Strange Bed Fellows.

Is it wrong to follow Handel with Pink Floyd? The Coronation Anthems to Dark Side of the Mood? I set my sights on that course of action a couple of days ago. I like being slightly odd and some would say eccentric. Thought it might make a funny post but as I drove in this morning and switched from one to the other a strange connection emerged in my mind.

On the face of it the only connection is the iconic nature of the works. Few in the UK will not have heard of Zadok the Priest even if they don't know they know it. Equally sections of Dark Saide of the Moon are well known from the advert circuit. There is a hint of madness in both-Dark Side of the Moon being about madness and Handel having bipolar. But the connection to many may seem curious.

But in my mind it is different. Throughout my illness-at least days before risperidone-Dark Side of the Moon was the album many nutters adopted as an anthem. Few I knew did not recognise some of their own madenss in that great album. But Zadok the Priest held a special place too.

In the summer of 1996 I spent a week singing in Chartres cathedral in France. It was during our final performance on a glorious summer's afternoon that my psychosis button switched on. As the organ played the introduction I heard a voice. A voice that it knew well-it haunted me so much. A voice that shouldn't have been there echoing round the great vault of that ancient cathedral. I wanted to run but there was nowehere to run to. Somehow I made it through the service and several hours later my psychosis subsided. That was the most disturbing experience of my madness

It was also the greastest missed opportunity; how different might my life have been had a response been risperidone? In real Life I had to wait another 5 years to get the help I needed.

21 years into my illness I still sometimes think I made it all up. The words of "A Pillar of Impotence" a figment of my imagination. Afterall that was the response from so many psychiatrists-it was all my delusion. I've not heard voices for so long I've almost forgotten what it is like. But then I remember back to that summer's day in France in 1996. That was very real.

I Heard a Voice.

PS Note to self, Bangbang chicken doesn't travel well. Kebabs went down well though!