[PODCAST MUSIC]

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[HOST VOICE]

Hi!  And welcome to this series – Who Cares?  We are a collaboration between four students from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama otherwise known as Bandobast Theatre Collective, and Camden Carers – a service for improving the quality of life, health and wellbeing for all carers in the borough of Camden.

With the help of Claudia, Chris, Mekhled, Berni, Fionnula and Jacky, we have compiled a series of episodes each – using their creative content, and curated by us to hopefully celebrate the fact that there is no single story when it comes to carers – each person being a unique creative in their own right, with the only single narrative applicable being that each of these fantastic people is brimming to the top as an inspiration of love.

Each day, for the seven days of this Carers’ Week, we will be releasing another specially made episode.  Each one focusing on one person we worked with for this project.

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For episode 6, we have a special episode where our own Bandobast member, Samira talks about her experience as a person cared for and speaks honestly with the persons caring for her – her parents.

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In this episode, we meet Claudia.  Besides being a Mum to two wonderful boys, Claudia is a bit of a creative wizard - as well as being a singer, improv actor and photographer, and a fellow lover of trees.  I was so very lucky to go for a wonder around Hampstead Heath with this beautiful human, and learn all about their fabulous busy world.  Thank you Claudia for allowing us to use your wonderful song Freedom for our podcast.  We will hear Claudia perform this song later, but first, let’s have a listen to a story which Claudia wrote entitled Covid-19.  It is performed by all Bandobast team mates, and we hope we do it justice as we try to bring together the sounds and atmospheres of London and Hampstead Heath during lockdown.  Here is our version of Claudia’s story – Covid-19.

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[MUSIC FADES]

[SILENCE]

[BIRDS SINGING]

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[VOICE A] I saw you that day on the Heath when I was on lockdown, self-isolation and social distancing, and my heart was under a lock and key too because I had lost my freedom.

I climbed up Parliament Hill and took a few steps backwards to reach the summit of my loneliness, while keeping an eye on Highgate Road and St Mary’s Church, with its roof all stretched up like a pointy finger directing whoever wanted to find their way to heaven.

[BELLS RINGING] Gospel Oak’s running track on my right, a lot closer but semi-hidden behind the bushes.  An empty track going around in pointless circles.

[PAUSE] I got to the top, there were other humans but they were all enjoying their newly-found social isolation and their own brand of self distancing.  There was no eye contact - just a sense of astonishment of how the world had changed in less than a week.

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[VOICE B] I turned back down Kite Hill and walked speedily with grass up to my ankles, having to hop twice to avoid getting trapped in the unexpected holes and crevices full of mud.

[NATURE SOUNDS] I cut across where the bramble might have been, but it was not there yet because this was late March, and had no time to arrive yet.

I approached a bench, comforting in its worn-out hot chocolate colour, and a memory to someone’s sister engraved on it - someone with a name worthy of having novels written for.  I sat down.

A couple on a lead were being pulled up the hill by their white terrier.  They climbed up towards me, avoiding meeting my eyes, [PANTING] and with an out-of-breath, out-of- shape silence, walked carefully on the edge of the pathway to create two metres plus of social vacuum between us.

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[VOICE C] And that’s when you came hopping towards me.  I’m not sure you saw me at first because you stopped rather startled when the large collar of my brown woollen coat moved around my neck with the wind. [NATURE SOUNDS] I must have looked like a giant-frilled neck lizard, parked there on the bench absorbing the few streaks of sun that had escaped between the clouds - stretched fingers.

You tilted your head, a silhouette of black-blue against the green. You stood there - very still, stealing time before deciding what to do next. I didn’t have the luxury of time because the wind was against me - moving fast, lifting up the oversized collar of my coat and slapping me with it. [NATURE SOUNDS]

I felt cold and much older than I had been less than a month before, but that was before we had the virus. You looked young and full of energy, you made the grass look greener and the patch of light reflected on your dark coat brought the sky closer.

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[VOICE D] I wanted to bring you closer too. I wanted to take your picture and then perhaps draw you at home. You reminded me of the ravens I’ve seen at the Tower of London a long time ago.

“Legend has it that if one of these ravens escapes the confinements of these walls, the monarchy will fall,” [MALE VOICE] pronounced a Beefeater, clearly enjoying the shiver his thunderous voice brought to the spines of a wet and cold group of French tourists huddled up together. 

I had hopped in last minute just in time to catch the end of a speech that I’ve heard many times before. “...But luckily, we always keep two extra ravens just in case!” [MALE VOICE] [WHISTLING]

[NATURE SOUNDS] I shook my head - letting the memory float away like a big bubble of soap, watching it burst with the thought that it wasn’t the monarchy falling, but humanity.

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[VOICE B] You hopped sideways avoiding eye contact, pretending not to see the hazelnut that rolled right at your feet. [HAZELNUT ROLLING] Your little deception worked, with my phone on one hand trying to keep it steady on a landscape frame where you were the centrepiece.  I pressed record, [BAG RUSTLING] and rummaged in the small bag of Taste The Difference fruit & nuts wedged on my knees until I found a plump raisin. I threw it your way...gently to avoid shaking the phone.  You appear clearly as the main subject in this brief documentary of memory and loss.

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[VOICE A]: [NATURE SOUNDS] We had lost so much in such little time. But you...I hope you’ve gained something from the experience of our off-chance meeting on that day.  Still, you didn’t seem particularly concerned with our proximity, but you weren’t coming any closer either.

[OUTDOOR SOUNDS] A mixture of self-respect and wariness against accepting food from a human, or perhaps a calculated strategy to make me share the whole fruit and nut selection.

I wondered what your diet would have been this winter.  I could see you were looking for worms and you succeeded - stretching an uncooperative tangled mess out of the mud with your beak, and securing the frightened little thing with your talon.  Had it been bread and worms all winter then?

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[VOICE C] Did you remember the taste of the nearby berries, wrinkled by the sun and walnuts of last Autumn?  And did you know that your cousins in Australia had developed a method for cracking nuts by placing them on the road and waiting for cars to drive over them?[CAR SQUASHES NUTS] How would they taste with the added hint of rubber tyre?

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[VOICE D] But you didn’t have to worry about that now, because there... it was - an offering of mechanically-shelled nuts and dried grapes and cranberries, prepared by humans for humans and I [VOICE B] was willing to share it with you.

After almost emptying the packet, and watching you fly away into the distance when a man came struggling uphill, [PANTING] him too old and his dog too fat, both competing for the [VOICE A] next breath, [PANTING] I stopped filming and emptying the rest of the packet into the palm of my hand, I started slowly chewing one after the other - nuts and dry fruit - sweet and tangy.

[VOICE D] After crunching it, dropping it and picking it up again, you raised your beak, and down it went...me following it, eyes on the little lump going down your neck.  Then one by one, you took all my pieces, [BIRD CACKLING] until with a cackle you called it checkmate and took off in a low, slow flight over and beyond, [VOICE A] where the bramble should have been if it was later in the season.  [BIRD CACKLING]

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[BAND PLAYING]

Freedom by Claudia

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[LYRICS]

Rather go out than staying in

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

I’d rather go out than stay in

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

 

There’s more than one way to sing

But how can I learn to fly if you clip my wings

Dream and adventure will drive me

How can I have my say, what am I meant to be?

 

A leopard won’t change its spots

And I will not change my cause

I was born fighting to be free

Your constrictions will not stop me

 

I’d rather go out than stay here

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

I’d rather go out than stay in

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

 

Don’t you tell me what to do or say

I’m never gonna turn your way

I’m not a sheep like the others

It’s not a kind hand when that smothers

 

You can throw your toys out of the pram

But don’t expect me to pick them up

Wasting your energy in another tantrum

Won’t control me or hold me to ransom

 

I’d rather go out than stay here

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

I’d rather go out than stay here

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

[BRIDGE] [BAND PLAYING]

 

I’d rather go out than stay in

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

I’d rather go out than staying in

Rather fight for my freedom than giving in

[SONG ENDS]

[END OF PODCAST]