swansong transcript

8/18/2019 Swansong Transcript

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Swansong Page 1 Hana Walker-Brown

Swansong

Hana Walker-Brown

Synopsis

Her heart it playedlike well worn strings;in her eyesthe sadness sings;of one who was destinedfor better things,

Hana Walker-Brown's grandma was kept alive for seven hours in order for her family torush to the hospital to say their goodbyes. One moment, alive like few 80 somethings’ thenext, parked in the one-way ward, a holding bay between this life and the next.

Swansong is a meditation on memory and loss, acceptance and death, with real lifestories, imagined ones and the sounds and silences that weave our worlds together.

As Hana sat with her family waiting for the final moment, grief already upon them, hergrandma lay in her own time and place - memories flooding in and around the reality of hersituation, like a rolodex, flicking through years, moments, experiences in which she'd foundhappiness, sadness, weakness and strength. Content with death, after a life well-lived.

Comprising interviews with those who witnessed these final moments and audio capturedby Hana with her grandma over the years, this feature blurs the lines between fact andfiction to take the listener through the precious final moments- her grandmother’s lastparty.


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Robbie

At one stage she realised, because she was an avid radio listener as you know,

and she was listening to a trend that people had got for tattooing do not resuscitate-DNR- on their chest. So she was thinking about it but she really hated needles! Sotypically, she bailed out of that one! But she did actually ask several people whetheryou get indelible ink so that you could paint it on- which would have been hilarious!

I guess what she said, just in case things went wrong, whatever you do, if i can’tdecide- then make sure they don't resuscitate me. So her attitude during her last 24hours was completely unsurprising

SOUNDSCAPE // MUSIC

SFX Rummaging

Robbie

Well the problem is we’re absolutely crap at filing

Hana

Not like grandma

Robbie

No she was well ordered, she used to hate this sort of- disorganised chaos she’dcall it. I’ve got cd’s in bags, in racks, in all sorts of places

Hana

Theres Andy Sheppard and Kathryn Tickle

Robbie

its Kathryn TICK-ELL


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Hana

Tickle is better

SFX CD BOX OPENING

Robbie

Pop that Cd in there

MUSIC I am a poet, I am very fond of bananas, I am bananas, I am veryfond of a poet

Robbie

I liked the bananas track, she liked the bananas track it just used to make her grinlike hell! I once caught her singing along to it, “I am bananas!” and I thought yeah!not altogether a lack of insight Joan!

SOUNDSCAPE

SFX HOSPITAL

Joan

Now i’ve got a whole full bottle of Sherry that I haven’t opened which is unheard ofbecause we’d have probably drunk two by now! I just don’t have my Sherry’s like iused to! Any excuse for a glass of Sherry!

SOUNDSCAPE

SFX BREATHING

Robbie

Its really difficult to describe this and i think particularly difficult now because youhave to go back don't you? You have to almost put yourself back in that room.It was really late and everyone had been sleepless and you get that intensity ofbeing silent but theres a massive amount of emotion in the room. So you couldkinda cut the silence into blocks and build a castle with it- that’s how dense it was. And although it sounds corny- I think thats as near as you get to the kind of musicthat you hear when a group of musicians get together and create something- in

other words its improvised and you get lost in the moment. It could have been fiveminutes I that was there it could have been hours and hours I don’t know. Iremember the sort of, shape of the room and the technical things in there and the


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fact it was a … i remember the smell of it because its a hospital smell isn’t it? But,you know, what happened in the room was as near to a musical experience- theonly thing I can link it to is when i’ve either played with other musicians or i’ve heardrecordings or been in a band at a live gig where suddenly everything fits and you’rekind of not in the same space- you’re not in the same place. And that doesn’t

happen very often. Its not like being entertained. Its like emotionally andintellectually you’re taken from where you are to somewhere else- and thats howintense it was.

SFX HOSPITAL // MUSIC

and i think actually thats quite a good way of describing it because Joan wouldhave been really happy to think that her last moments were a splendid gig

Joan

We’ll either be saying that was absolutely splendid or probably not going to go thereagain!

SFX TRUMPET FADES

Robbie

There was a trumpet player, well there still is, called Arturo Sandoval and atGrimsby they had an international Jazz festival and its in heyday there was a big

top- a really big tent- and Arturo Sandoval was playing really up tempo stuff, so he’dbe playing sort of cuban, almost dance music but with a real jazz twist to it. So avery loud, in your face- big sound. And the last track he did was just a ballad really,with some long, peaceful, really high, long notes from the trumpet. And at thevery… just as his last note faded, a little bird tweeted in the top of the tent andeveryone collectively sighed. It was like one of those moments really. And in a way,without getting too romantic about it, that’s what it was like being in the room. It waslike a collective musical sigh.

SFX BREATHING

Joan

It was very nice

and things, you know- its no good wondering about what might happen

SOUNDSCAPE // MUSIC

Hana

introduce yourself


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Joan

my name is Joan

SOUNDSCAPE // MUSIC

Hana

I don't really have any memory of when or how this all started. I’ve never made adocumentary on myself before, never felt the need to, but then again, this story isonly partly about me. Something happened a couple of years ago that in an instantmade life at once both deeply unbearable and beautifully profound: big talk for asomeone in their 20’s i know- the stuff of quarter life crisis perhaps but not so. Itwas a phone call from my dad that suddenly turned my little world upside down and

at the same- a weird alchemy occurred- something good from the bad- magichappened. And it stirred in me a deep fascination that I just wasn’t able to shake off.Caught between grief and a desire to tell the story. So now I’m telling you about it,or rather, I'm asking my dad to tell you about it- like i said i’ve never made adocumentary on myself before.

And I’ve often found myself wondering. Why am I doing this? What is this impulse –this drive I have to add something to the world? To tell stories. Where does thatcome from?

SFX SOUND CHECK

Robbie

So I had an outtake, because I worked in a recording studio for a while and theresvarious things that used to trade hands amongst engineers. Back in the 1960’s, late60’s it would be, Englebert Humperdinck - a singer- was on a tour and…

SFX MUSIC

a young American guitar player called Jimi Hendrix was 6th or 7th on the bill,something like that. So they did a short tour and the song we got on the outtakewas Hendrix playing an acoustic and Englebert Humperdinck was singing withHendrix doing the harmonies. And people forget he was a really good singer andthat just came off the tape- so i had this on a cassettee

SFX Hendrix no i’m gonna do it again, can i just do it one more time though?Can i just do it one more time?

Which you over recorded with your own voice.


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SFX GUITAR // CHILD RECORDINGYou were basically telling stories, so you were recording yourself telling stories- so Ilost it! But when i think about it, thats’ probably the earliest sign of you wanting toput your own voice out on a medium of some sort and it happened to be a cassettetape. You just came along and pressed record!

Hana

How old was i then?

Robbie

5… 4 or 5

Hana

Didn’t you and mum divorce around that time?

Robbie

I was annoyed at myself afterwards but I couldn’t get cross. It was just kind of… justthe way it was!

SFX MUSIC

Hana

He swore a lot on the tape- mostly at the cat but that’s off this record.

Would you say I was some kind of weird radio prodigy?

I’m joking of course

Robbie

Yeah, you were sound recording at the age of 4 or 5

Hana

Over Jimi Hendrix

Robbie

Yeah…tasteless brat.

SFX MUSIC


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Joan

I’ve been very fortunate in having been very healthy all my life. It is quite tediousand difficult doing all the exercises and they’re not comfortable to do but you’ve justgo to make yourself do them because that is the main thing- your health.

SOUNDSCAPE

Robbie

I got a phone call about… ooh…around about midnight- she’d been sick and hadstomach pains and you know grandma she didn’t do “sick” very well. So usually if

she was sick and said she needed help it would be because she was really not verywell. They took her into hospital and she had a blood clot in the bowel and thebowel had died, so that meant that she had two choices really- one- remove thebowel, big operation, live with a bag and all the rest of it and she took the decisionnot to do that which meant that she would die. Clear cut, straight forward decisionreally.

SOUNDSCAPE

Hana

My grandma- the original party girl. One moment, living unlike any 80 somethingI’ve ever known- the next holed upon the one way ward. A holding bay between thislife and the next.

Robbie

I rang you and then shot down there

Hana

She’ll die today my dad said on the phone you need to get down there

Robbie

She knew she was dying and she was ordering things. I mean its like, what sumsup part of Joan other than the party person that we all know, she was a real partygirl, was how well organised she was. And i think that what she was doing in thatroom was putting her life in order really. And the things that came out in theconversation, and lets not exaggerate this because that would be easy to do, but it

was hose snippets of conversation during that whole… well it was an afternoon, anevening and an early morning wasn't it?


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SFX MUSICHana

As we sat, grief already upon us, waiting for the final moment, she lay there in herown version of it all- memories flooding in and around her own reality.- picking the

years- the moments- the music she had found her happiness in. Ordering, like mydad said, sorting out the disorganised chaos we’d brought in with us and playing itout in a dream sequence like an old film from her hospital bed.

Joan

My jazz group, I think because its male dominated, the conversations is quitedifferent to the sort of conversations we have. If its not about jazz even the otherthings

SFX FADE

Hana

I mean it was jazz specifically wasn’t it? What was it about jazz that she really love?

Robbie

She walked into a village hall and a jazz pianist was playing and thought, now that’sa bloke i wouldn’t mind getting to know

SFX MUSIC

Hana

That’s my Granddad, Derek

Robbie

the rest is history really… she always liked dancing, you’ve got to remember this is

post war, you know, a lot of austerity, but what people did was they’d go out andhave a great time. People knew how to party. In live music and the music of the dayfor youngsters that really liked to dance was Big Band. That was the rock ’n’ roll ofthe day and it was challenging stuff. And then along comes Derek and plays someJazz piano music in a small trio and she was wooed by the whole thing

SOUNDSCAPE // SFX HOSPITAL

Joan

A huge collection of CD’s and absolutely lovely they are! Cause we used to have amusic afternoon and it was a very pleasant afternoon


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SFX BREATHING

Robbie

If you think back to the room, then the sounds were all rhythmic, you know,

heartbeat was constant, the life monitoring, the big machinery, you could have putsome music on top of some of the rhythms that were being created in the room andi think that she was hearing music over that rhythm.

Its quite interesting really because its kind of rhythm of life stuff and some of the jazz that i liked that she listened to, stuff that was, i don’t know, ethereal lifeaffirming stuff, it was the stuff of the imagination. Its the great thing about jazz beingimprovised music, instantly created in the moment.

SFX MUSIC

So yeah, she was beginning to hear various tunes to the extent where she wassaying, “do you want to turn that down?” and that intense thing which we can all do-if you shut your eyes and think of music that you really, really like you can create itin your own mind and i just think she could hear an entire band. You could see shewas. She was grinning quite a lot and i think she was just enjoying herself, frankly!

Hana

But most of all the music, she was making the music

SFX RUMMAGING

Robbie

(rummaging) Im looking for a CD

Hana

the beeping of the life support suddenly the music of the jazz hall, punctuated by

the bass line of the ticking clock- time has been forgotten- the shuffle of nurses feet-the swing steps of the party girls. Because the very opposite of dying is making isn’tit?

Robbie

(rummaging) and i think it might be on the floor

Hana

and if making is the opposite of dying, what is more opposite than makingsomething that lives? That carries on to live?


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Robbie

So this is a song by Liane Carroll

SFX CD PLAYER

its called “Here’s to life”

SFX CD PLAYER // MUSIC No complaints and no regretsi still believe in chasing dreams…

Robbie

The song generally is like, well look, life’s great and the only frustration is that Iwant do that really good thing again! And that was grandma wasn't it? She reallydid, you know, she relived menus!

Joan

I have of wine every night with my meal, one glass, never tempted to have two! Ialways pour mine while I'm cooking and have a couple of sips!

Robbie

films! She relived great gigs and she just wanted to go back for more and more andmore!

So its that whole combination really- when i was thinking about songs to play tosum her life up.

SFX MUSIC its funny how the time just fliesand love can go…

Robbie

I think music has… its a form of language, but instead of words its sound andshape and rhythm. It’s like listening to somebody express something they can’t dothrough their voice.

Hana


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She was organising the chaos of that roof like bars from a favourite song, breathingsome melody into the life that was left.

Somewhere in that oddity was a desire to tell stories, to make something.

Robbie

Oh you were, you were… i mean the fact you have got into producing and makingradio comes as no surprise cause you basically… we rented a youth hostel inDerbyshire one christmas, so theres a whole herd of us and we rented this youthhostel and I got this video camera which

SFX CAMERA

immediately you saw it, worked out how it worked, and we were busy doing stuff sowe didn’t know until after we’d been there, it was about three months later, andyou’d been shooting a video whilst doing a commentary. So it would go thus, “this isthe girls room and you can see its the girls room because its really tidy. And whathave we down this corridor? Oh, the boys room and you can see its the boys roombecause its really messy!”

SFX Hana on video ugh! Stinks!

Robbie

You basically doing this mini documentary! And had you been able to, you’d haveprobably edited it but it was old fashioned film

Hana

How old was I?

Robbie

Probably, 8 or 9

Hana

I’m putting everything in order myself to figure out how we got here and also let goof it- deal with it. And that morning until midnight i’d forgotten something, i’d alreadymade something that would live

SOUNDSCAPE


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Hana

Introduce yourself

Joan

My name’s Joan

Hana

Can you just tell me about the pantomimes you’ve done at christmas?

Joan

(laughing with a friend) Well the committee always had to make idiots of themselvesevery christmas by doing a very short, very short, shorted the better (scripted)pantomime! They’re very disappointed this year because we’re not doing apantomime we’re being entertained instead!

Hana

So what characters have you played?

Joan (with friend)

(ooh thinks!) Fairy godmother you played, (oh i was fairy godmother) yes you wereweren’t you, in Cinderella (you?) I was Genie in Aladdin and I was… I was an uglysister yes thats right!

Hana

Thats harder to do at 79 than say 29?

Joan

No probably not because as you get older you more confident, you couldn’t careless really what people think you’ve been there, done that sort of thing! You get tothe point where you’re not bothered about making an impression or how do I… you just launch yourself out into the world and just talk!

SOUNDSCAPE

Hana

Can you remember what her last words were?


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Robbie

No. I think thats because her death was just a natural thing, you know, it was aconversation until it ceased to be a conversation. In between the fact that the drugswere making her… relaxed… lets say! She was basically still Joan, so still my mum,still joan, still grandma and it was really interesting because I knew she was dying,she knew she was dying, everyone in the room knew she was dying, all the nursingstaff knew she was gonna die, it was just a question of when. And then it took eversuch a long time, it was a very odd feeling because I held her hand pretty well allthe way through from that moment until she died. What was quite intensivesuddenly became me, a dead person and I guess the hard, clinical environment ofa hospital suddenly came into sharp relief. Cause before it was just like her face

and me and before that it was her being the centre of attention, which you’ve got toadmit she really loved! Even while she was asleep, there was an intensity about thefact that she was still in the room. And when she left the room the room changed, itbecame a clinical place- a hospital- and that was kind of…the difficult bit really… just walking away. Well i woke you up and we went didn’t we? Emotionally it waslike, I can’t believe this! Trying to sleep after that was really, really difficult!

Hana

Didn’t we drink a whole bottle of Sherry?

Robbie

I think we did do quite a lot of Sherry actually yeah! I think that as something thatGrandma would have grinned at- the idea of us abusing her Sherry collection!

Joan

An excuse for a glass of Sherry! (quite right too!)

SOUNDSCAPE

Robbie

I remember the last sound- the breathing- that got deeper and more pronouncedbut the intervals between breath got longer and longer until, you know, I was sat insilence. I was probably sat in silence for about five minutes without realising thatshe hadn’t breathed. Even though the machine had flatlined. And thats alwaysstuck with me, I’ll always remember that sound. And it wasn’t a sad sound or adistressed sound, it was a relaxed and normal, natural sound. And i really like it, it

gave me great comfort

SFX BREATHING


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SOUNDSCAPE

Hana

It was a song

Robbie

mmmm

Hana

The whole thing I guess, it was all a song

Robbie

Yeah. Somewhere in her own mind, there’s this band playing and its improvised jazz but with rhythm and melody in it. And she got a load of people in the room thatshe was surrounded by that she really liked and for her that was just like a party.Because it was her swan song, it was her last party basically, thats the way i’vethought about it afterwards. And i remember saying, oh its party town! And that’swhen she grinned and said, “yep, i do like a party on a large scale!”

SFX // MUSIC life’s so cloud

things are cloudy since you went away…

been downhearted, since we parted,I can’t go on this way

Joan

and things… you know its no good wondering about what might happen, you justdo what you can, when you can

SOUNDSCAPE

Hana

ok i think that everything… thanks!

Joan

Pleasure


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SFX // MUSIC FADES

This programme was produced by Hana Walker-Brown as part of the ÅkeBlomström Award for young feature makers.

It was a Falling Tree Production, broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

swansong transcript

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