up in her own Pilates studio, a very successful business, while I pitched a film to an LA producer. And that probably exemplified our personalities and our friendship. She, outgoing, sporty, encouraging, always laughing. Me, creative, introspective, occasionally weirdly brave about big stuff while scared of the everyday. We went to see China Crisis. We reminisced some more, and we completed a circle that looped somehow around our entire lives. I left her on the doorstep again, like that night when we were teenagers, well past midnight, knowing that our friendship was as whole and as true as it had been decades before. We didn't say it, but I know we'd both felt it. We're back, the gruesome twosome, best buddies, almost sisters. But then, unbeknownst to me, for another couple of weeks, Not ten hours after I'd left Jane on the doorstep, Jane was killed in a terrible, terrible car crash. The shock has been and remains monstrous. The hole left in so many lives just indescribable. And I can only be grateful for the miracle that brought us together for 12 whole hours just beforehand. At the funeral, which was attended by literally hundreds of people, so many that they couldn't fit in the church and some honored her from the graveyard, Jane's beloved husband, John, spoke of how Jane, the social butterfly, had complimented his own more reserved and introspective approach and brought out the very best in him. And it was only then that I realised that that was also the story of our friendship. Me, weirdy, nerdy, what today would be called socially awkward, Jane, so sporty and outgoing with this massive smile that was the first thing that everybody remembered when the news of a very, very untimely death came out. And it was later that I suddenly understood what fan mail is honestly about. It's about our precious, precious friendship. About the intense bonds between teenage friends and how they stretch and yaw when first love arrives and then second love and third love, and our lives change shape. I tweaked our characters, of course. Jane had recognized herself in it, and she recognized the tweaks. I sent it to her sister, Tracy, who will no doubt do the same. She even mentioned our Jane's funeral. Tracy might even have called us groupies. Trust Jane's family to make everyone laugh at a time like that. Of course, we'd never have been groupies. We were much, much too innocent to even know what that might imply. There are other crazy stories from our younger years and our lovely group of friends. Being chased through York by a werewolf, for instance, or running around the streets of Cambridge dressed as the TV piggies Pinky and Perky. But they're all sweet, funny stories, rather than cautionary tales. And there's one more story of the miracle of Jane that hardly anybody knows. Some months after that horrible event in November, I went with a friend to see a medium, not expecting anyone to come to me, as they never do. But that night a medium in training came and stood right in front of me and asked me if a trip to Blackpool battling rah rah skirts on the roller coasters meant anything to me. It absolutely did. Jane and I had done exactly that. And then she said, I've got your friend here. She's giving you a bottle of vodka hidden inside a hockey sock. Does that make sense? Oh, so much sense, I said, although it wasn't vodka. Jane, a hockey player for life, and the bottle of Cinzano that we daringly celebrated our 16th birthdays with, along with our other dear lifelong friends. and Jane, appearing to me, still trying to make sure that everybody else is okay. So, what that book really is, is a celebration of our friendship, and others like it. Our love of boy bands, and how that brought us together. And the many things that separated us afterwards, but then reunited us again. They impact us long after the regular connection may have been dropped. And I mention it now in honor of Jane, of our friendship, of our sweet and crazy history, and our intertwined networks of families and friends, and of the absolute miracle that brought us together for a perfect 12 hours, just 12 hours before she died. There's one last addition here. As I've mentioned, Jane was a member of my family. Her death devastated everyone in my family, including my brother, who, back in the day, was in the band Double Vision. Which was the name I stole for the band in fan mail. He also put the music to and performed the two songs that I wrote into fan mail called I cry and Show me tomorrow. You may even recognize that last one. It's the song in the intro to this podcast. Just another indication of how the past interweaves with the present and recreates itself over and over to keep us connected and how that connective glue is love. And if you're a creative still wondering about your download, it may be another lesson for you. It took me a whole decade from writing it, a miraculous reconnection and a terrible, terrible event to show me what this one had really been about. You may not know now, but if it comes from the heart, one day your heart will show you. So I'm leaving you on a poignant note, this episode in love, light and laughter and see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to The Download Podcast. Feel free to like, comment, and share and all of that good stuff. And for more about my books, coaching, or business services, please check out wisewomanandwordsmith. com.